partition start up drive

[christopher knight]

Hi
just joined to get some help please
After 30 yrs or so, moved to Mac, bought s/h mac mini a year ago and about 6months ago i added a samsung ssd 250gb usb3 drive. it works fine and the increase in speed is great.
my problem is that when i first set up the SSD drive i decided to partition it into 2 equal parts, (thought i was being sensible!) one of which i use as my start up disk, that part is gradually filling up and the other part is hardly used.
i'd like to remove the partition completely, but try as gamy with disk utility i cannot get it to work
Maybe as i am new to Mac i am not carrying out the process properly, but it seems quite simple and i follow the rules to no avail
can i do this, whilst keeping the data on the first partition? or do i have to start again and wipe the new SSD
any help much appreciated
chrisjk

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

-Which version of OS X?
-Do you have a current Time Machine or other backup on an external hard drive?
-What steps are you using in Disk Utility?

We strongly recommend having a backup of your data before attempting the removal of a partition on your internal startup drive. actually, we recommend it always.

C

 

[christopher knight]

Hi Cory and thanks - just posted a chase up as i had not had a reply - great to be in touch
OSX is Sierra
yes time machine back up to 1TB external WD drive
in DU i am using the Partition area
thanks again, await your comments
chris

 

[Cory Cooper]

No worries...sometimes it takes us a while to respond, but not always.

Excellent that you have a backup - it is such a required step that many people overlook.

Is there any way you can post a screenshot of the Disk Utility window, so we can see what the situation looks like. Depending on which partition OS X is installed on, you should be able to resize the partition in place by deleting the unused partition, then dragging the slider to increase the remaining partition.

Disk Utility for Mac: Partition a physical disk using Disk Utility - Enlarge a volume

You want to make sure that you don;t delete the current OS X partition.

C

 

[christopher knight]

HI
I HAVE ATTACHED A SCREENSHOT
HD CLONE IS TH START UP DRIVE COPIED FROM THE INTERNAL HD ON MY MAC MINI WHEN I INSTALLED THE SAMSUNG SSD
SSD PART IS THE PARTITION I WANT TO GET RID OF, THUS MAKING HD CLONE THE ONLY SPACE ON THIS DRIVE
HOPE THAT HELPS
CHRIS

 

[Cory Cooper]

OK, thanks. By the way - all caps signifies yelling online.

If you look at the "shaded" diagonal lines in the Samsung SSD part, that is where OS X and you files reside. You cannot delete the partition that OS X resides on, or the first partition on a HD, so your only recourse would be to do a full erase/repartition of the SSD and either install Sierra and do a migration/restore from your Time Machine backup.

Is there any data on the HDclone partition you want to save?

C

 

[christopher knight]

hi
sorry about caps, will note for future
attach detail of dusk usage from which you will see i do have stuff on the HD Clone
The main Mini HD has very little on it and i never deleted the old OS from that drive when i switched to the SSD, altho that is now Yosemite
looking at the stuff on my drives there seems to be audio and photos spread around bit, maybe thats the new Optimise facility?