Boot Camp can't partition drive despite sufficient storage

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Level 1

4 points

Boot Camp can't partition drive despite sufficient storage

Hi,

I'm running an iMac 14,2 with macOS Catalina 10.15.7. I recently upgraded it with a Samsung SSD a few months ago and decided to install Windows through Boot Camp. It booted into the Windows 10 setup, but I encountered an error while formatting the partition to NTFS. I then restarted back into macOS, removed the partition with Boot Camp assistant, and then tried to reinstall Windows multiple times with different flash drives, etc.

I found a possible solution to the error which involved resetting the SMC and NVRAM, so I was going to give that a go, but now Boot Camp won't even partition my internal drive because of insufficient free space. This is perplexing because I have almost 650GB of free storage. I'm wondering if this is a problem with fragmentation or leftover, "hidden?" partitions from my failed attempts to install Windows. I would love to get some clarification on this. Thank you all so much in advance!

P.S. my new SSD is working fine, here are the results of "sudo fsck_apfs -n -l /dev/rdisk" in case it helps:

** Checking the container superblock.
** Checking the EFI jumpstart record.
** Checking the space manager.
** Checking the space manager free queue trees.
** Checking the object map.
** Checking volume.
** Checking the APFS volume superblock.
** The volume Macintosh SSD - Data was formatted by diskmanagementd (1412.141.1) and last modified by apfs_kext (1412.141.2).
** Checking the object map.
** Checking the snapshot metadata tree.
** Checking the snapshot metadata.
** Checking snapshot 1 of 1 (com.apple.TimeMachine.2021-08-16-163638.local)
** Checking the extent ref tree.
** Checking the fsroot tree.
** Checking volume.
** Checking the APFS volume superblock.
** The volume Macintosh SSD was formatted by diskmanagementd (1412.141.1) and last modified by apfs_kext (1412.141.2).
** Checking the object map.
** Checking the snapshot metadata tree.
** Checking the snapshot metadata.
** Checking snapshot 1 of 1 (com.apple.TimeMachine.2021-08-16-163638.local)
** Checking the extent ref tree.
** Checking the fsroot tree.
** Checking volume.
** Checking the APFS volume superblock.
** The volume Preboot was formatted by diskmanagementd (1412.141.1) and last modified by apfs_kext (1412.141.2).
** Checking the object map.
** Checking the snapshot metadata tree.
** Checking the snapshot metadata.
** Checking the extent ref tree.
** Checking the fsroot tree.
** Checking volume.
** Checking the APFS volume superblock.
** The volume Recovery was formatted by diskmanagementd (1412.141.1) and last modified by apfs_kext (1412.141.2).
** Checking the object map.
** Checking the snapshot metadata tree.
** Checking the snapshot metadata.
** Checking the extent ref tree.
** Checking the fsroot tree.
** Checking volume.
** Checking the APFS volume superblock.
** The volume VM was formatted by diskmanagementd (1412.141.1) and last modified by apfs_kext (1412.141.2).
** Checking the object map.
** Checking the snapshot metadata tree.
** Checking the snapshot metadata.
** Checking the extent ref tree.
** Checking the fsroot tree.
** Verifying allocated space.
** The volume /dev/rdisk1 appears to be OK.

iMac 27″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Aug 16, 2021 5:45 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

rizviAH Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 16, 2021 7:31 PM in response to rizviAH

Ok, just solved it by looking around on Reddit. Running the command "sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 999999999999 4" allowed me to repartition the drive. Time machine is awesome but can be a real pain sometimes...

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Answer 2

rizviAH Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 16, 2021 5:50 PM in response to rizviAH

At the bottom of my message, it says "iMac 27", macOS 10.14". That's incorrect, I have Catalina installed on the machine in question. I think I must have selected another mac I have running Mojave when creating the question. Sorry :)

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Answer 3

rizviAH Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 16, 2021 6:01 PM in response to Loner T

Sure thing:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *15.9 GB    disk0
   1:             Windows_FAT_32 CANON_DC                15.9 GB    disk0s1

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         1000.0 GB  disk1s2

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +1000.0 GB  disk2
                                 Physical Store disk1s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh SSD - Data    327.6 GB   disk2s1
   2:                APFS Volume Macintosh SSD           11.2 GB    disk2s2
   3:                APFS Volume Preboot                 78.7 MB    disk2s3
   4:                APFS Volume Recovery                529.0 MB   disk2s4
   5:                APFS Volume VM                      10.7 GB    disk2s5

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB     disk4
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk4s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Backup Drive            1.5 TB     disk4s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data Storage                 499.7 GB   disk4s3

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Answer 4

Loner T

Level 9

59,477 points

Aug 16, 2021 6:06 PM in response to rizviAH

Disconnect/eject the SD card and the 2TB Backup disk, reset SMC and NVRAM and try to install Windows using BC Assistant. If you need external storage for a Windows installer, use a USB2 Flash drive. Other media are not supported.

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Answer 5

rizviAH Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 16, 2021 7:11 PM in response to Loner T

Done. Boot Camp still fails while making a new partition. If I try to make a partition manually, it doesn't go above ~9.5 GB. Definitely looks like a fragmentation issue. Any other ideas?

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