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Unable to boot OSX

So it all started when I tried to create an additional partition for Windows Server on Windows.

To free up some space I've used the disk utility app on OSX, then booted to windows(everything was working fine by then) and used the EaseUs Partition Manager to create an NTFS partition.

It all "succeeded" and my MacBook happily restarted letting EaseUs work on the free space partitioning it.


Putting aside the fact that the installation had some errors(not specified by the program) after I restarted the system again in a hope to get on the OSX, I have discovered that the only thing showing up (after pressing the option key at startup) is the Windows partition. I can still see all files from OSX since the partition is visible while I'm on Windows, it just doesn't seem to be bootable anymore.


Any suggestions on how can I fix it?

MacBook

Posted on Jan 24, 2013 12:23 PM

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17 replies

Jan 24, 2013 3:33 PM in response to Rogonx

First, warning. Do not use any disk repair utility, 99% of them will make your situation worse. There are only a handful that have any chance of fixing this, only one of them runs on Windows as far as I know.


Second, figure out if you need a backup. Since you don't already have a backup, in my opinion you don't value your data at all, therefore the easiest thing to do is to boot from the OS X DVD, repartition with 1 partition (in the Partition tab, change Current to 1 Partition), reinstall OS X, update it, Boot Camp Assistant to split your disk for Windows (or switch tactics and start using a VM which is much safer), install Windows. Done.


However, if for some inexplicable reason the data is important yet not important enough to already have a backup; you should take the opportunity to backup now. Go out and buy an external USB drive at least as big as your current hard drive. You can use Windows Backup and Restore, comes with Windows, to backup the Windows stuff if need be. If so, while maybe not strictly necessary (I've never used Backup and Restore) I would have Windows partition this new disk into two partitions: one for Windows Backup and Restore, one for copying data files from OS X. So you need to partition accordingly (i.e. roughly the same split as OS X and Windows are now), format both partitions as NTFS. Yes, if you copy OS X programs over to NTFS they may no longer work, so I would just copy over user data, like your home folder. Later you may have permissions problems, but that can be fixed after the fact, the most important thing is to have the files.


To actually fix the problem, is a.) risky and b.) non-trivial. So no matter what, you need a backup if you care about the data. So if you're not willing to go buy an external USB drive, it means you don't care about the data, and I don't have to spend time describing how to fix the problem. It will actually be quite tedious, the only tool I know that fixes this problem correctly, robustly, with the least difficulty and risk, is GPT fdisk. And it's a command line only tool. It's possible to fix this problem with Apple's tools on the OS X DVD, but that's a lot more difficult to describe because we'd have to use two different tools separately and more than once, to complete the fix, where gdisk can probably fix it in one whack. But again, if you won't make a backup, then the data isn't important. And you should just start from scratch. Easy as pie.

Jan 24, 2013 3:39 PM in response to Christopher Murphy

A less space efficient, but a much more solid backup in this case, would be to use dd to block copy the OS X and Windows partitions, each to a file, stored on the new USB drive you're going to acquire. That sector copy creates an ISO file that can be used to exactly restore each OS (you can write the file back to a partition to restore, also using dd). I think dd comes on the OS X install DVD and works in Terminal, but I need to check that.

Unable to boot OSX

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