My macbook's disk partitioning got messed up after installing/deleting virtual machines

Question

Level 1

4 points

My macbook's disk partitioning got messed up after installing/deleting virtual machines

Hi,

I've first installed Windows 10 through Parallels then deleted it.

Then, I've installed Windows 10 through Boot Camp and then erased the partition.

Now I am trying to install Windows 10 again through Boot Camp but am getting a message saying "your disk could not be partitioned." (Now I see it was too much to my laptop..)

Please do not tell me to just run First Aid in Disk Utility. I've already done it.

'

1st img is what I get if I type 'diskutil list' in Terminal. 2nd img is what I get when I run First Aid in recovery mode.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 12.2

Posted on Feb 7, 2022 5:15 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

HWTech

Level 9

56,876 points

Feb 8, 2022 6:38 PM in response to higher94

If First Aid is unable to repair an APFS volume from Recovery Mode, then you will need to erase the whole drive and restore from a backup or clone. This will solve both of the problems (corrupt file system and broken partitions).

FYI, when removing Windows you need to use BootCamp Assistant to perform the operation to restore the Windows area into the main Apple partition/Container. Using Disk Utility to remove the Windows partitions it ends badly.

Only use Windows BootCamp if and only if the performance of running Windows in a VM is not sufficient since the VM option has minimal risk to macOS. Having multiple partitions and/or boot volumes on the main boot drive usually ends badly like it has done here. If you decide to go with Windows BootCamp again, then make sure to use the optimal partition sizes for each OS since resizing the partitions later may not be possible (or if it is possible, then it is very risky and you may end up in a similar situation again). You also don't want to change the macOS partition after installing Windows BootCamp as that will break Windows booting. Dual booting on bare metal is a fragile thing.

Reply