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"We couldn't create a new partition or locate an existing one. Form more information, see setup log files"

Ok so back in August 2014 I succuesfully used bootcamp to install Windows 10 Tech preview. It worked great until March of this year when Windows issued an update (Which I had no control over). After this update the R9 4GB graphics card driver stopped working. I contacted Apple/AMD/Microsoft but was unable to fix this problem.

So, I uninstalled Windows 10 through bootcamp and restored the drive to a single partition. I purchased windows 8.1 and downloaded Windows Enterprise edition (as this comes as an ISO file) and started the process again with Bootcamp. Everything works great until I get to the installation of windows.

I did the same as last time (formatted the Bootcamp partition) and tried to continue the installation. I now get the following message:

I have tried a complete reinstall of the system twice (back to factory settings) but still the same issue. I have also tried using Windows 10 Tech preview but still the same issue. (I only have my remote drive with the ISO file connected to the mac and have tried with a USB stick)

Any ideas would be much appreciated! Thanks

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014), iOS 8.3, Core I7 - 16GB RAM - AMD R9 M295X

Posted on Apr 30, 2015 2:58 AM

Best reply

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Posted on Apr 30, 2015 6:25 AM

You have two separate issues...

1. There is no official Apple support for Enterprise versions, From System requirements to install Windows on your Mac via Boot Camp - Apple Support,

Supported versions of Windows
These are the supported versions of Windows(authentic, single, full-installation). Check the tables below to see which of these versions will work with your Mac.

Windows XP: Home Edition or Professional with Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3 (Boot Camp 3)
Windows Vista: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate, Service Pack 1 or later (Boot Camp 3)
Windows 7: Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate (Boot Camp 4 or 5.1)
Windows 8: Windows 8 or 8.1, Windows 8 or 8.1 Pro (Boot Camp 5.1 only)

2. You can use a DVD and create an ISO, if required. Please see How to install Windows using Boot Camp - Apple Support and Boot Camp: Creating an ISO image from a Windows installation DVD - Apple Support.

3. The iMac5K is a UEFI-compliant Mac, so it supports two different methods of installing Windows (Legacy BIOS and EFI). Your disk partitioning is not correct, which may be due to BC Assistant failure. The error message indicates that EFI boot was attempted which behaves differently than BIOS method.

4. Can you post the output of the following Terminal commands?

diskutil list

diskutil cs list

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

The "sudo" commands will prompt for your password, and it will not be echoed back. You may also see a warning about improper use of "sudo" and potential data loss due to "abuse" of the command.

View in context

53 replies

May 1, 2015 6:58 AM in response to Loner T

Jeremys-iMac:~ jeremygaster$ diskutil cs list

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)

+-- Logical Volume Group 5BEBA89D-FBF8-45AF-99CF-DFB82BC6B9E8

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

Name: Internal Drive

Status: Online

Size: 755855368192 B (755.9 GB)

Free Space: 98304 B (98.3 KB)

+-< Physical Volume 2EF54FBF-26BB-4D56-A84E-947205800865

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

| Index: 0

| Disk: disk0s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 120988852224 B (121.0 GB)

+-< Physical Volume B66237C5-F9ED-454C-9AFB-90553B0D0E0A

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

| Index: 1

| Disk: disk1s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 634866515968 B (634.9 GB)

+-> Logical Volume Family A91C5378-D285-434D-B33B-5F1E0CC64C62

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

Encryption Status: Unlocked

Encryption Type: None

Conversion Status: NoConversion

Conversion Direction: -none-

Has Encrypted Extents: No

Fully Secure: No

Passphrase Required: No

+-> Logical Volume E693210D-5893-4CC0-B3FF-18B5A92179CB

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

Disk: disk2

Status: Online

Size (Total): 750000013312 B (750.0 GB)

Conversion Progress: -none-

Revertible: No

LV Name: Macintosh HD

Volume Name: Macintosh HD

Content Hint: Apple_HFS

Jeremys-iMac:~ jeremygaster$ 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 1239973664 2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1240383304 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1241652840 711872295

1953525135 32 Sec GPT table

1953525167 1 Sec GPT header

Jeremys-iMac:~ jeremygaster$ 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

Jeremys-iMac:~ jeremygaster$

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

May 1, 2015 3:51 PM in response to Jeremy@Creative

The reason diskutil reported an error is because the request was to make it Free Space. You should now be able run the Windows installer on USB by powering-up and holding the Alt key. Please use EFI Boot, not Windows.

May 2, 2015 4:54 AM in response to Loner T

OK, so I attempted to install windows on the partition we created before on EFI from the remote drive initial created by BootCamp. Normally I would get the initial error message but it did start to install windows. Eureka! or so I though. I spoke to soon. I got an error message from windows about 1 minute into the instalation saying 'windows could not be installed on this partition'. So back to square one.

Im afraid I did reeboot and attempt to format the partition in EFI so Ive added a few extra partitions;

So if you could advise on how I can remove those that would be great. Also, as we shrunk the drive, I now obviously only have 750Gb allocated to IOS.

If you have any other suggestions about the BootCamp issue that would be great. If not, could you advise how to unshrink the drive so I have full storage availability.

Thanks for you continued help, much appreciated.

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

May 2, 2015 5:15 AM in response to Jeremy@Creative

Can you post the output of sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk1 ?

May 2, 2015 5:26 AM in response to Loner T

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 1239973664 2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1240383304 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1241652840 408

1241653248 614400 4 GPT part - DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC

1242267648 204800

1242472448 262144 5 GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE

1242734592 614400 6 GPT part - DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC

1243348992 204800

1243553792 709969920 7 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

1953523712 1423

1953525135 32 Sec GPT table

1953525167 1 Sec GPT header

gpt show: unable to open device '?': No such file or directory

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

May 2, 2015 5:51 AM in response to Jeremy@Creative

Just for confirmation, can you also post diskutil list?

May 2, 2015 5:56 AM in response to Loner T

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *121.3 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage 121.0 GB disk0s2

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk1

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage 634.9 GB disk1s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk1s3

4: DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC 314.6 MB disk1s4

5: Microsoft Reserved 134.2 MB disk1s5

6: DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC 314.6 MB disk1s6

7: Microsoft Basic Data 363.5 GB disk1s7

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD *750.0 GB disk2

Logical Volume on disk0s2, disk1s2

E693210D-5893-4CC0-B3FF-18B5A92179CB

Unencrypted Fusion Drive

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

May 2, 2015 6:05 AM in response to Jeremy@Creative

Every Installation attempt is creating a new Windows RE partition (the long DE string entry).

Please ensure you have a backup of OS X before you execute these commands. These will coalesce disk1s4 through disk1s7 into a single JHFS+ partition. The second command reformats it to free space, which will allow you to try the EFI installation. If you want to try the legacy BIOS installation, a Hybrid MBR can also be created using this part.

diskutil mergePartitions disk1s4 disk1s7

diskutil eraseVolume free Untitled2 disk1s4

This is the help entry/man page for the command.

diskutil mergePartitions

Usage: diskutil mergePartitions [force] format name

DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode

Merge two or more pre-existing partitions into one. The first disk parameter

is the starting partition; the second disk parameter is the ending partition;

this given range of two or more partitions will be merged into one.

All partitions in the range, except for the first one, must be unmountable.

All data on merged partitions other than the first will be lost; data on the

first partition will be lost as well if the "force" argument is given.

If "force" is not given, and the first partition has a resizable file system

(e.g. JHFS+), it will be grown in a data-preserving manner, even if a different

file system is specified (in fact, your file system and volume name parameters

are both ignored in this case). If "force" is not given, and the first

partition is not resizable, you will be prompted if you want to erase.

If "force" is given, the first partition is always formatted. You should

do this if you wish to reformat to a new file system type.

Merged partitions are required to be ordered sequentially on disk.

See diskutil list for the actual on-disk ordering; BSD slice identifiers

may in certain circumstances not always be in numerical order but the

top-to-bottom order given by diskutil list is always the on-disk order.

Ownership of the affected disk is required.

diskutil erasevolume

Usage: diskutil eraseVolume format name MountPoint|DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode

Completely erase a disk (partition or whole), laying down a new file system

volume. Ownership of the affected disk is required. Format is the specific

file system personality name (or alias) you want to erase it as (JHFS+, etc.).

Name is the (new) volume name (subject to file system naming restrictions), or

can be specified as %noformat% to skip initialization (to skip newfs). You

cannot erase the boot volume.

Example: diskutil eraseVolume JHFS+ UntitledHFS /Volumes/SomeDisk

Example: diskutil mergePartitions JHFS+ NewName disk3s4 disk3s7

This example will merge all partitions *BETWEEN* disk3s4 and disk3s7,

preserving data on disk3s4 but destroying data on disk3s5, disk3s6,

disk3s7 and any invisible free space partitions between those disks;

disk3s4 will be grown to cover the full space if possible.

May 2, 2015 8:24 AM in response to Loner T

OK so I've done my backup. On executing the first command i get the following; (Both in IOS and boot)

Jeremys-iMac:~ jeremygaster$ diskutil mergePartitions disk1s4 disk1s7

Usage: diskutil mergePartitions [force] format name

DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode

Merge two or more pre-existing partitions into one. The first disk parameter

is the starting partition; the second disk parameter is the ending partition;

this given range of two or more partitions will be merged into one.

All partitions in the range, except for the first one, must be unmountable.

All data on merged partitions other than the first will be lost; data on the

first partition will be lost as well if the "force" argument is given.

If "force" is not given, and the first partition has a resizable file system

(e.g. JHFS+), it will be grown in a data-preserving manner, even if a different

file system is specified (in fact, your file system and volume name parameters

are both ignored in this case). If "force" is not given, and the first

partition is not resizable, you will be prompted if you want to erase.

If "force" is given, the first partition is always formatted. You should

do this if you wish to reformat to a new file system type.

Merged partitions are required to be ordered sequentially on disk.

See diskutil list for the actual on-disk ordering; BSD slice identifiers

may in certain circumstances not always be in numerical order but the

top-to-bottom order given by diskutil list is always the on-disk order.

Ownership of the affected disk is required.

Example: diskutil mergePartitions JHFS+ NewName disk3s4 disk3s7

This example will merge all partitions *BETWEEN* disk3s4 and disk3s7,

preserving data on disk3s4 but destroying data on disk3s5, disk3s6,

disk3s7 and any invisible free space partitions between those disks;

disk3s4 will be grown to cover the full space if possible.

Jeremys-iMac:~ jeremygaster$

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

May 2, 2015 9:59 AM in response to Jeremy@Creative

I missed the remaining parts, despite quoting the syntax. 😝

diskutil mergePartitions free Untitled2 disk1s4 disk1s7

You do not need the second command, because this will create a free space chunk and automatically coalesce the remainder and this one.

May 4, 2015 12:52 AM in response to Loner T

No problem. I executed the command and got the following;

Jeremys-iMac:~ jeremygaster$ diskutil mergePartitions free Untitled2 disk1s4 disk1s7

The chosen disk does not support resizing.

Do you wish to format instead? (y/N) y

Merging partitions into a new partition

Start partition: disk1s4

Finish partition: disk1s7

Merging partitions encountered error "Couldn't read partition map (-69876)".

The erase will not occur.

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

May 4, 2015 5:40 AM in response to Jeremy@Creative

Please post the output of diskutil list. Diskutil still has a few bugs with Free Space.

May 4, 2015 6:14 AM in response to Loner T

Quick update. I have just rebuilt the system from scratch (Deleted logical partition from terminal) and reinstalled OS X so back to one partition now. I thought the problem could be that I was using Windows Technical Preview .iso. So I purchased Windows 8.1, converted to .iso and tried using BootCamp again. Unfortunately, same error as initial post. Here is the diskutil list;

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *121.3 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage 121.0 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk0s3

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk1

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage 999.3 GB disk1s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk1s4

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD *1.1 TB disk2

Logical Volume on disk0s2, disk1s2

6E7BCB90-0068-442E-90FD-2A60742FA793

Unencrypted Fusion Drive

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

May 4, 2015 10:08 AM in response to Jeremy@Creative

Does BC Assistant successfully partition your disk drive? You currently do not have a BC partition.

May 5, 2015 6:27 AM in response to Loner T

Yes it does. Everything goes fine until I try and install Windows on the BOOTCAMP partition after formatting it (After the Mac boots into Windows setup) Then I get the error message as posted in my first post (I used BCA to erase the bc partition)

"We couldn't create a new partition or locate an existing one. Form more information, see setup log files"