Summary: This how-to based article explains the procedure to move Mac and Windows BootCamp partitions from two different hard drives to a single hard drive without having the need to format either. The post suggests using Stellar Drive Clone to clone both partitions before performing the shift.
One of our end users came up with a query where he had two decent sized working hard drives, one running Mac OS X (GUID partition table) and one running Windows (MBR scheme). As he wanted to install both operating systems on a single large sized hard drive but didn’t wish to reinstall either of the operating systems, he wanted a solution where he could safely copy both the partitions into another drive. We provided the below solution as an affirmative response.
Steps to move Mac and Windows partition to another drive
Follow the steps below:
Step 1) Firstly, clone Mac hard drive and back up the BootCamp partition using Stellar Drive Clone software. It is the safest hard drive cloning utility available in the market and it comes with several benefits: the ability to create a disk image of entire Mac hard drive, Solid State Drives, Partitions, External Hard Drives, backing up your entire Mac including the BootCamp partitions, restoring from disk image, etc. Since the software supports HFS-to-HFS, FAT-to-FAT, and NTFS-to-EXFAT cloning, it should be ideal to perform cloning for both your Mac and Windows partitions that need to be moved.
Step 2) When the clones have been created, reboot from your cloned Mac OSX installation and prepare to repartition the hard drive on which you want to install both the operating systems. Let’s call it ‘Target.’
Step 3) Create at least 2 partitions on Target keeping in mind that the Mac volume needs to be formatted using the GUID, a journaled file system.
Note: If you’re using OS X 10.7 Lion and want to retain the hidden recovery partition, you may have to reinstall Lion and restore from your backup. Thereafter, you can proceed with BootCamp installation.
Step 4) Clone back the OSX Installation that you booted from to the Mac partition on Target.
Step 5) Do the equivalent process for your Windows installation.
Step 6) Boot into each partition and test to make sure everything works as expected.
Conclusion
With these steps, you should have both Mac and Windows installed on a single drive if you’ve followed all the above steps diligently. However, if you have any doubts before you begin, please share it in our ‘Comments Section’ and we would be glad to answer to your queries at the earliest possible time.
Comments