Unable to delete an unused partition

Hello,


I have recently created a second partition my MacBook Pro and installed OS X El Capitan 10.11.5. I got the partition running fine, with the OS working fine as well, but now when I go back into Disk Utility, I noticed two things that are wrong:


1. Unable to resize partitions.

2. Unable to delete the first partition which named "Untitled". Note please, I have formatted this partition.


What I’m doing wrong? How can I delete the first partition?


Screenshots:

  1. Command: diskutil list.
  2. Command: diskutil cs list.
  3. Command: diskutil list disk0s2.
  4. Disk Utility: HDD.
  5. Disk Utility: created partition with OS.
  6. Disk Utility: unused partition.
  7. Disk Utility: unable to delete this partition. Delete button is inactive.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), null

Posted on Jun 13, 2016 9:15 AM

Reply
3 replies

Jun 13, 2016 10:05 AM in response to olgamikks

You can try reverting your Macintosh HD volume back to a Physical Volume. Right now it's a CoreStorage volume.


Your 2nd screenshot shows that it can be reverted. Towards the bottom you will see Revertible: Yes (no decryption required). Note the Disk name 3 lines above (Disk: disk1). You will need this to revert. Now open Terminal and type: diskutil cs revert disk1 <-- This will revert your CoreStorage volume back to a native file type (Physical volume). Restart your system for the revert to take affect.


Now check to see if you can resize partitions. You might only be able to resize the 2nd partition. If this is so, then to resize both you would need to back up your data then delete the 2nd (Macintosh HD). Then resize the free space back into your 1st one (Untitled) and restore. If you don't want to lose your Macintosh HD, you should be able to boot into it after the revert, open Disk Utility then Edit / Restore and restore your Macintosh HD into your Untitled partition. The Restore command does a block-copy and "clones" the source volume into the destination volume including the Recovery HD. Once this is successful, you will see two Macintosh HD volumes. I would rename the 1st partition's name to something like Macintosh HD1 or something unique then boot into that partition, delete the 2nd partition and resize the free space into your 1st partition.

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Unable to delete an unused partition

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