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Scotch_Brawth Author

Level 3

827 points

Repairing Boot Camp after creating new partition

I'm running OS X 10.8 and Windows 7 x64 Pro.

After properly setting up Boot Camp to dual-boot Windows on my Mac mini, I decided to test whether or not it was true that creating another partition (a data partition for OS X) would interfere with Boot Camp. Wikipedia claims it does interfere but without citing a source, whilst the Boot Camp documentation itself only specifies that the disk must be a single partition _prior_ to setup - there's no mention of whether the disk must be _kept_ that way afterwards.

I opened Disk Utility, reduced the size of my OS X parition from 420GB to 80GB, and created a new partition in the unallocated space. Here's how it looks now:

When I attempted to proceed with the process, I did receive a warning that doing this (and I quote), "may" cause problems with Boot Camp. Seeing as it was inconclusive, I thought I'd give it a shot - nothing ventured…

Of course, it borked Boot Camp, otherwise I wouldn't be posting here. Whilst OS X boots just fine, the Boot Camp partition now no longer shows up in the Startup Manager, though it does in the Startup Disk prefPane. If I do attempt to boot into Boot Camp, I receive the following message on a black screen:

No bootable device --- insert boot disk and press any key

The advice given to someone who had this same problem was, "fix your damaged Boot Camp volume." But I'm at a loss as to how to do that.

So, anyone know how to proceed now so that I can keep my partitions as is, whilst fully restoring normal Boot Camp functionality?

Mac mini (Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jul 26, 2012 11:28 PM

1,534 replies

Mar 14, 2013 11:30 AM in response to autnagrag

No.

Mar 14, 2013 11:52 AM in response to Christopher Murphy

Christopher:

Thanks! It seemed to work, in the sense that there has been progress. Now when I press 'option' during boot in get Windows as a boot alternative. But when I choose it, I only get a blinking cursor on a black screen 😟

A second issue is the hard drive space I released when I deleted the "MAC Stuff"partion; that space seems to simply have been lost. Can it be reclaimed?

#:	TYPE NAME	SIZE	IDENTIFIER
0:	GUID_partition_scheme	*251.0 GB disk0
1:	EFI	209.7 MB disk0s1
2:	Apple_HFS Macintosh HD	137.9 GB disk0s2
3:	Apple_HFS Recovery HD	650.0 MB disk0s3
4:	Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP	97.1 GB	disk0s4

Mar 14, 2013 11:59 AM in response to berkeley201

The file system problems with the OS X volume need to be repaired first. At the moment the resize command is reporting it can't make the OS X volume larger. Once repaired, it might be possible to resize. If that still doesn't work, it should be possible to merge the two partitions together, but I'm not sure if the Recovery HD partition will also be absorbed since it lies in between the two partitions that need to be merged.

As for Windows, you'll need to boot from the Windows install DVD, and run Startup Repair.

Mar 14, 2013 12:35 PM in response to Christopher Murphy

I am not sure what to do with the OS X. I tried to run Startup Repair from the Win DVD, but that didn't work (the program didn't find anything to repair, it said). So I still get a black screen with a blinking cursor when trying to boot to Bootcamp (Win 7).

Mar 14, 2013 1:09 PM in response to berkeley201

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

After step 7 type:

/FixMbr

/FixBoot

/RebuildBcd

If that doesn't work, the easiest solution is to boot off another disk containing OS X or Recovery HD, repartition the disk back to 1 partition (change Current to 1 partition in the Partition tab), restore from backups. The benefit of this is, it fixes both the HFSJ file system problems as well as the Windows problem.

Otherwise you're in TestDisk disaster recovery terroritory to get anything out of Windows.

Mar 14, 2013 1:49 PM in response to Christopher Murphy

WOW - that worked! I had to use the fix suggested on the page you linked to:

bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
c:
cd boot
attrib bcd -s -h -r
ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
bootrec /RebuildBcd

And that worked. So now I booted into my Win7 partition and everything there was fine!

So that solved the main issue for me. Thanks a million!!!

If I can recover the space of the lost partition, that would be nice, but if not I can live with that 🙂

Mar 14, 2013 1:57 PM in response to berkeley201

File system issues with the primary OS X volume need to be fixed first. Then you can try the resize command again and see if maximum is larger than current. If not, you can try to do a merge and maybe it'll ignore Recovery HD, but just in case it doesn't you'll want to back it up. CCC can do this, Recovery Disk Assistant can do it, and it can also be moved in place with dd (in which case the resize will succeed since nothing will be between the OS X volume and free space anymore).

Mar 14, 2013 2:10 PM in response to Christopher Murphy

Disk utility does not allow resizing. It reports:

Name :	APPLE SSD SM256E Media
Type :	Disk

Partition Map Scheme :	GUID Partition Table
Disk Identifier :	disk0
Media Name :	APPLE SSD SM256E Media
Media Type :	Generic
Connection Bus :	SATA
Device Tree :	IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/SATA@1F,2/PRT0@0/PMP@0
Writable :	Yes
Ejectable :	No
Location :	Internal
Solid State Disk :	Yes
Total Capacity :	251 GB (251 000 193 024 Bytes)
Disk Number :	0
Partition Number :	0
S.M.A.R.T. Status :	Verified
Raw Read Error :	000000000000
Reallocated Sector Count :	000000000000
Power On Hours :	00000000007B
Power Cycle :	000000000E8C
Temperature :	0040000D001D
UDMA CRC Error (PATA only) :	000000000000

sudo fdisk reports:

geometry: 30515/255/63 [490234752 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

	Starting	Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [	start -	size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [	1 -	409639] <Unknown ID>
2: AF 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [	409640 - 269273912] HFS+
3: AF 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 269945696 -	1269536] HFS+

*4: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 300509184 - 189724672] HPFS/QNX/AUX

gdisk gives this partition table:

Number Start (sector)	End (sector) Size	Code Name
1	40	409639 200.0 MiB EF00 EFI system partition
2	409640	269683551 128.4 GiB AF00 Customer
3	269945696	271215231 619.9 MiB AF00 Recovery HD
4	300509184	490233855 90.5 GiB	0700 BOOTCAMP

Mar 14, 2013 2:17 PM in response to berkeley201

Did you fix the file system problems? If you didn't, you're not following directions, and jumping ahead. The only resize command I've given isn't in Disk Utility. It's this command:

diskutil resizevolume /dev/disk0s2 limits

Mar 14, 2013 2:23 PM in response to Christopher Murphy

Sorry. I didn't quite get that. I'm not very skilled at this.

Diskutil resize reports:

Current size: 137.9 GB (137868242944 Bytes)

Minimum size: 64.2 GB (64220237824 Bytes)

Maximum size: 137.9 GB (137868242944 Bytes)

Mar 14, 2013 2:25 PM in response to berkeley201

Did you fix the file system problems? Nothing else can be done until that's done.

Mar 14, 2013 2:29 PM in response to Christopher Murphy

Again I am not quite sure what you mean, so this time I ask. Do you mean:

"Make sure you have a backup of Macintosh HD first. Also I personally would reboot single user mode and:

fsck_hfs -fy /dev/rdisk0s2

fsck_hfs -r /dev/rdisk0s2

The first does a normal check and repair. The 2nd rebuilds the catalog btree.

Next issue this command, which reports resizing options, makes no changes.

diskutil resizevolume /dev/disk0s2 limits "

Keep in mind the Bootcamp issues have been fixed.

Mar 14, 2013 2:36 PM in response to berkeley201

Yes. Boot single user mode and run:

fsck_hfs -r /dev/rdisk0s2

If you continue to get errors, that volume will need to be reformatted and restored from backup. Resizing volumes with file system errors only makes things worse.

Mar 14, 2013 3:02 PM in response to Christopher Murphy

Running it now and still getting errors. Does it matter that this is a SSD?

Mar 14, 2013 3:04 PM in response to berkeley201

After I type "exit" in Single user mode, it actually says "root-device is mounted read only"?!?!

Repairing Boot Camp after creating new partition