Hard Drive not showing full space after failed bootcamp install

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Level 1

8 points

Hard Drive not showing full space after failed bootcamp install

So this problem runs a little deep, but I've done a ton of research and I'm stuck.

I tried installing Windows 10 with BootCamp assistant and there was an error and my MBP (mid-2015, 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, 1TB SSD) restarted. Upon restart, the windows partition seemed to be there, but when I tried to boot from Windows (restart holding option key), I was left with only one option, which was to start up in Mac OS X. Fine. So I started up in Mac and went to the bootcamp assistant again, and this time, I had the option to remove windows, so I did that, which was fine, because I was just going to try the BootCamp assistant again....

- BUT (here's the point of this post) -

After bootcamp assistant removed the windows partition, my Mac partition was left at it's reduced size, which is 901.34 GB (before the bootcamp "assistant" I had 999.35 GB, it's a 1TB drive).

I have done many things to try to remedy this situation, but nothing seems to work:

-I resized the partition in Disk Utility (which kept giving me errors, until I turned off FileVault), so now my SSD shows only one partition of 1TB in size.

-I tried running first aid on both the disk (Apple SSD) AND the partition (Sean HD), but that shows everything to be fine.

-I went through Terminal to run the diskutil repairdisk /dev/disk0 command and it seems that the partition map appears to be OK.

I would like to avoid using testdisk, because I think I'd mess something up, but if I have the proper guidance, I could forsee that future.

I DO NOT want to format the disk and start over, because I would be really sad to have to reinstall/remake ~800GB of stuff again (I'm a music producer). And, yes, I do have everything backed up, but redoing everything is too tedious (doing it once was tedious enough as it is).

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2), mid-2015, 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7

Posted on Jan 4, 2016 1:32 AM

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Answer 1

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Jan 4, 2016 3:52 AM in response to skilfoy

Do you notice you have a 98GB Recovery HD, which is usually about 650MB? What were the exact steps that you took to address the issue you have after BC did not work properly? Did you merge partitions incorrectly?

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Answer 2

skilfoy Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 4, 2016 11:48 AM in response to Loner T

I did not realize that about the recovery HD partition, but now I see what you are referring to.

As far as the merge, I merged the partitions using BootCamp Assistant, so that could be the problem.

So how could I merge them properly?

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Answer 3

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Jan 4, 2016 12:20 PM in response to skilfoy

1. Boot into Internet Recovery (Command+Opt+R) - OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support .

2. Click on Utilities -> Terminal.

3. Run (the order of disks is very critical, otherwise you will lose data).

diskutil mergePartitions jhfs+ "Sean HD" disk0s2 disk0s3

4. Re-install OSX to get Recovery HD back.

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.

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.

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Answer 4

skilfoy Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 4, 2016 12:22 PM in response to Loner T

Thank you so much for that! It worked like a charm, now I'm showing the full 1TB of useable space on Sean HD. 🙂

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Answer 5

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Jan 4, 2016 12:40 PM in response to Loner T

Did you get Recovery HD back after OSX re-installation?

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Answer 6

skilfoy Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 4, 2016 12:50 PM in response to Loner T

I really want to avoid OS X reinstallation... that said, I have an external backup of the recovery partition, which I booted from to carry out the terminal commands you gave me (instead of internet recovery). So at this point, I'm not too worried about retrieving the local recovery drive, unless you have any suggestions that don't involve OS X reinstallation...

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Answer 7

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Jan 4, 2016 12:52 PM in response to skilfoy

If you have an external Recovery HD, keep it handy. You can always fall back to Internet Recovery, if necessary.

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