You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Bootcamp disappears after creating third partition

I use my Mac mini as a secondary computer for home use and wanted to expand the partition space on the Windows side. I carved a third partition out of the Mac side to create 64GB to extend on the Windows side, but when I restarted the computer, the Windows partition doesn't show up--even though Disk Utility shows the partition still exists and the files are still there.

Here is the partition dialogue window (the 160GB space is the Bootcamp space; the smaller slice of the pie is the 64GB third partition):

Is the Bootcamp partition recoverable in any way?

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Sep 30, 2015 7:41 PM

26 replies

Oct 2, 2015 1:30 PM in response to Loner T

Okay, I have the Unallocated 64GB disk space visible in Disk Management, but the Extend Volume option on the Bootcamp drive is greyed out--I can only shrink the partition. Do I create a new simple volume from the Unallocated space to extend it? If so, do I assign it a drive letter or path?

Loner T

Level 9

59,513 points

Oct 2, 2015 2:31 PM in response to AppleinWilmington

You will need a tool like GParted to extend the NTFS volume to include the Bootcamp volume to include the 64G.

GxocT

Level 1

0 points

Oct 3, 2015 5:21 AM in response to Loner T

Thank you! U solved my problem. I had same issue as topic author.

I have a question.

Why do u add 3 partitions in MBR?

Partitions numbers to be hybridized: 3 4 5

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

4: Apple_HFS Untitled 64.2 GB disk0s4

5: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 160.0 GB disk0s5

Could I add only Partition 5 to make Windows bootable?

Loner T

Level 9

59,513 points

Oct 3, 2015 5:54 AM in response to GxocT

GxocT wrote:

Why do u add 3 partitions in MBR?

Partitions numbers to be hybridized: 3 4 5

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

4: Apple_HFS Untitled 64.2 GB disk0s4

5: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 160.0 GB disk0s5

Could I add only Partition 5 to make Windows bootable?

Yes, and you will end up with two entries in the MBR. Usually, there is a 1:1 correspondence between the two, to avoid confusion when someone is looking at the two structures. The way it is currently...

EFI = MBR1

GPT1+2+3 = MBR2

GPT4 = MBR3

GPT5 = MBR4

This allows access to GPT4 = MBR3 from both sides, but you lose access to GPT1+2+3 because there is no driver to read parts of filesystems.

Sep 21, 2016 10:37 PM in response to Loner T

Well, i have the same problem, but the thing is that i just cant disable csrutil. I'm booting in internet recovery mode, "csrutil disable" gives "command not found", and /Volumes/Untitled/usr/bin/csrutil disable gives "operation is not permitted". Is there any other way to make BOOTCAMP partition bootable again, or maybe there's different way to disable csrutil?

Loner T

Level 9

59,513 points

Sep 22, 2016 5:25 AM in response to kotyapshek

kotyapshek wrote:

Well, i have the same problem, but the thing is that i just cant disable csrutil. I'm booting in internet recovery mode, "csrutil disable" gives "command not found"

This command is valid in Local Recovery only. However, you can use How to install OS X on an external drive connected to your Mac - Apple Support and install/upgrade OS X to match the version on your internal disk, and then boot from this using the Local Recovery from the external disk and run csrutil.

Sep 22, 2016 11:14 AM in response to Loner T

Thank you a lot, i'm new to mac, so can you please help me with one more thing? I found 8GB usb flash drive, but when i erased it with the formation OSX Extended, it said that i need to partition with GUID or sth like that, but in the disk utility button "Partition" is greyed out.

Loner T

Level 9

59,513 points

Sep 22, 2016 11:28 AM in response to AppleinWilmington

You must not run this command more than once, otherwise you will lose data. Once this command is executed, disk0s4 will become Free Space, which will no longer have a disk0s4 designation.

diskutil eraseVolume free free disk0s4

Sep 29, 2016 10:14 AM in response to Loner T

I have done everything another way. I made a bootable falsh drive (finally) and booted from it, i couldn't boot into local recovery because on the flash was Mac Os Lion, an i already have Sierra. I knew that there's no csrutil on older versions of mac os, so i've wrote all the commands (

sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk0

setpid 4

flag 4

write

)
and rebooted. I was surprised, it worked. I could load to Untitled (mac), flash drive and bootcamp (windows). Well, i believed that everything is alright and booted to windows. But everything i could see - black screen and flashing "_" on the top left corner. Before i used commands, i tried to force-load bootcamp partition, and it wrote "Insert a bootable..." and something else. But now there's just nothing. Is it fixable?

Loner T

Level 9

59,513 points

Sep 29, 2016 10:18 AM in response to kotyapshek

Please start a new discussion and post the output of the same commands as shown.

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.

Sep 29, 2016 10:54 AM in response to Loner T

Bootacmp disk is unbootable after creating new partition

Bootcamp disappears after creating third partition