Made a mess of my partition scheme

Question

Made a mess of my partition scheme

I had just received my new late 2012 iMac, and transferred over all the information from my old iMac to the new one via Setup Assistant.

I went into Disk Utility to take a look at my Time Machine backup and noticed what seems to be a huge mess in the man hard drive.

http://i.imgur.com/MnIRH.png

I stupidly then attempted to erase the disk2s1 and the disk1s1 partitions, and then allocate that space back into the Macintosh HD, which didn't work (and now they are just empty volumes).

This is what I get in Terminal running the diskutil list command:

http://i.imgur.com/lXtEM.png

That being said, Find My iMac is now greyed out, and the Recovery HD (while bootable) doesn't seem to be recognized properly for iCloud and Filevault settings, etc.

Thank you very much for your help!

P.S. I also get "This disk doesn’t contain an EFI system partition. If you want to start up your computer with this disk or include it in a RAID set, back up your data and partition this disk." when trying to repair disk.

This applies to both “APPLE HDD ST3000DM001 Media” as well as “APPLE SSD SM128E Media”.

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), 3TB Fusion Drive

Posted on Dec 19, 2012 1:54 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Shootist007

Level 6

16,703 points

Dec 19, 2012 2:26 PM in response to iTunes can't import .txt?

You will need to boot the system from the Online/Internet Recovery system and Re-Partitoin that drive. If it is a Fusion drive you may need to break it up (or it is already broken).

To use the Online/Internet Recovery system at startup hold down the Command+Option+r keys until you see a Spinning Globe in the center of the screen. Have the system Wired to your internet router.

Reply

Answer 2

Dec 19, 2012 2:30 PM in response to Shootist007

I have tried this earlier through the local recovery HD, and the partition tab was still all greyed our through there. I think the two volumes I accidentally erased were probably indended for EFI updates, etc.

I'm not sure how to re-allocate them to their respective drives after having erased them.

Reply

Answer 3

Shootist007

Level 6

16,703 points

Dec 19, 2012 2:33 PM in response to iTunes can't import .txt?

The Local Recovery HD is on the Local drive. The Local drive is Messed Up.

You can Not Partition the Local drive while you are Booting the computer from the Local drive. You need and external source to boot from to partition the internal/Local drive.

Reply

Answer 4

Shootist007

Level 6

16,703 points

Dec 19, 2012 2:34 PM in response to iTunes can't import .txt?

You can not Re-Alocate anything. You need to Re-Partition and Reinstall OS X.

Reply

Answer 5

Dec 19, 2012 2:35 PM in response to Shootist007

Is there any way to re-partition it through the local disk? I do not have an external boot source for this.

Reply

Answer 6

Shootist007

Level 6

16,703 points

Dec 19, 2012 2:37 PM in response to iTunes can't import .txt?

You might be better off going to your local Apple store and have them handle it. Not sure but sometimes when Apple comes out with new system they have a Special Build of the current version of OS X that you as a user can not get to. This happened with the Retina models and the only way to reinstall OS X was to take the system to Apple.

Reply

Answer 7

Dec 19, 2012 2:38 PM in response to iTunes can't import .txt?

No. There is no way to repartition and reinstall from the corrupted local disk. You at this point absolutely require an external source.

Reply

Answer 8

Shootist007

Level 6

16,703 points

Dec 19, 2012 2:45 PM in response to iTunes can't import .txt?

Did you even bother to Read my post about the Online/Internet Recovery System?

And No you can not Re-Partition the drive While you are booting the computer from that same drive.

iTunes can\'t import .txt? wrote:

Is there any way to re-partition it through the local disk? I do not have an external boot source for this.

Reply

Answer 9

Dec 19, 2012 3:00 PM in response to Shootist007

I was assuming that it would yield the same result as a local recovery boot, but I will try this now. Sorry about that, I should've tried that beforehand. I'll let you know what happens.

Thanks again for your help, by the way!

Reply

Answer 10

Shootist007

Level 6

16,703 points

Dec 19, 2012 3:30 PM in response to iTunes can't import .txt?

Good Luck. And let us know.

Reply

Answer 11

Dec 19, 2012 4:01 PM in response to Shootist007

I tried going into internet recovery mode, but it didn't seem to be working likely due to the bad scheme.

I think I'm going to back up from scratch to Time Machine, and try to fix up what I can through the local recovery HD and download/re-install Mountain Lion through it as well.

It's going to be a lengthly process, and it'll take hours just to finish backing up, but I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Reply

Answer 12

Shootist007

Level 6

16,703 points

Dec 19, 2012 4:07 PM in response to iTunes can't import .txt?

The Scheme of your hjard drive has nothing to do with it. Internet/Online recoivery Boots the computer from Over the Internet.

Is the system connected to your internet router with an Ethernet cable? If not please connect it then restart/Start the system and hold down the Command+Option+r keys until you see a Spinning Globe in the center of the screen. You Hold the keys down until you see that globe. Do not let them up until you see the globe.

Reply

Answer 13

Dec 19, 2012 10:08 PM in response to Shootist007

Hello again!

I finally finished backing up everything through Time Machine and gave the Internet recovery mode another go, and it worked =] I apologize for my ignorance earlier.

I then tried installing fresh, but i got an error that the disk wasnt compatible, so I tried formatting all the partitions in the logical volume group, but that has gotten me nowhere so far as all of the partitioning options are greyed out.

I'm not sure what I can do from here to make the drive compatible. Fusion drive is confusing =[

Reply

Answer 14

Shootist007

Level 6

16,703 points

Dec 20, 2012 2:45 AM in response to iTunes can't import .txt?

You Broke the Fusion drive, which is what I stated in an earlier post. There is only one thing to do and that is to completely break up the Fusion driver into two completely separate drives, SSD and Mechanical Hard drive, then try to Re-Create it.

If you do a Google search there are articles on breaking up fusion and re-creating it. You will need to follow one of those to get it back. Or use it as two independent drives/partitions.

Then Do NOT try to Partition it again. A Fusion Drive is a Combination of two physical drives and Can NOT be partitioned any other way then One Large, Combined, Drive/volume.

Or you can leave them as 2 separate drives/volumes and then you can partition either any way you want.

Reply