De-partitioning my Startup drive

[Uncle Wig]

I need to undo the partitions on my internal drive that contains Startup and Workspace. It's because a login scheme used by a client that has to install a HostChecker app, and it's unable to do that because my Home directory is not on the Startup partition.

So, is this something I can do here at home, right? I "think" if I follow these steps I should be able to do this:

1. Assure current backups of System and Workspace
2. Copy "Workspace" to empty space available on Photos drive (which is my 2nd internal HD the 1 TP Hitachi)
3. Boot from System backup
4. Use Disk Utility to de-partition my startup drive (the 500 GB)
5. Use CCC to clone my system from System Backup to the Startup drive.
6. Copy "Workspace back to Startup drive.
7. Do the reverse, more or less, to the 300 GB backup drive. Right now I use CCC to backup my System, and Time Machine to backup Workspace. I guess I would use Time Machine to backup everything, right?

[GGD]

Is it correct to assume that "System Backup" is the same data as "Startup'?

If so, you can skip step 5.

Since around 10.5 or 10.6, Disk Utility allows you to change partitioning (if the volumes are Journaled) without losing data.

You can go into the Partion tab, click on the "Workspace" volume in the graphic display, and click the "-" below to remove it.

Then you can increase the size of "Startup" to use the free space where "Workspace" was.

I don't think it's general enough to let you do changes that would require moving file data around, like shrinking "Workspace" by moving it's starting point higher so that "Startup" would have space to grow.

[Uncle Wig]

GGD, yes: System Backup = Startup.

This sounds much simpler than I thought, but I don't understand your last sentence.

[GGD]

Look at the screenshot that you posted. In each of the volumes, the blue is the used space and the white is the unused space.

A more ideal solution would be if you could shrink Workspace so that it had almost no unused space, and then grow Startup to use the extra space that Workspace just gave up. And then copy your data from Workspace to Startup, and then delete Worspace and grow Startup again.

But Workspace's data is in the way, the free space would be after the end of Workspace, not adjacent to Startup. It would require moving Workspace's data to the end of the drive, and I don't think Disk Utility will do operations like that that require moving data.

You can actually experiment to find out once you have your backups and before you delete the Workspace partition.