how can I transfer empty space between partitions?

Question

I would like to dual-boot OS X Lion and Snow Leopard, because I have a few programs that do not work on OS X Lion yet. That works, but now I have the problem that I have run out of disk space on my OS X Snow Leopard partition, and I would like to resize the partition of Snow Leopard so it takes space from the Lion partition, but in Disk Utility that is apparently not possible...

Is this really impossible or do I need a special program for this?

Answer 1

I haven’t tried any way of resizing the partitions through Disk Utility, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. (Before I go on, consider this the ever-important reminder that when fiddling with disk partitions and stuff, have a good backup. And then some. And then another one).

So here are my two suggestions:

1. You could try backing up the Snow Leopard partition to two external drives (one for backup, one for the copy). Then delete the original partition, and put in a new one to fill the space. Finally, restore the copy back onto the new (larger) partition

2. iPartition from Coriolis Software sounds like it would be able to do what you’re doing. I haven’t used iPartition, but I have used their other product, iDefrag, and that worked fine for what I needed. It costs $46.95, but there’s a free demo that you can try. Not sure what the limitations are, but this seems like the safest option.