Lost partition

Question

Level 1

4 points

Lost partition

my system: 13" MBP 2014 250GB

I had about 90 GB free space and tried to create a 50GB windows partition. during the process the entire system crashed, it rebooted with a screen like this https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare/images/en_US/osx/pa nic.png

After the reboot I opened bootcamp and it said I have not enough free space to create a partition (min 50GB), so I check "about this mac" and it says my drive is 200 GB and have 45 GB free. In disk utility I see only the OSX partition and nothing else.

I rebooted holding the alt key, and I found my USB drive, I selected it, but it said no bootable something something

what do I do?

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014), OS X El Capitan (10.11.3), null

Posted on Feb 29, 2016 6:53 AM

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Answer 1

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Mar 1, 2016 7:15 AM in response to Candide48

1. The crash left free space in an indeterminate state. This is now in a Free Space part.

2. The simplest and safest method to get your disk space back is

1. Backup OSX and all your files - Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac - Apple Support .

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

3. Click on Utilties -> Disk Utility and Erase your internal whole disk.

4. Restore OSX and your files - Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac - Apple Support .

This requires a separate external disk which can accommodate TM backup - Backup disks you can use with Time Machine - Apple Support .

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Answer 2

Candide48 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 1, 2016 7:15 AM in response to Loner T

can I allocate this free space in a partition if I'm in the windows installation setup?

I don't have an external disk to do a backup, but it's not a big deal, I would prefer a fresh install anyways

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Answer 3

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Mar 1, 2016 10:14 AM in response to Candide48

If you want to run a fresh installation, use BCA to remove the current partition. It may or may not remove the Free Space. If BCA will not let you coalesce the disk into a single user-visible partition, then the TM backup/erase/restore is the fallback option.

It may also be possible to use Terminal diskutil commands to coalesce the disk space into a single OSX part.

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