boxerpug

Q: Removed Boot Camp but cannot recover partition space

I removed Boot Camp from my MacBook Pro today and now am unable to reclaim the partition space (60 Gb) that was allocated to it. I was at 3% available space on the MBP partition.

 

I had originally been trying to reallocate the space using Camptune, but was getting an error message:

 

Mac OS X filesystem verification failed. Please, repair MAC OS X volume and try again.

 

I tried repairing the disk, but was not successful during several attempts earlier in the week.

 

Today, after doing some research here, I tried using Bootcamp Assistant, following advice from Altier499 and Niel (Open the Boot Camp Assistant in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder and return the drive to a single partition setup.) I got the following message:

 

Your disk could not be restored to a single partition. An error occurred while restoring the disk to a single partion.

 

When I clicked <OK> and then <Go back>, I got the following message:

 

The startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned. You must have at least 28 Gb of free space available.

 

I deleted some files (got to 30 Gb free space) and after doing some research here, attempted a couple of other things. And now I must confess I'm not sure exactly what steps I took. Now, I'm left with:

  1. No Boot Camp showing in the MacBook Pro drives list (only Network, and Macintosh HD).
  2. Only 690 Gb of storage on my 750 Gb HD (of which only 31 Gb are still free)
  3. No ability to use Boot Camp Assistance to remove Boot Camp (I guess I did that somehow somewhere along the line), just to install Windows.
  4. No ability to access Camp Tune (I assume because I no longer have Boot Camp on the HD).

 

So… what do I do from here? This whole exercise was to restore the HD to a single partition so I would have all the space available for my Mac programs and files since I have a Toshiba laptop for the programs I need that aren't available on the Mac platform.

 

I was hoping not to have to wipe everything clean and restore everything. If I have to go that route, could someone point me to some instructions? I have Time Machine backups, the latest from last night, before I started this fiasco and comedy of errors.

 

Thanks so much for any help you can offer!

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Dec 20, 2013 10:59 PM

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Q: Removed Boot Camp but cannot recover partition space

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  • by mende1,

    mende1 mende1 Dec 20, 2013 11:03 PM in response to boxerpug
    Level 10 (93,324 points)
    Desktops
    Dec 20, 2013 11:03 PM in response to boxerpug

    It looks like Boot Camp Assistant failed resizing the OS X partition, and that could damage the OS X filesystem.

     

    This is a "common" problem and it can be fixed without wiping your hard drive. You just need to start up in OS X Recovery (hold Command and R keys while your Mac is starting up). After starting into OS X Recovery, open Disk Utility in the OS X Utilities window.

     

    Now, choose your OS X partition in the sidebar (if you have not changed anything, it shows up as "Macintosh HD") and press "Repair Disk". Let the process finish.

     

    Now your OS X filesystem should be repaired, so what you have to do is to resize your OS X partition to use all the hard disk space. To do it, follow these steps > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU4.html

     

    When you have finished, close Disk Utility and go to  > Restart

  • by boxerpug,

    boxerpug boxerpug Dec 21, 2013 1:09 PM in response to mende1
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Dec 21, 2013 1:09 PM in response to mende1

    Thanks for responding so quickly to this, mende1. I've spent the last several hours trying to resolve the issue. I've followed both your instructions and those at the link you provide, but still no luck.

     

    When I try to increase the partition, I get the message:

     

    • Partition failed. Partition failed with the error: Couldn't unmount disk."

     

    I'm wondering if I had encrypted the Boot Camp partition. I don't remember having done this, but it was some time ago, so perhaps I did. Although I'm pretty sure that my disk is journaled, but just in case it isn't, I also tried this suggestion at the link you sent:

     

    • You cannot resize a partition that isn't journalled.  To turn it on, select the partition and click the Enable Journaling icon in the toolbar, or select File > Enable Journaling from the menubar.

     

    This option was greyed out, so I could not enable the journaling.

     

    I see where it says "If you're familiar with UNIX and Terminal, you may be able to do this with the diskutil command." Having used DOS way back when, I'm not averse to trying Terminal. I guess though, I'm not sure what to do once I've typed in "diskutil" and I'm a bit reluctant to get caught up in commands I can't back out of.

     

    Any other suggestions? Or am I going to have to bite the bullet, reformat the disk, and attempt a recovery from Time Machine? I did this with this particular drive about a year or so ago, when I replaced the smaller drive that came with my MBP. It was bradn new and the time, but haven't done it with a disk with data on it.

     

    Thanks once again.

  • by ti9er,

    ti9er ti9er May 9, 2014 7:05 AM in response to boxerpug
    Level 1 (75 points)
    May 9, 2014 7:05 AM in response to boxerpug

    Although this reply is a little late, I had the same issue recently. Using disk utility, I deleted the parition once occuipied with Bootcamp and resized the whole partition by dragging the resize control. I hope this helps others facing similar problems. 

    resize.png

  • by jig uk,

    jig uk jig uk Jun 26, 2014 2:36 AM in response to ti9er
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Jun 26, 2014 2:36 AM in response to ti9er

    this has not worked for me and i still have the problem..

    mavericks 10.9.1

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Jun 26, 2014 2:39 AM in response to jig uk
    Level 9 (50,786 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 26, 2014 2:39 AM in response to jig uk

    Did you start in Recovery mode? and why is your copy of Mavericks 2 versions out of date

  • by jig uk,

    jig uk jig uk Jun 26, 2014 2:41 AM in response to Csound1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Jun 26, 2014 2:41 AM in response to Csound1

    sorry my bad 10.9.3

    i did start in recovery mode (command R?) but it did not fix the issue

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Jun 26, 2014 2:44 AM in response to jig uk
    Level 9 (50,786 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 26, 2014 2:44 AM in response to jig uk

    Then you will need to erase the disk and reinstall from scratch so you will need to make a backup before you start.

  • by rnr0116,

    rnr0116 rnr0116 Oct 17, 2014 12:11 PM in response to boxerpug
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 17, 2014 12:11 PM in response to boxerpug

    I ran into a similar issue while using a 2nd partition to beta test OSX Yosemite. After deleting the partition, I was unable to resize the primary startup partition to occupy all the free space.

    After hours of trying different methods, I discovered my problem. FileVault was turned on for my primary partition. This prevented DiskUtility from re-sizing and making new partitions.

    I disabled it in System Preferences>Security & Privacy>FileVault

    Once turned off, I rebooted. Then tried to re-size my partition. The partition was able to be re-sized without any issues. I am back to utilizing all the space on my hard drive.


    Hope this helps for anyone else who may be running into the same problems and don't want to format their drive and start from scratch.    

  • by efwalter,

    efwalter efwalter Nov 4, 2014 11:46 AM in response to rnr0116
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 4, 2014 11:46 AM in response to rnr0116

    Seems a good solution. I am turning off the fire vault tight now

  • by hankolerd,

    hankolerd hankolerd Nov 9, 2014 3:13 PM in response to rnr0116
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 9, 2014 3:13 PM in response to rnr0116

    Going to try turning off File Vault as well...

  • by d4ndam4n,

    d4ndam4n d4ndam4n Dec 26, 2014 1:07 AM in response to boxerpug
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 26, 2014 1:07 AM in response to boxerpug

    Does anyone found a solution yet, after turning off FileVault?

     

    I'm using Snow Leopard, but I think even Lion, Mountain or Yosemite also will having such issue. When I restart in single user mode and entered /sbin/fsck/ -fy command to check and fix the errors, after reboot and verify disk again, Disk Utilities detected my partition needs to be repaired and require Mac OS X disc to fix the error. The problem is I do not have, and I believe all the latest Mac OS X do not come with the installation disk. So, how do i boot from the disc to repair partition error?

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Dec 26, 2014 9:52 AM in response to d4ndam4n
    Level 7 (24,202 points)
    Safari
    Dec 26, 2014 9:52 AM in response to d4ndam4n

    For OSX versions distributed via DVD, you need the original DVD. If you Mac supports Internet Recovery (Command+Opt+R - OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support), you can backup your internal disk via Time Machine, erase it in the Recovery Console and restore it to get your disk space back.

     

    The output of sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0 command in OSX Terminal can show you the exact partition layout. Disk Utility Debug menu can also do that.

     

    Please also see Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery - Apple Support.

  • by d4ndam4n,

    d4ndam4n d4ndam4n Dec 27, 2014 2:12 AM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 27, 2014 2:12 AM in response to Loner T

    What you suggest is, without the original DVD and my Mac OS is not supports Internet Recovery, there isn't anything I can do to fix just the partition error? Does Apple really need us to roll back original installation to solve this little bug? I wish some one can find us a solid yet simple solution.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Dec 27, 2014 9:59 PM in response to d4ndam4n
    Level 7 (24,202 points)
    Safari
    Dec 27, 2014 9:59 PM in response to d4ndam4n

    If you can post the output of the gpt command, there is a command-line diskutil tool, that can be used, without resorting to Internet Recovery. Can you please post the exact year/model of your Mac?

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