Disk Utility: Easily Create & Erase Partitions on Your Mac

In this post we are going to demonstrate the detailed process of creating and deleting  a partition on Mac OS X.

There are some situations in which users need to create more than one partition on their Macs. If you plan to install another OS beside your Mac OS, or keep the important files on one partition, you can easily create a partition on your Mac, using the preinstalled utility called Disk Utilities. This application allows you to perform a series of disk-related operations including adding, deleting and resize volumes.

To create a new partition on your Mac OS, follow the steps below:

• Step 1. Open Finder, head to Applications > Utilities, and click to launch Disk Utility.
• Step 2. As the Disk Utility launches, all the hard drives connected to your Mac are listed in the left-hand pane. Now select the main hard drive you want to create partitions for (usually named Macintosh HD), and then click on the Partitions tab.
• Step 3. Under the Partition Layout, click on the plus (+) sign to add a partition.
• Step 4. As the new box is added, click on it to specify the settings, namely, enter the name, choose the format and decide the size for this new partition. Then click Apply.
• Step 5. Click on the Partition button when a dialog pups up asking “Are you sure you want to partition the disk”. Then it will begin creating the partition on your Mac.
• Step 6. Reboot your Mac when the process is completed.

If you have created a partition but it is no longer used and you want to reclaim the disk space, you can also erase and delete it using Disk Utility. Note: erasing the partition will delete all the data stored in it, so don’t forget to back up your file if necessary. You can use the preinstalled Time Machine to handle the backup task. Here’s how to erase and then delete a partition using Disk Utility:

• Step 1. Launch Disk Utility and locate the partition you want to erase in the left panel.
• Step 2. Select the partition, and then click on the Erase button on the top.
• Step 3. Click on the Erase button in the confirmation dialog to start erasing it.
• Step 4. When the erase process is complete, click on the Done button to continue.

Now with the data erased from the partition, you need to delete this empty partition to reallocate its space to the rest of your hard drive. So continue with the next steps:

• Step 5. Select your main hard drive, and click on the Partition button on the top.
• Step 6. As the graph shows all the partitions and amount of memory space, click on the partition you want to remove and then click on the minus (-) sign in the panel.
• Step 7. Click on the Apply in the confirmation dialog to make the changes.
• Step 8. When it is done (usually take several minutes), click on the Done to exit.

So that’s all it takes if you want to create/delete a partition on Mac using the handy tool – Disk Utility. Want to learn more Mac tutorials and news? Follow us to keep updated!