How to Free Resize Bootcamp Partition without Reinstalling Windows?
Overview of BootCamp partition
In general, while discussing resizing a Bootcamp partition, the following questions will be raised: what is a Bootcamp partition, when is it necessary to modify the size of a Bootcamp partition, how to increase/decrease the size of a Bootcamp partition, and so on. Thus, before we resize the BootCamp partition, let's learn some basic knowledge about it.
▶ What is BootCamp partition?
Bootcamp partition is an NTFS partition for installing Microsoft Windows operating system on an Intel-based Macintosh computer. If you want to install and run Windows on a Mac computer to install some applications that only work on Windows or just want to make it different from OS X or something like that, your Mac PC must have a BootCamp partition.
▶ What is BootCamp Assistant?
Boot Camp Assistant is a multi-boot software that helps users install Microsoft Windows operating systems on Intel-based Macs. It can help users with non-destructive disk partitioning and the installation of Windows device drivers for Apple devices. And a Windows Control Panel widget for selecting the boot operating system is also installed by the software.
In a word, BootCamp may assist in partitioning the Mac drive into two partitions. Your Mac will utilize one partition to run Mac OS X, while the other will run Windows OS.
Why need to resize BootCamp Partition?
After you create an NTFS Bootcamp partition using BootCamp Assistant, you can install Windows on this BootCamp partition. You may underestimate the size of the BootCamp partition when you create the partition for Windows. Thus, with your daily use, the Bootcamp partition might run out of free space quickly. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the Bootcamp partition to make it bigger.
For this, you can delete the current Bootcamp partition and create a new bigger one again, but that will delete all data and you have to reinstall Windows operating system and other programs from scratch. So, many users are looking for a way to resize BootCamp partition without reinstalling Windows or losing data. In this article, we will walk you through the details of resizing the NTFS Bootcamp partition.
Best way to resize BootCamp partition without reinstalling Windows
Typically, you may turn to the Disk Utility for help to resize the Mac partition, you can locate its location/Applications/Utilities. However, Disk Utility can't expand or shrink the Bootcamp partition due to it being an NTFS file system partition. So, it's not an easy job to resize BootCamp partition.
If you ask Apple for help, the solution could be to backup your data on the Bootcamp partition, remove it, then create a new Bootcamp partition with the size you want and reinstall Windows. As we mentioned before, it's not the ideal solution for the vast majority of users.
Thus, you can turn to the free partition manager: Qiling Disk Master Standard. It is a free yet professional software to resize the Bootcamp partition without losing data or deleting Windows. The instructions are listed below as you can see. To resize BootCamp partition in Windows 11/10/8/7, there are two situations: increase Bootcamp partition size, and decrease Bootcamp partition size.
Before you do:
1. Back up your valuable files or documents in case of data loss caused by incorrect manual operation.
2. Please release some unallocated space for the BootCamp partition from other Mac partitions with Mac Disk Utility, which is necessary for resizing the Bootcamp partition.
3. Set the Bootcamp as the boot disk, and restart the Mac computer into the Windows environment.
Here, we show how to increase Bootcamp partition size.
Step 1. Free download Qiling Disk Master Standard, install it on your Windows, and launch it to enter its main interface.
Step 2. Right-click the Bootcamp partition and choose Resize/Move Partition. Or click Bootcamp partition and select Resize Partition in the left column.
Step 3. Drag the double-arrow rightward to increase Bootcamp partition size with an unallocated space as you want.
Tip: Drag the double-arrow leftward will shrink the Bootcamp partition if you would like to.
Step 4. Press Proceed to expand the Bootcamp partition.
Further reading: Easily run Windows on a Mac PC
Since you run 2 systems on the same disk, the disk performance might be greatly affected. Both systems may not run smoothly because the other will take up some disk resources.
However, if you choose Qiling Disk Master Professional, you can create a Windows To Go portable device to run Windows on other machines. In this way, your Mac PC can run Windows OS too, and the system performance of the two systems will be better since you separately run them on their own disks.
To sum up
With the help of the Qiling Disk Master Standard, you can resize BootCamp partition without reinstalling Windows or losing data in Windows. And this tool also supports resizing BitLocker partition securely.
In addition, in the Professional edition, you can enjoy more advanced functions like extending system partition, splitting Windows partition, allocating free space from one to the other, migrating OS to SSD between MBR and GPT, converting primary partition to logical without losing data, and more.
Related Articles
- How to Fix Inaccessible Boot Device on Windows 10 SSD?
Since many computer users get stuck in inaccessible boot device on Windows 10 SSD, we'll discuss the problem thoroughly in this page.