Bootcamp: intermittent bootable/unbootable

Question

Hi,Pardon me for posting this as I&#x27;m not a IT kind of person (clueless about MBR, GPT etc). I know this topic has been posted here numerous times, but I still cant seem to resolve the problem I&#x27;m facing. I would like to seek assistance, targeted at my situation.I&#x27;m encountering intermittent incidents where BootCamp becomes unbootable (i.e. it doesnt show up when I press Alt/Option upon booting. Only see OS X and Recovery). I read through some of the discussions and followed the steps. BootCamp would thereafter be bootable, and then suddenly become unbootable again after some time. Is it because there&#x27;s a gap between partitions somewhere? If so, I do not know how to resize it.Please kindly guide me on how to resolve the partition issues I&#x27;m having. If necessary, I can provide my email for you to touch base and perhaps help me out through Teamviewer. Just let me know. Thanks!Below is the current information of my system (now that Windows is unbootable again):I currently see the following partitions in Disk Utility:1) OS X (disk0s2)2) DATA (disk0s4)3) BOOTCAMP (disk0s5)sudo fdisk /dev/disk0Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 30515/255/63 [490234752 sectors]Signature: 0xAA55         Starting       Ending#: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]------------------------------------------------------------------------1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -  490234751] &lt;Unknown ID&gt;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   sudo gdisk /dev/disk0GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.0Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their partition table automatically reloaded!Partition table scan:  MBR: protective  BSD: not present  APM: not present  GPT: presentFound valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0gpt show: disk0: mediasize&#x3D;251000193024; sectorsize&#x3D;512; blocks&#x3D;490234752gpt show: disk0: PMBR at sector 0gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 490234751      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  195585936      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC  195995576    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC  197265112        296          197265408  116926464      4  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC  314191872     262144          314454016  175779840      5  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7  490233856        863          490234719         32         Sec GPT table  490234751          1         Sec GPT header

Loner T · Answer

What is the year/model of your Mac?

jac.mac · Answer

Mid 2012 (MacbookPro10,1)

Loner T · Answer

You should not offer Teamviewer access to a total stranger on the Internet, no matter how desperate you are. You need to be the eyes and ears and follow directions. This is for your own safety and the safety of the person you are inviting.Can you post the output of the following commands?diskutil listdiskutil cs listsudo dd if&#x3D;/dev/rdisk0s5 count&#x3D;1 2&gt;/dev/null | hexdump -CYou have a 128MB partition before disk0s5? Do you recall if your Windows installation was created using EFI boot or Bootcamp Assistant?

jac.mac · Answer

diskutil list/dev/disk0   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1   2:                  Apple_HFS OS X                    100.1 GB   disk0s2   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3   4:                  Apple_HFS DATA                    59.9 GB    disk0s4   5:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                90.0 GB    disk0s5diskutil cs listNo CoreStorage logical volume groups foundsudo dd if&#x3D;/dev/rdisk0s5 count&#x3D;1 2&gt;/dev/null | hexdump -C00000000  eb 52 90 4e 54 46 53 20  20 20 20 00 02 08 00 00  |.R.NTFS    .....|00000010  00 00 00 00 00 f8 00 00  3f 00 ff 00 00 30 be 12  |........?....0..|00000020  00 00 00 00 80 00 80 00  ff 2f 7a 0a 00 00 00 00  |........./z.....|00000030  00 00 0c 00 00 00 00 00  02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|00000040  f6 00 00 00 01 00 00 00  6e 0c 78 ae 33 78 ae d8  |........n.x.3x..|00000050  b9 9f ee 14 fa 33 c0 8e  d0 bc 00 7c fb 68 c0 07  |.....3.....|.h..|00000060  1f 1e 68 66 00 cb 88 16  0e 00 66 81 3e 03 00 4e  |..hf......f.&gt;..N|00000070  54 46 53 75 15 b4 41 bb  aa 55 cd 13 72 0c 81 fb  |TFSu..A..U..r...|00000080  55 aa 75 06 f7 c1 01 00  75 03 e9 dd 00 1e 83 ec  |U.u.....u.......|00000090  18 68 1a 00 b4 48 8a 16  0e 00 8b f4 16 1f cd 13  |.h...H..........|000000a0  9f 83 c4 18 9e 58 1f 72  e1 3b 06 0b 00 75 db a3  |.....X.r.;...u..|000000b0  0f 00 c1 2e 0f 00 04 1e  5a 33 db b9 00 20 2b c8  |........Z3... +.|000000c0  66 ff 06 11 00 03 16 0f  00 8e c2 ff 06 16 00 e8  |f...............|000000d0  4b 00 2b c8 77 ef b8 00  bb cd 1a 66 23 c0 75 2d  |K.+.w......f#.u-|000000e0  66 81 fb 54 43 50 41 75  24 81 f9 02 01 72 1e 16  |f..TCPAu$....r..|000000f0  68 07 bb 16 68 70 0e 16  68 09 00 66 53 66 53 66  |h...hp..h..fSfSf|00000100  55 16 16 16 68 b8 01 66  61 0e 07 cd 1a 33 c0 bf  |U...h..fa....3..|00000110  28 10 b9 d8 0f fc f3 aa  e9 5f 01 90 90 66 60 1e  |(........_...f&#x60;.|00000120  06 66 a1 11 00 66 03 06  1c 00 1e 66 68 00 00 00  |.f...f.....fh...|00000130  00 66 50 06 53 68 01 00  68 10 00 b4 42 8a 16 0e  |.fP.Sh..h...B...|00000140  00 16 1f 8b f4 cd 13 66  59 5b 5a 66 59 66 59 1f  |.......fY[ZfYfY.|00000150  0f 82 16 00 66 ff 06 11  00 03 16 0f 00 8e c2 ff  |....f...........|00000160  0e 16 00 75 bc 07 1f 66  61 c3 a0 f8 01 e8 09 00  |...u...fa.......|00000170  a0 fb 01 e8 03 00 f4 eb  fd b4 01 8b f0 ac 3c 00  |..............&lt;.|00000180  74 09 b4 0e bb 07 00 cd  10 eb f2 c3 0d 0a 41 20  |t.............A |00000190  64 69 73 6b 20 72 65 61  64 20 65 72 72 6f 72 20  |disk read error |000001a0  6f 63 63 75 72 72 65 64  00 0d 0a 42 4f 4f 54 4d  |occurred...BOOTM|000001b0  47 52 20 69 73 20 6d 69  73 73 69 6e 67 00 0d 0a  |GR is missing...|000001c0  42 4f 4f 54 4d 47 52 20  69 73 20 63 6f 6d 70 72  |BOOTMGR is compr|000001d0  65 73 73 65 64 00 0d 0a  50 72 65 73 73 20 43 74  |essed...Press Ct|000001e0  72 6c 2b 41 6c 74 2b 44  65 6c 20 74 6f 20 72 65  |rl+Alt+Del to re|000001f0  73 74 61 72 74 0d 0a 00  8c a9 be d6 00 00 55 aa  |start.........U.|00000200I took over the mbp from another person. I have no idea how the Windows installation was done. 😟

Loner T · Answer

My recommendation is to create a new Hybrid MBR using GPT Fdisk available from http://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/. Please post back when you have it installed.

jac.mac · Answer

I had installed it previously. Results of sudo gdisk /dev/disk0 and sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0 are in my first post.I have tried re-creating a new hybrid mbr using the steps I read in another discussion. I do get things back in order but after a while, the same thing (bootcamp doesn&#x27;t appear bootable when pressing option during boot up) happens again. is it because of the gap which I have no idea how to resize partitions?Thanks.

Loner T · Answer

Do you have any third-party NTFS software? On the next Windows boot, can you run msinfo32 and check the value of BIOS Mode? Here is an example.Your Gdisk does not have the output of the &#x27;p&#x27;(rint) command, but you do have the native GPT output which is sufficient.

jac.mac · Answer

I have Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X.How do i reboot into Windows when the conventional methods don&#x27;t work in the mbp&#x27;s current state (Windows partition doesnt show up when holding down option during mac start up, "startup disk" in system preferences doesnt show bootcamp)? Do i run through the steps to recreate the hybrid mbr, so that Bootcamp becomes bootable again? Only then can I reboot to run msinfo

Loner T · Answer

There is a race condition between Paragon and Apple NTFS driver to control the Bootcamp partition. When Apple NTFS wins, you will be able to boot into Windows, when Paragon wins, you will not be able to.The other issue you have is that you have a non-standard partition configuration for a single-disk Bootcamp Mac which uses the Hybrid MBR. MBRs are limited to 4 entries and a 2TB disk. By creating the DATA partition, you are over the limit. The standard MBR has a one-to-one mapping between GPT and MBR parts, which includes EFI and Recovery HD partitions. These two partitions are normally not visible to the end user, but can be seen in the output of diskutil list.

jac.mac · Answer

I&#x27;ve deleted the DATA partition. What do I do now to reclaim the space to put it under the OS X partition? I&#x27;m not able to just resize the OS X partition, even when I boot into the Recovery mode. Outputs of the various commands are below:sudo fdisk /dev/disk0Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 30515/255/63 [490234752 sectors]Signature: 0xAA55         Starting       Ending #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -     409639] &lt;Unknown ID&gt; 2: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -  195585936] HFS+         3: AB 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 195995576 -    1269536] Darwin Boot *4: 07 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 314454016 -  175779840] HPFS/QNX/AUXsudo gdisk /dev/disk0Disk /dev/disk0: 490234752 sectors, 233.8 GiBLogical sector size: 512 bytesDisk identifier (GUID): 95D82EA1-E4A1-4DF6-A7C6-E9CB69B86377Partition table holds up to 128 entriesFirst usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 490234718Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundariesTotal free space is 117189773 sectors (55.9 GiB)Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition   2          409640       195995575   93.3 GiB    AF00  OS X   3       195995576       197265111   619.9 MiB   AB00  Recovery HD   4       314454016       490233855   83.8 GiB    0700  BOOTCAMPdiskutil list/dev/disk0   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1   2:                  Apple_HFS OS X                    100.1 GB   disk0s2   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                90.0 GB    disk0s4sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0gpt show: disk0: mediasize&#x3D;251000193024; sectorsize&#x3D;512; blocks&#x3D;490234752gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 490234751      start       size  index  contents          0          1         MBR          1          1         Pri GPT header          2         32         Pri GPT table         34          6                  40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B     409640  195585936      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC  195995576    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC  197265112  117188904           314454016  175779840      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7  490233856        863           490234719         32         Sec GPT table  490234751          1         Sec GPT header

Loner T · Answer

My suggestion would to keep the Data partition, but use a custom Hybrid MBR. You will need to be very careful with Software Updates.There is no easy way to reclaim the disk space in the gap.

jac.mac · Answer

I was using a custom hybrid mbr. but i kept getting those issues where bootcamp windows wouldnt be bootable, or that my data partition is unable to mount. the latter has occurred twice, and again today. I&#x27;m loosing my data that i placed in the data partition each time it happens. the data partition cant be mounted in mac os nor in windows.

Loner T · Answer

What is the format of the Data partition? If you use Paragon to have NTFS format in Data, you will have this race condition. My recommendation is to use FAT or ExFAT for the Data partition.

jac.mac · Answer

i was using exFAT

jac.mac · Answer

do i now create a partition in Mac Disk Utility or in Windows Disk Management?