Remove Mac OS X partition from Boot Camp

Question

I installed Boot Camp on my MacBook Pro Retina laptop.

Now I would like to remove the OS X partition to get some extra space for Windows. Is it simply just a matter of formatting the OS X partition from, e.g., Windows Explorer?

Will the laptop ever boot again afterwards?

Solution

I just removed the OS X partition on a 2011 MacBook Air, leaving only the BOOTCAMP partition. For what it's worth, I then rebooted into Windows 7 normally without problem.

The partition map now looks like:

[ 1 (200MB) ][       2 (17GB)       ][              3 (40GB)            ]

1: GPT boot-thingie partition
2: Empty space, where the OS X partition used to be
3: The "BOOTCAMP" Windows 7 partition

However, I did not trust regular Windows tools to delete the HFS+ boot partition for OS X. It might have worked, but instead I booted from an OS X 10.8 USB key, and then switch into Disk Utility and remove the OS X partition using the GUI.

(Yeah, this is on an old "64GB" MacBook Air... which definitely is not big enough to dual-boot unless you have very specific, limited needs.)

Comments

[StackThis]

I just used Windows partition tools to get rid of the main OSX partition. However, I left the EFI boot partition untouched. Everything works fine.