MacOS – Partition the HD with Disk Utility, cannot resize the partition WITHOUT installing Windows. WTF

disk-utilitymacospartition

I am installing Ubuntu on my Mac to exist as in parallel with OS X Yosemite, version 1010.3. The screenshot looks similar to previous questions, e.g. How can I resize a partition with Disk Utility?

However, the GUI for Disk Utility does not give me access to resize my partition. Normally, you can click the righthand bottom corner of the volume and drag. I do not have that option—there are no three lines in the bottom righthand for the cursor to drag.

I cannot manually change the size of the partition in the "Size" box. Normally, you could click/highlight the values and change them. I cannot. The text is "faded".

Why doesn't the Disk Utility GUI allow me to choose the size of the partition? Should I just do this via the Command Line?

EDIT: Doesn't anyone else think it's weird that Apple (via Yosemite) forces you to download Windows if you want to partition your hard drive correctly? Note to Apple: FIX THIS!!!

Best Answer

Here are instructions for undoing a Core Storage conversion (source - this method worked for me). It should be non-destructive, but as always, take a backup first!

Boot into Recovery HD. If for any reason you don't have Recovery HD, then you'll have to make a bootable Yosemite drive and boot into that.
In the Menu Bar, select Utilities > Terminal.
Run diskutil cs list. You'll get an output that looks like this (credits to the Ask Different user in my source):

Select your Logical Volume ID (the one highlighted in the screenshot) and copy it to the clipboard.
Run the Terminal command diskutil cs revert Paste-Your-Logical-Volume-ID-Here.
Run diskutil cs list to verify that your computer can't find any CS volumes.
You're done! Now Disk Utility should be able to do everything you need it to do to your HD!

Related Solutions

Disk Utility hangs prior to resizing partition

Yeah I do encounter this problem sometimes also, but I don't know why is it happening. For some verifying and repairing solves the problem, but for those that doesn't get solved, the command line tool diskutil often does the job.

You can just use

diskutil resizeVolume $1 $2

where

$1 is the Mount Point or Disk Identifier or Device Node of the disk you are trying to resize (obtained with diskutil list).
$2 is the size in decimal with suffix of B, S(512 byte blocks), K, M, G, T, P, or percentage of the current size(%).

e.g. diskutil resizeVolume disk0s6 100G will resize the volume disk0s6 to 100 GB.

MacOS – Resizing dual boot partitions in Yosemite

There are at least two approaches to solve your problem: One is potentially destructive, vastly undocumented and i don't know if it works (1) and the other one is for sure destructive (2).

So please backup your Mac OS X and your Ubuntu partition if necessary.

Requirements: USB thumb drive with a full working Mac OS X and iPartition installed or a Linux Live USB with gparted.

It's also useful to have a second computer with internet access and the stackexchange credentials to check back if you run into severe problems.

(1) risk of destruction (this may render your systems unusable):

Your Mac OS X partition (Macintosh HD) visible on the desktop is equivalent to the Logical Volume 4F26F5C3-8D94-419F-AFF1-B652E9DCDEF4. You may shrink it down to the 82.68 GB which will render your OS X almost unusable because it needs some free space. You may disable the sleepimage and gain the amount of your RAM size as additional free space though.

Restart into Internet Recovery Mode by pressing cmdR
or your bootable Mavericks Thumb Drive with iPartition installed.
start Terminal from the menubar/utilities
enter following command at the Terminal prompt:

diskutil cs list
Copy the Logical Volume (LV) alphanumeric UUID of your CoreStorage volume. The LVUUID should be the fourth listed. In the above example the alphanumeric is:
4F26F5C3-8D94-419F-AFF1-B652E9DCDEF4.
Run the following command:

diskutil cs resizeStack LVUUID

According to the number found above it would be:

diskutil cs resizeStack 4F26F5C3-8D94-419F-AFF1-B652E9DCDEF4 88g

This will hopefully shrink your CoreStorage volume to 88 GB (skip to step 9 if this doesn't work)
If necessary reboot into your thumb drive and start iPartition. Alternatively you may use a Linux Live USB with gparted.
Try to move the volume Recovery HD to the end of the now shrinked Macintosh HD (skip to step 9 if this doesn't work)
Expand your Ubuntu partition

(2) total destruction (this will delete all partitions on your disk)

Disconnect all external hard drives
Restart into Internet Recovery Mode by pressing Command+R
(alternatively you may use a Mavericks or Mountain Lion Install Thumb Drive)
start Terminal from the menubar/utilities
enter following command at the Terminal prompt:

diskutil cs list
Copy the Logical Volume Group (LVG) alphanumeric UUID of your CoreStorage volume. The LVG UUID should be the first listed. In the above example the alphanumeric is:
08436957-C5CD-4DC6-B9FA-05B51A3EEFC8.
Run the following command:

diskutil cs delete LVGUUID

According to the number found above it would be:

diskutil cs delete 08436957-C5CD-4DC6-B9FA-05B51A3EEFC8

This will delete your CoreStorage volume and probably your Recovery HD and reformat it as a simple HFS+ volume.
Quit Terminal
In the now opening window choose Disk Utility erase all leftover partitions and format/partition/rename the internal drive. Choose 1 Partition, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and GUID partition table (available with the option button). Quit Disk Utility.
Now choose 'Reinstall Mac OS X'
The originally shipped OS X will be downloaded and installed or the one provided with the aforementioned OS X Install Thumb Drive.
Set up your Mac
Download and install Mavericks/Yosemite from the App Store if necessary
Install Ubuntu (in a larger partition now)

Best Answer

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Disk Utility hangs prior to resizing partition

MacOS – Resizing dual boot partitions in Yosemite

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