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Level 1

5 points

Old Bootcamp partition not formatting or useable

Hey everyone,

I am having a issue I can't seem to resolve.

I have deleted the NTFS or Bootcamp partition through Disk Utilities, without knowing that I couldn't do that, so now I'm stuck with a useless partition. I can not format it, resize it, or use the space.

I've been trying for almost two days now, trying to figure out how to get this work but I can't, it's driving me crazy haha.

Here's my setup; I have a 1 TB external USB harddisk, with a Mac partition, and a (former) NTFS or MS DOS partition on it, I don't know which one of them it is, I presume the latter.

I can't do anything with it, I've tried going in the recovery mode (although it seemed useless because everything is on a external harddrive), I've tried reformatting the Bootcamp partition, making a new partition out of the space I have left on the Mac partition, but nothing worked.

My goal here is, to make the Mac partition smaller, and put a larger (than before) new NTSF/MS DOS partition next to it. The Mac partition isn't full btw.

I also don't run my Macbook from this drive, it's just a external drive I use for Time Machine, and other stuff I need to back up seperately.

I hope someone could help !

This is what I see after "diskutil cs list"

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)

+-- Logical Volume Group 193C7021-1DE4-46F6-9672-08221C735CF8

=========================================================

Name: JEAN P DISK HDD

Status: Online

Size: 893679972352 B (893.7 GB)

Free Space: 269634301952 B (269.6 GB)

+-< Physical Volume 9890496F-89F0-4C3D-BBD0-6E7473548E2F

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

| Index: 0

| Disk: disk1s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 893679972352 B (893.7 GB)

+-> Logical Volume Family CC6FC735-0DB8-4541-8406-798855B633A9

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

Encryption Status: Unlocked

Encryption Type: None

Conversion Status: NoConversion

Conversion Direction: -none-

Has Encrypted Extents: No

Fully Secure: No

Passphrase Required: No

+-> Logical Volume 37C9F6EC-412D-4792-B05A-7216BD0F13A0

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

Disk: disk2

Status: Online

Size (Total): 623710121984 B (623.7 GB)

Conversion Progress: -none-

Revertible: No

LV Name: JEAN P DISK HDD

Volume Name: JEAN P DISK HDD

Content Hint: Apple_HFSX

Jean-P-Macbook:~ macbook$

If that's any help haha. 🙂

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), USB Drive Buffalo Ministation 1TB

Posted on Apr 15, 2015 12:36 PM

43 replies

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Apr 19, 2015 10:52 AM in response to DeejayJeanP

You can reduce the CS volume and create Free Space. Format the aggregated Free Space as NTFS.

DeejayJeanP Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 19, 2015 11:08 AM in response to Loner T

I can't do that, it won't let me.. If I choose to partition the free space as NTFS, nothing happens when I click "Apply". it won't partition or format it.

Also, I can't shrink the other volume, there is no sort of "slider" to make the volume smaller or bigger.

But, what you explained is actually what I would like to do, but if that becomes too much of a hassle, taking the free space and making that a NTFS volume is fine with me too.

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Apr 19, 2015 1:45 PM in response to DeejayJeanP

Reduce the current CS volume and create free space. The long strings come from your diskutil cs output.

The 600g is the final size of the CS volume. Free Space created will be 893g - 600g = 293g. You already have 298g Free space. This will give you 293g + 298g total free space. Choose a value you need instead of 600g using the same calculations on what you want the NTFS volume to be.

diskutil cs resizeStack 37C9F6EC-412D-4792-B05A-7216BD0F13A0 9890496F-89F0-4C3D-BBD0-6E7473548E2F 600g free MoreFree 0g

The is the help for that specific command.

diskutil cs resizestack

Usage: diskutil coreStorage resizeStack

lvUUID|MountPoint|DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode [pvUUID] size

[part1Format part1Name part1Size part2Format part2Name part2Size

part3Format part3Name part3Size ...]

Resize both a logical volume and one of its underlying physical volumes in a

single operation. A single physical volume is always chosen for the underlying

shrink or grow, even if the logical volume's logical volume group is backed by

more than one physical volume. If you do not specify a particular physical

volume, then one is chosen for you. Note that if this is a grow operation,

this verb is limited by the physical volume's partition's room to grow.

Specifying zero as the size asks for an "automatic" grow-to-fill operation.

If this is a shrink operation, you can optionally request that new partitions

be created in the newly-formed free space gap in the partition map.

Again, note that this only resizes one of the underlying physical volumes; if

you need more sophistication in managing your topology, you should use the

separate physical and logical volume resize verbs.

Example: diskutil coreStorage resizeStack

11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555 10g JHFS+ New 1g

Please post the output of

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk1

sudo fdisk /dev/disk1

after this command completes. You may want to post the screen from Terminal containing the command and its output, which will make it easier.

DeejayJeanP Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 19, 2015 11:47 AM in response to Loner T

Allright, I did as you said, I changed the 600G to 250 first, but I got an error saying it had failed, with an error telling me to try reducing the size. I then tried 200G, but that gave me the same error.

I have copied everything so you can see it. 🙂

First try:

diskutil cs resizeStack 37C9F6EC-412D-4792-B05A-7216BD0F13A0 9890496F-89F0-4C3D-BBD0-6E7473548E2F 250g free MoreFree 0g

The Core Storage Logical Volume UUID is 37C9F6EC-412D-4792-B05A-7216BD0F13A0

Started CoreStorage operation

Checking prerequisites for resizing Logical-Physical volume stack

Shrinking Logical-Physical volume stack

Verifying file system

Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume

Detected a case-sensitive volume

Checking extents overflow file

Checking catalog file

Checking multi-linked files

Checking catalog hierarchy

Checking extended attributes file

Checking multi-linked directories

Checking volume bitmap

Checking volume information

The volume JEAN P DISK HDD appears to be OK

File system check exit code is 0

Shrinking file system

Error: -69787: The partition cannot be resized; try reducing the amount of change in the size of the partition

*Second try:

Jean-P-Macbook:~ macbook$ diskutil cs resizeStack 37C9F6EC-412D-4792-B05A-7216BD0F13A0 9890496F-89F0-4C3D-BBD0-6E7473548E2F 200g free MoreFree 0g

The Core Storage Logical Volume UUID is 37C9F6EC-412D-4792-B05A-7216BD0F13A0

Started CoreStorage operation

Checking prerequisites for resizing Logical-Physical volume stack

Shrinking Logical-Physical volume stack

Verifying file system

Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume

Detected a case-sensitive volume

Checking extents overflow file

Checking catalog file

Checking multi-linked files

Checking catalog hierarchy

Checking extended attributes file

Checking multi-linked directories

Checking volume bitmap

Checking volume information

The volume JEAN P DISK HDD appears to be OK

File system check exit code is 0

Shrinking file system

Error: -69787: The partition cannot be resized; try reducing the amount of change in the size of the partition

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Apr 19, 2015 1:45 PM in response to DeejayJeanP

The 600g is the final size of the CS volume. Free Space created will be 893g - 600g = 293g. You already have 298g Free space. This will give you 293g + 298g total free space. Choose a value you need instead of 600g using the same calculations on what you want the NTFS volume to be.

When you checked, the data inside the volume was already at 551g.

Current size = 893g

New Size = 600g (this must be more than the size of the data inside the volume).

Space freed up is = 893g - 600g = 293g

DeejayJeanP Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 19, 2015 1:00 PM in response to Loner T

Ahh ! I think I missunderstood you, my bad haha.

I did, everything got split this is the result of

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk1

Password:

gpt show: /dev/disk1: mediasize=1000204886016; sectorsize=512; blocks=1953525168

gpt show: /dev/disk1: PMBR at sector 0

gpt show: /dev/disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: /dev/disk1: Sec GPT at sector 1953525167

start size index contents

0 1 PMBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 1173203072 2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1173612712 262128 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1173874840 779650295

1953525135 32 Sec GPT table

1953525167 1 Sec GPT header

* And

sudo fdisk /dev/disk1

Disk: /dev/disk1 geometry: 121601/255/63 [1953525168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

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

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 1953525167] <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 did see an error at the end of it splitting volumes, but they ended up being split anyway. This was the error :

Error: -69822: Couldn't rediscover disk after operation

DeejayJeanP Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 19, 2015 1:17 PM in response to Loner T

I still can't format or partition the free space though, it will start for one second and then it'll just stop, and do nothing.. Very annoying !

DeejayJeanP Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 19, 2015 1:51 PM in response to Loner T

Sorry for all the extra posts, but I think I have fixed it ! I just ran a format of that partition, the one with all the free space, in Bootcamp, using Windows 7, and it made a partition in seconds !

I would like to thank you for all your help, I'm gonna invest alot of time into understanding and learning how things work through Terminal, since this helped alot with this problem. I don't know if you work for Apple, but they should hire you, I saw you helped alot of other people too, that's nice !

Anyway, thanks again for all your help !

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Apr 19, 2015 2:27 PM in response to DeejayJeanP

OS X cannot create/format a partition which is NTFS. BC/Windows needs to format it. The prerequisite is that it should be either Free Space, FAT or exFAT. Glad to see it working. 😎

DeejayJeanP Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 19, 2015 2:31 PM in response to Loner T

Ahh okay ! Maybe I thought for some reason that I could do it in Mac Os, because I thought I had done it before, years ago. Also, I couldn't make a Mac partition neither, but it worked out in the end 😀