Disk Utility issues after erasing/reformatting internal HDD

Question

Level 1

9 points

Disk Utility issues after erasing/reformatting internal HDD

HI everybody,

I am currently stuck in limbo at the Disk Utility screen on my 2011 MBP. Some time ago I tried installing Windows 8.1 to my Bootcamp partition but. It never took, it would install half way and then crash. After this, I decided to go to my Bootcamp Assistant and delete the partition and maybe start fresh. This wasn't an option for some reason, because the task would fail when it would attempt to delete the partition. No big deal I though, I'll just delete the partition on Disk Utility. Wrong. This created unusable empty space on my hard drive that I was unable to recapture with my Yosemite partition.

I decided to just start over fresh and reformat my hard drive so I erased my partition and put in my old Snow Leopard disk (for nostalgia) and went to install a fresh version of the original OS that came with my MBP. I went to Disk Utility where under the 1 TB Western Digital area (my internal HD) to the left shows Macintosh HD, I selected that drive and clicked erase. From here, I clicked back on the HD parent and went to partition to see if that old 200GB of free space was now usable to capture back to the Mac OS. Now when I go to partition it's still showing my partition layout as 800GB for Macintosh HD with empty space at the bottom which I cannot capture because every time I go to repartition the drive it says it cannot unmount the disk to do so.

I tried fixing this multiple times last evening and decided that I might as well just give up and try to reinstall OSX on the leftover 800GB and chalking up the lost space to my own ignorance but when I went to reinstall OSX the only drive that shows up is my recovery drive.

Is there any possible way to just reset my entire hard drive and start from scratch like I initially wanted to? I have my original Snow Leopard install disks still so I'm completely fine with going that route. Any help, advice, or directions to go to for more information is very appreciated!

MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), Windows 8, iPhone 5, iMac (21.5" Late 2012)

Posted on Jul 25, 2015 5:46 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

684,033 points

Jul 25, 2015 10:31 AM in response to twcox

Would you make a screen shot of Disk Utility so people can see what you are seeing? Make sure you cover any personal information using Preview. Post the screen shot in a Reply using the camera icon or you can drag the screen shot into a reply. Copy and paste doesn't work.

Screen shots

Reply

Answer 2

twcox Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 25, 2015 1:38 PM in response to Eric Root

I'm not sure how to take a screenshot and upload it when my computer won't let me log in to anything. I don't have anything to boot to at the moment. I have some literal screen shots taken with my iPhone that I will upload though.

Reply

Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

684,033 points

Jul 26, 2015 1:32 PM in response to twcox

The blue Screen Shots in my last post is a hyperlink to an article that covers how to take screen shots.

Can you select the empty space below the Macintosh HD and delete it using the minus sign at the bottom left? If so, try dragging down the Macintosh HD using the ///// at the bottom right.

Reply

Answer 4

twcox Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 27, 2015 5:48 AM in response to Eric Root

I tried the different methods for taking a screen shot but because I had no operating system to boot to I didn't feel like I was able to recover those images being taken. I tried going to the OSX Help option on the installation screen that pops up when you go to install OSX and was able to navigate to this thread but I was unable to paste and image in place - it was almost like the image wasn't being saved to my clipboard because there wasn't an installed OS.

I was able to reinstall OSX Snow Leopard and recover that extra unused space on my hard drive though. The strange thing about it was that when I booted to the screen above (the Yosemite install) it would not allow me to adjust the partition on my hard drive. Every time I tried to make changes to the partition and hit apply, it would say it could not un-mount the drive to start the process. I tried going into terminal and running a prompt to force un-mount the drive (saw it somewhere online) and it wasn't working either. From there, I restarted and booted from the original OSX install disk that I received when I purchased the computer and through Snow Leopard's disk utility, I was able to un-mount the drive, partition it as one, and recover that extra space. I'm kind of at a loss why it would work for Snow Leopard but not at all through Yosemite but either way, it's fixed now. I unfortunately don't have any help to give anybody else if they're in a similar situation though.

Thanks for taking the time to help!

Reply

Answer 5

Eric Root

Level 10

684,033 points

Jul 27, 2015 4:21 PM in response to twcox

You are welcome.

Reply