I own a MacBook Pro (16 inches 2019) running with macOS Catalina (10.15.3). I used VMware Fusion 11.5.1 to build a virtual machine running with OS X El Capitan. Creating this VM succeeded with a standard virtual Macintosh HD of 42 Gb. To enable running some 32-bit applications in this virtual machine, I expanded the hard disk to 200 Gb. But the partition Macintosh HD remained 42 Gb. Problem: how to extend the partition Macintosh HD in the free space of the expanded HD?
Since such extending cannot be done from the same partition from which the system has started, I needed starting from another startup disk. I tried to make bootable external startup disks (as bootable images dmg or cdr), as well as importing a second HD and installing El Capitan on this second HD to make it bootable. Al those attempts failed by ending in a mysterious error message (translated now from Dutch into English) "The Bless help-program cannot put the present startup disk into operation."
I also tried to solve my problem through the recovery partition within the El Capitan VM. When I tried there to expand the Macintosh HD (using the disk-help program), I got the message that the Macintosh HD lacked journaling (strange, it was formatted OS X extended (journaled)), and that I had to put journaling into operation through the menu of the disk-help program before retrying to expand. But when I did, it continued to react with the same responses, and extending the partition into free space remained impossible.
I hope that someone can suggest a solution.
