Repairing Boot Camp after creating new partition

Your GPT only has 4 entries, with free space between partitions 3 and 4. I'm assuming you thought you could fix this by then deleting the exFAT partition?

So what you need to do is use gdisk to make a new partition in that free space. It may propose start sector 501679184 by default, which is fine you can accept that. If it finds something else you'll need to enter in 501679184. For last sector, accept the default. The type code should be 0700. You can type 'p' to look at the resulting partition table, and you'll notice that the sector listings aren't in order, you have a partition 5 that has sectors defining it as between 3 and 4. I would not resort the list so that everything is in order, because I'm not sure if the Windows bootloader gets fussy if its partition number is changed.

Go to the recovery/transformation menu with 'r' and make a new hybrid MBR with 'r'. And add partitions 4 and 5 to the MBR. Since partition 4 is Bootcamp, that needs to be marked as bootable in your case even though it's the last partition on disk. And even though the new exFAT/NTFS partition comes earlier, its partition number is 5 so you need to NOT mark it bootable. You don't have any other partitions to protect.

Then write out the changes with 'w'.

Hey Chris,

It detects the Windows Partition but when I boot into windows it says "Non-system disk, press any key to reboot"?

Any idea on what to do? Just a reminder that I had made two partitions, one with bootcamp and the FAT one I made which got me into this mess.

Im having a huge problem somewhat similar to this. Im hoping to get possible solutions.

First off, just bought a mabook pro 9,1 model with and SSD in the HD bay and a HDD in the optical bay which has 2 partions, inclusding the BOOTCAMP partition and i have been trying to access windows.

Orginally my problem was getting Windows 7 to install since everytime i tried it came up with error saying that the disk drive wouldnt be able to be used to boot, error 30800013 ish.

That was fixed by searching online and finding people saying that you must unplug other internal disk drives for windows to install. So that was sucessful.

Now my problem lies in that after putting the SSD that i previously removed. Windows would not boot and shows a black screen saying that there is no bootable disk, but as soon as i removed the SSD it windows worked fine and everything. So my issue is that it doesnt allow me to boot in windows when the SSD in connected. My wild guess is it has something to do with the bootmnger file in windows that needs to be updated to the new location of the parition.

here is some info.

Disk /dev/disk1: 1953525168 sectors, 931.5 GiB

Logical sector size: 512 bytes

Disk identifier (GUID): 5B35B51B-3FD7-45D2-A345-BCB38EECA8F7

Partition table holds up to 128 entries

First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953525134

Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries

Total free space is 264813 sectors (129.3 MiB)

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name

1 40 409639 200.0 MiB EF00 EFI System Partition

2 409640 1545331495 736.7 GiB AF00 Macintosh HD

3 1545594880 1953523711 194.5 GiB 0700 BOOTCAMP

Hope you guys can help. Thanks a bunch

Here is what I did in terminal to give you an idea.

Type from one to three GPT partition numbers, separated by spaces, to be

added to the hybrid MBR, in sequence: 4 5

Place EFI GPT (0xEE) partition first in MBR (good for GRUB)? (Y/N): y

Creating entry for GPT partition #4 (MBR partition #2)

Enter an MBR hex code (default 07):

Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): n

Creating entry for GPT partition #5 (MBR partition #3)

Enter an MBR hex code (default 07):

Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): y

Unused partition space(s) found. Use one to protect more partitions? (Y/N): n

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): o

Disk size is 490234752 sectors (233.8 GiB)

MBR disk identifier: 0xB1886B2D

MBR partitions:

Number Boot Start Sector End Sector Status Code

1 1 89612287 primary 0xEE

2 89612288 236054527 primary 0x07

3 * 236054528 490233855 primary 0x07

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): p

Disk /dev/disk0: 490234752 sectors, 233.8 GiB

Logical sector size: 512 bytes

Disk identifier (GUID): 7CBAB763-7A10-4350-8803-0677E5B843FD

Partition table holds up to 128 entries

First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 490234718

Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries

Total free space is 1469 sectors (734.5 KiB)

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name

1 40 409639 200.0 MiB EF00 EFI System Partition

2 409640 88342151 41.9 GiB AF00 Mac Evans

3 88342152 89611687 619.9 MiB AB00 Recovery HD

4 89612288 236054527 69.8 GiB 0700 MAC EVANS 2

5 236054528 490233855 121.2 GiB 0700 BOOTCAMP

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): w

Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING

PARTITIONS!!

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y

OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/disk0.

Warning: The kernel may continue to use old or deleted partitions.

You should reboot or remove the drive.

The operation has completed successfully.

Christopher, I followed your instructions and now I can ONLY boot Windows. The Mac partition is no longer shown in the boot menu, neither is the recovery partition. Windows lists my partitions as follows:

Volume - Layout - Type - File System - Capacity

{No Name} - Simple - Basic - {No Type} - 239.22 GB

(E:) - Simple - Basic - RAW - 21.42 GB

BOOTCAMP (C:) - Simple - Basic - NTFS - 37.45 GB

The first partition is shown as a "GPT protective partition"' the other two are primary partitions.

Is there a way to recover from this?

Looks like you'll need to go through the Windows Startup Repair process. There is an automated version available when you boot of the Window install DVD. And there's also the manual process which might be faster, or fix things the automatic one won't. Usually I suggest fixmbr, fixboot, rebuildbcd in that order.

Fortunately gdisk runs on Windows also, so I'd go grab a copy. Go to the recovery/transformation menu 'r' and then print out the MBR and GPT to the screen with 'o' and 'p' and post them.

Hey Chris,

It doesn't recognize the keyboard when I try and press a key on the macbook air?

This is a completely different issue, so you probably need to find a different thread or start a new one. I only have vague suggestions in this area, since I don't know what's actually the cause of this problem.

One possible cause is that the disk has a hybrid MBR, which it doesn't need. It should be MBR only if you only intend to boot Windows from it. And this 2nd disk of yours may contain a latent GPT. You can use Windows 'diskpart clean' to remove the GPT from the 2nd disk, or you can use gdisk from OS X to do the same. If you use gdisk, you go to the expert menu > zap and have it remove the GPT and the MBR. Then you're starting totally from scratch on that disk. Do make sure you're pointed to the correct disk.

The other thing I've read people doing, is creating a small (maybe 100MB?) partition on their primary disk, the SSD, for Windows to install boot files onto, with the rest of Windows on the HDD. So basically Windows is booting briefly off the main drive, then jumps to the other drive.

I have no idea what you're referring to. The "press any key" message? Yeah you're going to have to force a shutdown, and reboot off the Windows install DVD to get to the repair options.

Ah ok, yes sorry. I misread and thought that you where able to do the manual process without the windows CD.

I'll give it a go now, thanks.

Hey Chris,

Im at the System Recovery Options menu and it is asking me to select an OS. There isn't an OS there for me to select and then it says that if this occurs, I shoud Load Drivers and install drivers for your hard disk. Would I have to install the Bootcamp drivers again?

Thanks for the quick response .I'll open a new thread about this. Regarding your statment about the MBR, I am trying to boot from the HDD installed in the optical bay because my SSD is only 64GB im not sure all the windows OS files will be able to fit. Im assuming this is different then when you said to only put boot files of ~100MB. Do you happen to have any guide on moving these boot files. I'm not sure which ones to choose that my only concern. If i do move the boot files this then i believe i will need to try your step of removing the GPT and MBR (correct me if im wrong please).

regardless thanks for all your help.

It's something the Windows installer does, not something you do. The terminology Microsoft has chosen is a little confusing, but they explains this here. I can't tell you how to do it because I haven't done it. I know that if you give the installer a bare disk without anything else on it, it automatically produces a two partition installation as its preferred method. But with Boot Camp it always does just one. I recall this coming up in Mac Rumors forums in the context of getting newish Macs to boot Windows from Thunderbolt drives. Apparently there's something, possibly firmware related, that prevents some Macs from booting Windows off a 2nd or external disk, and one solution for this someone had found was putting a small FAT32 partition on their primary disk. I don't know if the Windows installer automatically finds this small partition on a completely different drive? Or if you have to point it to two drives, or what. Just make sure you have backups.

Basically this trick does make sense though because of how bootloading works. It's easier for firmware to start bootloaders from the primary disk, once the bootloaders take over they can do pretty much whatever they want including jumping the rest of the boot process to a completely different drive.

As for removing the GPT/MBR, that might not be necessary but it's probably best practices to make sure the 2nd disk (the HDD) is clean and not causing any confusion. Obviously computers are as easily confused as humans.

thanks for the info. One last thing someone in the dicussions repsonsed to my thread and said that windows can only be installed on the primary drive disk in order to boot. Is this true? ive never heard anything like this.