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Level 1

4 points

"Free Space" Partition disaster on new Mountain Lion iMac

"Help"

I just received a new 27 inch iMac as a replacement for my old machine, which apparently disntegrated during warranty. In setting it up, I tried to create a small partition on the hard drive to run a Linux distro for testing purposes. It seems that with the non-system disc versions of the OS this has become more complex, and what I recall as an easy process turned into a disaster where 2 of the 3 TBs on the machine are locked out as "free space". I humbly retreat from any thoughts of working with partitions on this machine - I just want to clean it up and get it to a one-partition state for music and graphic design production. I have a backup. Here is a snapshot of this nightmare:

I also note that at the top level, where I am used to seeing "Hitachi" (or whomever makes the hard drive) it says Macintosh HD. That can't be right?

Here is a diskutil list report:

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *3.0 TB disk0

1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage 1.3 TB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_HFS Hard Drive *1.3 TB disk1

I want to get rid of disk1, I guess, and make disk0 correspond to the 3.0 TB physical volume, not a "Logical Volume Family".

Name: Macintosh HD

Size: 1255995588608 B (1.3 TB)

Free Space: 0 B (0 B)

+-< Physical Volume 27B24C33-92E7-4DC1-99B0-165BF47601AE

| ----------------------------------------------------

| Index: 0

| Disk: disk0s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 1255995588608 B (1.3 TB)

+-> Logical Volume Family 4FDA0589-59C5-4C94-AFC1-F7E82B21A450

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

Encryption Status: Unlocked

Encryption Type: None

Conversion Status: NoConversion

Conversion Direction: -none-

Has Encrypted Extents: No

Fully Secure: No

Passphrase Required: No

+-> Logical Volume 74E89BB3-AEBF-477C-B7B0-47EE71BC5BB0

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

Disk: disk1

Status: Online

Size (Total): 1255676813312 B (1.3 TB)

Size (Converted): -none-

Revertible: No

LV Name: Hard Drive

Volume Name: Hard Drive

Content Hint: Apple_HFS

Any thoughts? restarting to Command-R seems like it would not address the partition problem at all. I suppose I could put it in target mode and use my laptop to wipe it, but I'm not sure that would address the partitions either. I am completely comfortable with removing the built-in system recovery area if necessary, as I made a system mount on a USB stick.

Posted on Jan 31, 2013 9:41 AM

32 replies

blueap06

Level 1

0 points

Oct 9, 2013 9:12 PM in response to Talabard

I had this problom too. the way that i solved it was to put the computer "bad" into target disc mode, (hold "T" when restarting) and get another computer "good" (mid 2009 macbook pro) or must be able to boot 10.6 disc. conect both computers via firewire, put the disc in computer "good", restart, boot from 10.6 instal DVD (hold option key on restart) open disk utility and it will let you erase the computer "bad" drive.

rafmudaf

Level 1

9 points

Jan 28, 2014 6:40 AM in response to Talabard

I had a similar issue, so for anyone doing a web search:

not able to delete linux swap partition using disk utility in Mac OS X

note: i do not have LVG. this is on a late 2012 mac mini

my linux swap partition was not mountable (grayed out in the disk utility menu) and i had a 500 GB hdd with 200 GB for Mac OS, 16 GB for Ubuntu, and the rest was free space. I could not access the free space as it was part of the partition with linux swap. I added debug option to disk utility (look that up, I'm not sure if it helped at all). Then with the linux swap partition selected, i went to the 'erase' tab and erased it. That made everything but Mac OS free space. Then with the high HDD selected, the disk not the volumes on it, I was able to resize Macintosh HD in the Partition tab.

I hope this helps

Thanks to all the previous posters for your help

"Free Space" Partition disaster on new Mountain Lion iMac