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User profile for user: John K Z
John K Z Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Cannot delete 2nd partition on iMac, OS X 10.11.3

Trying to to delete a 2nd Partition (which used to have windows) from iMac and merge the space back with my main partition.

-Was able to erase the drive and formatted as a OS X Extended (Journaled).

-When I go to the "Partition" menu there are 3 disks 1) Macintosh HD-896GB, 2) Untitled 135MB - not sure what this is, 3) 2nd Partition-103GB - used to me my windows partition.

-the Untilted-135MB drive there is a "-" button visible.

-the 2ndPartition-103GB partition the "-" button is grey'ed out and cannot be selected! so I cannot delete the partition and join the space back to my main partition!



If I delete the Untitled-135MB drive, then when I go to the 2ndPartition-103GB partition now the "-" is no longer grey'ed out and I can select it. After I hit apply i receive an error message:


Apply Changes to "ST31000528AsMedia"

Operation Failed......

(Details)

Running Operation 1 of 2...

Couldn't read partition map.

Operation failed...


after that both the Untiled-135MB and the 2ndPartition-103GB partitions re-appear... 😟



Any thoughts or advice to get back to just one partition would be very appreciated. Thanks,


John


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iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2010), OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Mar 27, 2016 5:32 PM

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User profile for user: Ebonweaver
Ebonweaver
User level: Level 1
20 points

Posted on Feb 6, 2017 9:19 AM

Nope. Boot Camp Assistant is what created this problem, and it can't work with the disk either because it insists it has to be one partition or have been partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant (which it was). So BCA can't read the partition scheme that it makes so once you Bootcamp a machine you can't undo it without erasing the Mac partition as well and starting over from scratch. This problem seems to have been created when they updated BCA to create 4 partitions to have an installer partition, but they failed to update the restore component of the app accordingly, as well as updating Disk Utility to work with this new scheme they create. Not to mention having that installer partition permanently on your desktop is bad design, should have hidden it, as well as have an option to start from it for repairs if you're going to leave it there and not clean it up somehow after Windows is installed.

Terrible design all around, the system gets worse each year.

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User profile for user: Ebonweaver
Ebonweaver
User level: Level 1
20 points

Feb 6, 2017 9:19 AM in response to SeaPapp

Nope. Boot Camp Assistant is what created this problem, and it can't work with the disk either because it insists it has to be one partition or have been partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant (which it was). So BCA can't read the partition scheme that it makes so once you Bootcamp a machine you can't undo it without erasing the Mac partition as well and starting over from scratch. This problem seems to have been created when they updated BCA to create 4 partitions to have an installer partition, but they failed to update the restore component of the app accordingly, as well as updating Disk Utility to work with this new scheme they create. Not to mention having that installer partition permanently on your desktop is bad design, should have hidden it, as well as have an option to start from it for repairs if you're going to leave it there and not clean it up somehow after Windows is installed.

Terrible design all around, the system gets worse each year.

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Cannot delete 2nd partition on iMac, OS X 10.11.3

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