macOS not allowing to change the sequence of partitions from command line! This is the Disk List for my iMac.



I am trying to merge the partitions macOS and macOS 2 using diskutil mergePartitions now the problem is on running this command macOS will keep data on the first partition which is macOS and will erase everything in between the first and last partition (Last partition included), now the last partition is macOS 2.

I want to preserve the last partition which is macOS 2 and delete every other partition so I thought why not include the last partition as the first partition (Which I want to preserve the data on) and include the first partition in the last parameter - which will be deleted. 

Here's where the issue occurs macOS doesn't allows me to change the sequence of the partition

So I am stuck with merging partitions from command line

I don't want to use disk utility to merge partitions cause last time when I used it to merge partitions some free spaces were created and were not going away until and unless an entire disk format was performed!

One more thing macOS is the first volume on the disk so removing it from dusk utility using the partition option will not happen
Since the volumes are about the same size, you can use the Disk Utility application to "Restore" the macOS volume from the macOS 2 volume. You basically will then have duplicated macOS 2. You then can delete disk0s4 and expand disk0s2 to recover the free space.

All these operations can be performed using the Disk Utility application.

If you are wish to use the command line, then here is the command to clone the volume labeled "macOS 2".

sudo asr restore --source "/Volumes/macOS 2" --target /Volumes/macOS --erase



  Note: The above command also clones /dev/disk0s5 to /dev/disk0s3.


The command to delete /dev/disk0s4 and expand /dev/disk0s2 is given below.

diskutil mergePartitions FREE "" disk0s2 disk0s4  



  Note: The above command also deletes /dev/disk0s5 and relocates /dev/disk0s3 to be below the expanded /dev/disk0s2.


The clone/restore operation could be done while booted from /dev/disk0s5. The merge operation could be done while booted to /dev/disk0s2.