Extend Partition on Mac

I had a bootcamp partition that I never used and wanted to extend my Mac partition to the Windows partition.  In the Disk Utility, there were no options to do this without destroying your data.  I investigated further and found a solution using the command line version of the Disk Utility.

This command allows you to merge two or more existing partitions into one.  The partitions will be merged and all data will be lost except for the first one.  Run the command diskutil mergePartitions for more details.

Steps I used to extend my partition are explained below.  The commands below are for my disk setup and may have to be modified to suit your configuration.  

1) Show the partitions installed on your mac:

macbook-pro:~ mactimes$ sudo diskutil list

Password:

/dev/disk0

   #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

   0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0

   1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

   2: Apple_HFS MacBook 449.8 GB disk0s2

   3: Microsoft Basic Data WINDOWSXP 50.0 GB disk0s3

 2) Merge the partitions by running the following command.  Be very careful of the syntax and order. 

macbook-pro:~ mactimes$ sudo diskutil mergePartitions "Journaled HFS+" New disk0s2 disk0s3

Password:

Merging partitions into a new partition

     Start partition: disk0s2 MacBook

     Finish partition: disk0s3 BOOTCAMP

Started partitioning on disk0

Merging partitions

Waiting for disks to reappear

Growing disk

Finished partitioning on disk0

/dev/disk0

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0

   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1

   2:                  Apple_HFS MacBook                 499.8 GB   disk0s2

Once done, you will see that the partition table has been merged and you are able to recover the wasted space of your Boot camp partition.  

DVD Region Free (Matsushita UJ-686)

When I first bought my Macbook Pro, i could not find any Region Free firmware for my DVD drive. It has been about a year since I bought it and to my surprise they exist now!

There aren't really any instructions but the process was easy and straight forward.

1) On the Apple icon in the file menu select "About this Mac".

2) Select "More Info..."

3) Under "Hardware" in the left pane select "Disc Burning"

4) Make a note of the model of your DVD drive. In my case, it is "Matsushita DVD-R UJ-868"

5) Open a browser and open http://www.rpc1.com

6) On the left pane select "Firmware Database"

7) Select "Matsushita (Panasonic)"

8) Search for your model and download the firmware

9) Go back to the "Matsushita" listing and scroll down to "Utilities"

10) Download "MatsushitaFlasher"

11) Launch "MatsushitaFlasher"

12) In the application go to the file menu "File" and select "Open..."

13) Select the RPC1 version of the firmware you downloaded.

Note: Make sure nothing is accessing the dvd drive or this step will not work.

14) When the terminal opens you will have to confirm that you want to proceed with the operation

15) Sit back and wait a couple minutes and wait for the command to finish

Afterwards, insert any dvd and enjoy the show.


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