Scotch_Brawth

Q: 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:

/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/190/19047693-1.png

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

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Q: Repairing Boot Camp after creating new partition

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  • by Number88,

    Number88 Number88 Feb 22, 2014 6:50 PM in response to staycoldb
    Level 3 (750 points)
    Feb 22, 2014 6:50 PM in response to staycoldb

    From inside OSX? Does copy/paste work?

  • by staycoldb,

    staycoldb staycoldb Feb 22, 2014 6:55 PM in response to Number88
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 22, 2014 6:55 PM in response to Number88

    Nope. It's weird. I don't know why it won't let me copy and paste the movies over. No big deal though.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Feb 22, 2014 7:33 PM in response to staycoldb
    Level 7 (24,869 points)
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    Feb 22, 2014 7:33 PM in response to staycoldb

    The OSX NTFS drivers are read-only. If the source and target are both NTFS, you will not be able to move files between the two using OSX Finder.

  • by staycoldb,

    staycoldb staycoldb Feb 22, 2014 7:41 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 22, 2014 7:41 PM in response to Loner T

    Ya, I reformatted the drive to fat32 and was able to transfer everything over. Time to reformat now I guess Thanks guys for all your advice

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Feb 22, 2014 7:50 PM in response to staycoldb
    Level 7 (24,869 points)
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    Feb 22, 2014 7:50 PM in response to staycoldb

    I am not sure if a Windows 7/8 DVD can be used to boot/repair the Bootcamp partition, but that may be something to consider, before you start all over again.

  • by Christopher Murphy,

    Christopher Murphy Christopher Murphy Feb 22, 2014 8:32 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 3 (555 points)
    Feb 22, 2014 8:32 PM in response to Loner T

    GPT: 2          409640        80005903   38.0 GiB    AF00  Macintosh HD

    MBR: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -   79596264] HFS+

     

    These do not agree.

     

     

    Look again. gdisk reports start and end LBA. fdisk and gpt commands report start LBA and size (not end). If you add fdisk/gpt start and size minus 1 you will get the end LBA which should match gdisk's end value.

     

    What's probably happened here is the resize of the Windows volume stomped on the backup GPT at the end of the disk, which is why the gpt command flaked out, and why gdisk reported the backup GPT was damaged. The MBR #4 entry for Windows is probably correct because the Windows resize utility would have only updated the MBR and only the Windows entry in it. But yes it's weird that it starts at 204806144; I'll guess that the resize utility actually did a resize (shrink) and then moved the resulting volume farther back, ostensibly to make room in front of the Windows partition to grow the OS X volume?

     

    If the GPT is repaired, that will probably cause the tail end of the Windows NTFS volume to be stepped on, just like the reverse happpened in the resize. The NTFS volume might survive but technically it's broken. So in any case this Windows volume really ought to just be nuked and start over and not use Windows resize  utilities on Boot Camp'd Macs.

  • by Christopher Murphy,

    Christopher Murphy Christopher Murphy Feb 22, 2014 8:42 PM in response to staycoldb
    Level 3 (555 points)
    Feb 22, 2014 8:42 PM in response to staycoldb

    Realize FAT32 has a file size limit of 2GB. So anything bigger than that is truncated. I forget if OS X warns of this or if the failure to correctly copy is silent.

     

    I haven't read the whole thread but if the GPT has not been repaired yet, then it's possible the NTFS volume is still intact. I don't know why after resizing it wasn't bootable - buggy resize utility? No idea. But if it didn't totally bungle the job, then Windows Startup Repair should fix this. Just don't fix the GPT. It's enough to get Windows booted, and then you can do a backup of that state  - I think the Windows included backup utility can do something like this, maybe it only backsup user data. But that might be useful. Another possibility is Winclone which ought to be able to clone the whole thing. The next step would be to lie like a dog, by telling gdisk to make a new hybrid MBR. That way Boot Camp Assistant can hopefully be tricked into thinking that 4th partition is a legit Boot Camp volume and properly delete it. Then you can use Boot Camp Assistant to split your OS X volume yet again to the size you really want, and then use Winclone to restore - it's capable of taking a bigger or smaller source and making it fit into a different sized destination partition.

     

    Maybe Camptune can do this also, but I think it's just a resizing utility, not a cloning utility. And FYI there's an ancient free version of Winclone floating around, that's not what you want. You need to use the current version which is not free but I don't think it's expensive.

  • by staycoldb,

    staycoldb staycoldb Feb 22, 2014 11:03 PM in response to Christopher Murphy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 22, 2014 11:03 PM in response to Christopher Murphy

    Well, I popped in the win7 install disc and booted to it, opened a cmd prompt and repaired then rebuilt the mbr. Now isntead of the "disk read error" problem, all I have is the black screen and white cursor. Any ideas?

  • by Christopher Murphy,

    Christopher Murphy Christopher Murphy Feb 22, 2014 11:40 PM in response to staycoldb
    Level 3 (555 points)
    Feb 22, 2014 11:40 PM in response to staycoldb

    Boot again, get to a command prompt and run chkdsk on the Windows volume (probably C: drive) without options. With no options it won't fix problems, just report them. I'm curious if it finds a valid volume at all and if it does then you can move on to bootrec.exe.

     

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

  • by staycoldb,

    staycoldb staycoldb Feb 23, 2014 12:10 AM in response to Christopher Murphy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 23, 2014 12:10 AM in response to Christopher Murphy

    ehh, I already did bootrec with no luck. I'm reformatting the drive now as we speak. Was just spinning my wheels trying to repair the bootcamp partition. Figured I'd just reinstall it and get it over with. Thanks anyway.

  • by Number88,

    Number88 Number88 Feb 23, 2014 4:58 AM in response to Christopher Murphy
    Level 3 (750 points)
    Feb 23, 2014 4:58 AM in response to Christopher Murphy

    Christopher Murphy,

    may I ask what your views are on this (from an earlier post)? Would it be likely to work? Thanks.

     

    "So normally in these situations the only official way to deal with this is to format the drive and re-install everything.

    Obviously OSX still boots but I'm assuming that disk utility will refuse to allow you to delete the Bootcamp partition.

    Therein lies the problem.

    Have a go at that first.

     

    If it doesn't there may be a way to delete the partition with gdisk and to create a new protective MBR.

    This may fool OSX into thinking that there was never a Windows installation and it may then allow you to stretch the Macintosh HD back to the full size of the disk again.

    Thereby allowing you to start again.

     

    As I say this is not official and I haven't tried it before but it may work."

  • by waffenschmiede,

    waffenschmiede waffenschmiede Feb 23, 2014 7:18 AM in response to staycoldb
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Publishing
    Feb 23, 2014 7:18 AM in response to staycoldb

    I also got aproblem with my windows.

     

    Here is my filesystem:

     

    Bildschirmfoto 2014-02-23 um 16.16.54.png

    thanks for help.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Feb 23, 2014 7:31 AM in response to waffenschmiede
    Level 7 (24,869 points)
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    Feb 23, 2014 7:31 AM in response to waffenschmiede

    Can you describe the problem in a bit more detail?

     

    Please run the following commands.

     

    sudo gpt -r -vv show /dev/rdisk1

    sudo fdisk /dev/disk1

  • by waffenschmiede,

    waffenschmiede waffenschmiede Feb 23, 2014 9:13 AM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Publishing
    Feb 23, 2014 9:13 AM in response to Loner T

    Bildschirmfoto 2014-02-23 um 18.10.46.png
    I transferd the bootcamp partition via winclone to an external thunderbolt drive cause I need the space on my Macbook SSD.


    After that windows isn't booting anymore.

     

    Problem is, windows is not booting. only _ cursor blinking.I

  • by BobTheFisherman,

    BobTheFisherman BobTheFisherman Feb 23, 2014 9:15 AM in response to waffenschmiede
    Level 6 (15,741 points)
    Feb 23, 2014 9:15 AM in response to waffenschmiede

    waffenschmiede wrote:

     

    Bildschirmfoto 2014-02-23 um 18.10.46.png
    I transferd the bootcamp partition via winclone to an external thunderbolt drive cause I need the space on my Macbook SSD.


    After that windows isn't booting anymore.

     

    Problem is, windows is not booting. only _ cursor blinking.I

    Windows won't boot from an external drive so stop trying.

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