Q: Repairing Boot Camp after creating new partition

Have been reading this thread with great interest ever since making the upgrade to Mavericks and losing my Bootcamp partition. Now I do admit I tried to resolve the issue using gDisk but ended up tying myself in all kinds of knots. I am just glad to have OSX back at this stage, Windows 8.1 partition remains unbootable.

Current error message when booting into Windows reads "No bootable disk"

MacBook Pro has a 500GB hard drive.

Pre Mavericks the setup was:

- MAC OSX partition 65GB

- Windows 8 Partition 150GB

- Extended partition made up rest of hard drive containing four logical drives

-- M: 25GB

-- N: 150GB

-- O: 50GB

-- P: 25GB

My data is fully backed up. After the Mavericks update I lost drives M, N, O and P but was able to salvage the data to an external hard drive before further fault finding.

Dump of gDisk and fDisk:

bash-3.2# gpt -r -vv show disk0

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

gpt show: disk0: PMBR 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         PMBR

          1          1         Pri GPT header

          2         32         Pri GPT table

         34     409606        

     409640  135292968      1  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

  135702608      16520        

  135719128    1269544      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

  136988672  327784448      3  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

  464773120       2048        

  464775168   51200000      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

  515975168       2048        

  515977216  102400000      5  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

  618377216       2048        

  618379264   51200000      6  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

  669579264       2048        

  669581312  307189760      7  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

  976771072       2063        

  976773135         32         Sec GPT table

  976773167          1         Sec GPT header

bash-3.2# fdisk /dev/disk0

Disk: /dev/disk0          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 -  976773167] <Unknown ID>

2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused     

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

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

I'd love nothing more than to have this resolved, both operting systems bootable and access from Windows to each of the logical drives containing data.

Anyone? Much appreciated...

... and before it's asked here is the data for "diskutil list"

bash-3.2# diskutil list

/dev/disk0

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0

   1:                  Apple_HFS MAC                     69.3 GB    disk0s1

   2:                  Apple_HFS Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s2

   3:       Microsoft Basic Data TEABAG                  167.8 GB   disk0s3

   4:       Microsoft Basic Data DILMAH                  26.2 GB    disk0s4

   5:       Microsoft Basic Data TETLEY                  52.4 GB    disk0s5

   6:       Microsoft Basic Data LIPTON                  26.2 GB    disk0s6

   7:       Microsoft Basic Data TWININGS                157.3 GB   disk0s7

Partitions 4, 5, 6 and 7 were created in Windows (originall Windows 7 Ultimate). They reside in an extended partition.

I also receive an error in Disk Utilities (in Mavericks) complaining about a lack of EFI system partition. "Error: This disk doesn't contain an EFI system partition. If you want to...."

Cheers

uploading better images for my disk map before and after partitioning.

@Pappa Nersk... Your fdisk output sees a single disk. Is TEABAG your Windows installation?

@Islam... As Christopher has noted the supported configuration is one OSX and one Bootcamp partition. You have two FAT partitions. Is there a specific reason for two partitions?

@Jeroenvh1... Can you use Windows Recovery? The worst case is reinstalling Windows via bootcamp.

In general, if you want multiple partitions and visibility in multiple OSes, you may want to consider virtual machines (Fusion or Parallels) instead of Bootcamp. Both VM engines should allow access to partitions, which stay on OSes they were created with, and can be accessed via the guest OSes in VMs.

I want a shared parition between Mac and Windows. As I mentioned in my first post, this configuation was working until 2 weeks ago. Why now it is messed up?

It's an unsupported configuration, you got lucky for a while

@Islam... take a look at this... http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5639

"How can a Windows partition be resized after Windows is installed?

You need to delete the Windows partition using the Boot Camp Assistant, and start over to change the size of the Windows partition. Back up your important Windows files first."

Mavericks upgraded the Bootcamp version from 5.0.5033 to 5.1.0. It is probably still an issue in older versions. You could share folders without partitioning, if that is an option for you. Another option is an additional drive (which I normally use). Mavericks probably tried and could not fix unsupported partitioning scheme and left it broken. You can try older OS X versions, but it may not work. There are many restrictions related to EFI vs. CSM-BIOS as well.

I didn't resize the windows partition. I partitioned the Mac partition. I am using Snow Leopard not Mavericks anymore.

Previously resized my boot camp partition (manually)

Installed Mavericks

Boot Camp disappeared

Disk0s4 is visible in Disk utility but reflects the OLD disk size (pre-resize) and additional space (available for OSX expansion) now appears in its place

[REDACTED] sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss

or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your

typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.

To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.

Password:

gpt show: disk0: mediasize=240057409536; sectorsize=512; blocks=468862128

gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 468862127

      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  312500000      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

  312909640    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

  314179176   76558744        

  390737920   78123008      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

  468860928       1167        

  468862095         32         Sec GPT table

  468862127          1         Sec GPT header

[REDACTED] sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Disk: /dev/disk0          geometry: 29185/255/63 [468862128 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 -  312500000] HFS+       

3: AB 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 312909640 -    1269536] Darwin Boot

4: 0C 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 390737920 -   78123008] Win95 FAT32L

[REDACTED ]

OK I can't keep track of 4 people hijacking one thread at one time. For anyone who can sorta figure out how to do their own fixed based on this thread, but you're stuck on some technicality, I suggest you create an entirely new thread, and then post the URL for it in this thread so I get a notification. Anyone totally lost just needs to follow Apple's advice to either use Boot Camp to remove the Boot Camp volume, and then create a new one followed by installing Windows and restoring data from backups; or you need to blow away the whole drive and start over.

Thank you buddy,  I appreciate you even caring.  no good deed goes unpunished!

I surfed the thread a bit, and can follow instructions, is there any particular post(s) that are comprehensive?

Best,

Well this thread has maybe half a dozen differently problems and solutions with the single manifestation of Windows not booting or being visible. So it's not really one problem even though it seems to be.

Yours is mostly described from page 52 onward I think. It's a case of resizing the OS X partition with Disk Utility to create free space, and then resizing Windows from within Windows to use that free space. So you'll need to install and go through all of the testdisk stuff and find out where the true start and end sectors values are for the NTFS (resized) volume, and then use gdisk to fix the GPT so it has correct information, and then create a new hybrid MBR also with gdisk.

just trying to compile info here: though I am noting that the BOOTCAMP partition from testdisk seems to point to the first half (part 3.5) whereas the terminal gpt table showed just part 4.  so far I dont know what the MS Data at 270...... is.

solved my paritioning problem as follows:

1) On Mac 10.6.8, create the bootcamp parition and install windows XP

2) Parition the Mac parition into Mac parition and FAT partition

3) Windows won't start and gives the blue screen of death

4) Reinstall Windows XP and it will work side by side with the Mac, both have acces now to the FAT partition.

5) Upgrade Mac to 10.9. However, you will have to sucrifice the recovery partition to have Windows XP working with Mac 10.9

@Islam... One issue you will run into is, as Mavericks is upgraded, due to your unsupported layout, you can potentially run into re-installing XP for every OS X upgrade.