Repairing Boot Camp after creating new partition

Back the partition up and delete it and all others, then make a new one.

Thanks for the respone; though that sounds like a hefty task, which is something I'd rather avoid. I've managed to repartition the Macintosh HD so that I'm only loosing 5-10GBs or so to the unknown, and my Windows 7 OS is now bootable (which was the main thing I needed to fix).

I'm personally having the same issue, I've confirmed that my iMac has only 4 partitions and it is the 4th

that has the GUID (under index) is EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7.

"gpt show: disk0: mediasize=320072933376; sectorsize=512; blocks=625142448

gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 625142447

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 194306224 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

194715864 1269544 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

195985408 428894856 4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

624880264 262151

625142415 32 Sec GPT table

625142447 1 Sec GPT header"

So I was able to follow your specific set of instructions however when I get to the part of accepting the default hex code (which according to your post should be 07) mine is 03. If possible could you inform me of where I went wrong.

Thanks!

Randall

You've supplied a GPT, but 07 and 03 are MBR hex codes, not GPT hex codes. If you're fixing this in fdisk then the code would be 07, but it's not a default, you have to enter it in. If you're fixing this in gdisk's recovery > create new hybrid MBR option, the default code for your partition 4 will be 0700. So I have no idea what you're trying to fix this in.

Sorry for not supplying you with all the details

The results when I punch in sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0 are :

gpt show: disk0: mediasize=320072933376; sectorsize=512; blocks=625142448

gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 625142447

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 194306224 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

194715864 1269544 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

195985408 428894856 4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

624880264 262151

625142415 32 Sec GPT table

625142447 1 Sec GPT header

The results I get when I punch in sudo fdisk /dev/disk0:

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

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

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

1: EE 0 0 2 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 195985407] <Unknown ID>

*2: 03 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 195985408 - 428894856] XENIX /usr

3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

When I punch in diskutil I get

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *320.1 GB disk0

1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS Wendy Hd 99.5 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

4: Microsoft Basic Data 219.6 GB disk0s4

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GRMCPRXFRER_EN_DVD *3.2 GB disk1

I then downloaded gdisk like instructed to and when I follow the process I get the following:

After typing in p<enter> I get

Disk /dev/disk0: 625142448 sectors, 298.1 GiB

Logical sector size: 512 bytes

Disk identifier (GUID): F932B20F-2EDE-420B-A677-C2EE508E9943

Partition table holds up to 128 entries

First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 625142414

Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries

Total free space is 262157 sectors (128.0 MiB)

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

1 40 409639 200.0 MiB EF00 EFI System Partition

2 409640 194715863 92.7 GiB AF00 Wendy Hd

3 194715864 195985407 619.9 MiB AB00 Recovery HD

4 195985408 624880263 204.5 GiB 0700 DOS_FAT_32_Untitled_3

How should I proceed from here? Have I gotten all the steps down?

Thanks so much for your help.

OK so for whatever reason the name of the 4th GPT partition is "DOS_FAT_32_Untitled_3" which is weird. You can change it to something else if you want (I'm not sure it gets used for anything really) with gdisk using the c command and giving it a new name. Next you need to make a new hybrid MBR:

r [recovery menu]

h [create new hybrid MBR]

2 3 4 [add partitions 2 3 and 4 to MBR]

y [place 0xEE partition as #1]

<enter> [accept the default]

n [not bootable]

<enter> [accept default]

n [not bootable]

<enter> [accept default]

y [mark as bootable]

w [write changes to disk]

y [confirm you really want to do this]

Followed step by step and unlike before I see the windows partition in he boot picker. However when I select the windows partition it loads with "error loading operating system. " Is there a way for me to just get the data off the windows side so I can reformat? Thanks for all your help!

Does the volume mount in Mac OS X? You can extract the data on that side.

Hi Christopher Murphy,

I've read and reread this thread and attempted to use gdisk to create a hybrid MBR so I could boot Windows 7 and Windows 8. Unfortunately, I still can't seem to boot up into Windows (either version).

sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0 returns this:

gpt show: disk0: mediasize=500107862016; sectorsize=512; blocks=976773168

gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 976773167

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 585937496 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

586347136 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

587616672 1632

587618304 95703040 4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

683321344 293451776 5 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

976773120 15

976773135 32 Sec GPT table

976773167 1 Sec GPT header

I tried adding #s 4 and 5 to the MBR and set them both to be bootable, however OS X's startup manager doesn't "see" them when I hold option at startup.

Do you have any suggestions on how to correct this? You seem extremely knowledgeable on this subject so any help would be very appreciated.

Only one MBR partition can be flagged as bootable. In all of my testing to date it doesn't matter which one is flagged as bootable, which tells me the CSM-BIOS will blindly execute the 440 bytes of bootstrap code in the first 440 bytes of the MBR. That code tells the CPU to jump elsewhere, and loads more code, irrespective of what partition is flagged as bootable. So remove the active flag on partition 4 and see what happens.

Also consider posting the results of

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Hello Christopher Murphy,

I had pm'ed you on another forum, but as I've found you here with more recent activity I thought I'd try this as well.

Without going into the "what was I thinking" (really, _really_ should've known better) I mananged to break boot camps ability to boot. My setup isn't exactly stock either. I run a 128GB ssd in the main bay, with a 500 GB regular hd in the superdrive bay (formatted case sensitive). Late '08 macbook on 19,6,8. Bootcamp originally was on ssd, but later moved to the older drive (via winclone I think...can't remember for sure).

So I shrink the case sensitive hfs+ on the spinning drive a bit and then used gparted to expand the boot camp partition, and...breakage. As of right now, the drive that holds the boot camp partition has been removed and placed in an external enclosure (put a new ssd in the superdrive bay...ideally want to restore the previous boot camp into it)

diskutil list

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *120.0 GB disk0

1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 119.8 GB disk0s2

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *128.0 GB disk1

1: EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_HFS MacintoshSSD 127.7 GB disk1s2

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk2

1: EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1

2: Apple_HFS HDD 352.7 GB disk2s2

3: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 101.9 GB disk2s3

sudo gpt -r -vv show disk2

Password:

gpt show: disk2: mediasize=500107862016; sectorsize=512; blocks=976773168

gpt show: disk2: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

gpt show: disk2: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: disk2: Sec GPT at sector 976773167

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 688939952 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

689349592 88405032

777754624 199018496 3 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

976773120 15

976773135 32 Sec GPT table

976773167 1 Sec GPT header

sudo fdisk /dev/disk2

Disk: /dev/disk2 geometry: 60801/255/63 [976773168 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 - 688939952] HFS+

*3: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 777754624 - 199018496] HPFS/QNX/AUX

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

Anyway to make this bootable again? If not, since the partition is still otherwise accessible is there a way to move it over to a new bootcamp partition?

Thanks in advance. Your expertise on this matter is unbelievably thorough, and I feel very lucky to have found all that you've covered so far.

Ok, so I removed the flag on #4 and successfully booted to partition 5! It seems however that whichever partition contains the bootable flag is the only one that can boot. That's what I'm seeing whenever I boot up to the OS X startup manager at least. Switching allowed the other to boot but not both.

Here's the results of sudo fdisk /dev/disk0:

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

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

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

1: EE 0 0 2 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 587618303] <Unknown ID>

*2: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 587618304 - 95703040] HPFS/QNX/AUX

3: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 683321344 - 293451776] HPFS/QNX/AUX

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

So what's this large, 42GB, pile of free space between the Mac OS (partition 2), and Boot Camp (partition 3)?

The GPT and MBR agree with each other, and the partition designated for Windows in the MBR has the active flag set. What do you get when you reboot with the option key, and choose the Windows option at the boot menu?

deleted because i was confused

I can't tell you how to dual-boot two Windows installations on Apple hardware. Apple's CSM provides one Windows option per disk, I've never seen it present two. I'm vaguely aware that the Windows bootloader can be configured to boot more than one copy of Windows. I would expect the Windows 8 bootloader to know how to boot Windows 7 and 8, but also it's so new as to possibly not be that well documented. I'm can't imagine whether the Windows 7 bootloader will know how to boot Windows 8 in addition to 7.

Your alternative is to use fdisk from the command line to flag a different partition. I think that fdisk only lets one partition be flagged at one time. To edit in fdisk:

sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk0

? [this will get you the menu of options one of which is setting the boot/active flag]