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Windows 10 Anniversary + Boot Camp = no longer mounting Mac partition

I have a Retina MacBook Pro (Late 2013) with Mac OS El Capitan, dual-booting with Windows 10 with Boot Camp installed. Everything was working fine until I installed the Windows 10 Anniversary Update today; now Windows no longer mounts the Mac partition. I successfully reinstalled the latest Boot Camp drivers, but Windows still won't show me the Mac partition. (Booting into Mac OS works fine.)


Is anyone else seeing this problem? Anyone know of a solution or workaround?

Posted on Aug 3, 2016 6:12 PM

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Question marked as Apple recommended

This is from http://news.softpedia.com/news/windows-10-anniversary-update-might-hide-partitio ns-after-install-507247.shtml:

One of the issues experienced by users after installing the Windows 10 Anniversary Update concerns partitions, as many of those who upgraded their computers reported that a number of partitions disappeared from File Explorer.

Furthermore, all partitions show up as RAW in Disk Management, which makes most people believe that all their data has been removed and nothing can be recovered.

Microsoft, however, claims that this is just a bug discovered in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update install system, and while no files are lost, it’s critical for users not to try to recover anything with third-party apps because this could lead to completely breaking down the partitions and removal of data.

“Microsoft is aware of this issue and is working on a solution to be released through Windows Update. Any data you have stored on the affected partition is still there. We recommend that you not try to recover or otherwise write data to the affected partition, nor should you format the partition,” the company says.

You can also downgrade in the meantime

Microsoft’s Sharath Srinivasa goes on to explain that a patch will be released to users when it’s available and states that users who do not want to wait for it can always downgrade to their previous Windows version. Partitions should be then just as you created them, with all files once again accessible.

Rolling back to build 1511 works and hopefully not too many people will have hosed their BootCamp partition in the meantime.

Posted on Aug 14, 2016 11:52 AM

3 replies
Question marked as Helpful

Aug 4, 2016 7:37 AM in response to Brian Kendig

The W10 and W10 Anniversary Update breaks the JHFS+ driver loading in Windows. W7 and W8.1 do not have these issues. I have also checked that 6.0.6136 JHFS+ packages are signed, but they will not load. I need to look in Event Viewer to see what is causing issues.


If you have a business-crtitical system, I suggest staying away from the bleeding edge Windows updates otherwise you will hemorrhage. 😉

Question marked as Helpful

Aug 3, 2016 8:07 PM in response to Brian Kendig

I was holding off to see cheers or jeers... started googling tonight and found this Apple community and a Slashdot post which in particular is disconcerting:

https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/08/03/1614223/windows-10-anniversary-update- borks-dual-boot-partitions


The report mentioned in SlashDot is here:

http://windowsreport.com/partition-disappears-windows-10-anniversary-update/

... and it mentions a MiniTool Partition Wizard app. I'm looking at the site; looks free. I would try to download that in Windows and without committing to any modifications, driver changes, etc. does it "see" the HFS+ partition?

Question marked as Helpful

Jan 12, 2017 5:27 AM in response to Brian Kendig

Apple HFS+ drivers themselves work fine after updating to the 1607 (anniversary update). They just have problems mounting the drives. You have to devise some method for mounting them manually. I can suggest two options;


Option#1, by using ext2fsd software;

-Install 6.0 drivers just like before anniversary update, reboot the windows. Nothing will show up...

-Download ext2fsd even though you probably have nothing to do with ext2 or linux.

-Open Ext2 Volume Manager. In "File System" tab, your macOS partition will show as "HFS". If you installed ext2fsd before succesfully installing bootcamp drivers, it will just show as "RAW". (kind of proving bootcamp drivers DO work)

-Right click, select assign drive letter (or change drive letter).

-In the pop-up menu, select the drive letter first, then select the tick "Create a permanent MountPoint via Session Manager." It -weirdly- closes the pop-up before you click "OK". (Ext2fsd is a little buggy, you should select drive letter first, then select the tickbox. If you want to change drive letter, I suggest removing the existing one first, then re-add it from scratch)

-Reboot, and the macOS partition will be there just like before anniversary update. (On one of my computers, it didn't show on first reboot, I've gone into ext2 volume manager, redid everything then rebooted, it showed on second time.)

Option#2, mounting via Dos Devices registry edit (ext2fsd does exactly this, this is the manual way without using ext2fsd);

Run regedit, navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/system/CurrentControlSet/Control/Session Manager/DOS Devices/

Right click-> new-> add string.


Enter drive letter you want by adding ":" to the end. In "data", type "\Device\HarddiskVolume#" where # will be your volume number of your partition as it would be detected in MS-DOS. I am sure someone would suggest a more elegant solution for this one, but you can simply navigate to Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management and count your partitions from beginning starting with 1. In my example, I have 1 partition on disk0, and my macOS partition is 2nd one in disk1. So my volume number # is 3.


In my registry it is "G:", "REG_SZ" and "\Device\HarddiskVolume3" for name, type, and data respectively. Your letter and numbers will be different, of course.


After making the registry tweak, cross fingers and reboot, macOS partition should be there. If something else is mounted instead, check volume number.


You can -probably- do trial and error on volume number, as long as you don't put a drive letter that contradicts with anything you already have (If you accidentally put your windows volume with a different drive letter, it will just mount it twice, nothing bad will happen. If you put different volume onto same drive letter you risk breaking your boot.)

Also one user in the first forum I've posted this workaround has installed ext2fsd, mounted his macOS partition, navigated to registry, noted the letter and volume number, then uninstalled ext2fsd, and re-added the registry entry with the same letter/volume number.

Hope this helps.

114 replies
Question marked as Helpful

Aug 3, 2016 8:07 PM in response to Brian Kendig

I was holding off to see cheers or jeers... started googling tonight and found this Apple community and a Slashdot post which in particular is disconcerting:

https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/08/03/1614223/windows-10-anniversary-update- borks-dual-boot-partitions


The report mentioned in SlashDot is here:

http://windowsreport.com/partition-disappears-windows-10-anniversary-update/

... and it mentions a MiniTool Partition Wizard app. I'm looking at the site; looks free. I would try to download that in Windows and without committing to any modifications, driver changes, etc. does it "see" the HFS+ partition?

Aug 3, 2016 8:06 PM in response to djpenn

Thank you for the tip. I installed MiniTool Partition Wizard; it sees the partition type as "Other", and doesn't give me an option to mount it (the Mount menu item is greyed out).


Since the partition works fine when I boot into Mac OS, I suspect that the Boot Camp driver isn't loading for some reason, and I think (hope!) that the Mac partition itself is fine. It's just Windows that doesn't recognize it.

Aug 3, 2016 9:08 PM in response to Brian Kendig

Hmm... If the HFS+ read-only Windows driver is not being loaded, and downloading the Boot Camp driver package does not reinstall it, I would try opening an elevated command prompt (Start menu > type cmd > press Ctrl+Shift+Enter for command prompt to Run as Admin) then enter

sfc /scannow

It should return "No integrity violations found". If it says "some corrupted files were found and repaired", reboot, do the same again, then it should say no integrity violations found.


Do you have FileVault? Try disabling that... might be this old issue, but the driver locations are noted here:

HFS+ Drive not visible on Windows 10 Bootcamp partition with support software


If that does not do it, I would try Apple Software Update, and if it's not critical, wait a few days for 1) a Microsoft update for Windows 10 build 14393 or version 1607, and/or 2) an Apple update to the Boot Camp driver package -- again. Then install the whole thing again.

* Apple literally can change the Boot Camp Win driver package weekly, if not more often, with no versioning changes, no notifications, etc. Remember... it's "unsupported"!! My AMD graphics card drivers is how I found that out...

Two Boot Camp updates repeatedly offered in Apple Software Update (ASU)


The main point being... don't "repair" BCD (boot config data) in Windows or anything else that might endanger the partition. If you approach it from the Windows viewpoint, you will most likely lose non-NTFS partitions if the GUID Partition Table (GPT) is altered. If you can boot into Mac OS, the partition is okay, it's just a Windows issue that hopefully Apple can issue a driver update for or Windows can issue a partition map fix for, since it does not seem limited to OS X (based on all the Linux partition issues people have posted)...


Like someone said in reddit "This is Microsoft's punishment for seeing other operating systems on the side" lol

Aug 3, 2016 10:07 PM in response to djpenn

Good thoughts; thank you.


"sfc /scannow" returns "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations." Also, I'm not using FileVault. Apple Software Update finds no new upgrades (on either the Windows or the Mac side).


I'll be patient and wait for patches. Unnerving, though, for a filesystem to no longer be recognized as valid!

Aug 4, 2016 2:07 AM in response to Brian Kendig

Same problem, earlier onset (I'm signed up to get release preview builds). Was really hoping MS was going to patch this before the wide release, but no such luck.


The latest build of HFSExplorer (http://www.catacombae.org/) works a charm for mounting, mapping, and extracting data from the HFS partition, so long as it is "Run in Administrator Mode". But as a software tool, it is somewhat inelegant compared to native access though File Explorer. Here's hoping this feature can be restored before long.

Question marked as Helpful

Aug 4, 2016 7:37 AM in response to Brian Kendig

The W10 and W10 Anniversary Update breaks the JHFS+ driver loading in Windows. W7 and W8.1 do not have these issues. I have also checked that 6.0.6136 JHFS+ packages are signed, but they will not load. I need to look in Event Viewer to see what is causing issues.


If you have a business-crtitical system, I suggest staying away from the bleeding edge Windows updates otherwise you will hemorrhage. 😉

Aug 4, 2016 7:36 AM in response to Loner T

"The W10 and W10 Anniversary Update breaks the JHFS+ driver loading in Windows" - thank you, that sounds like it. Do you know of any other discussions about this problem (on the Microsoft forums, perhaps)? I haven't been able to find any other mention of this, but it sounds like you know what you're talking about.


Interestingly enough, I also have a Hackintosh with separate Mac OS and Windows 10 drives, and Windows 10 Anniversary Edition has the Paragon HFS+ driver installed but is no longer mounting the Mac drive. I wonder if this is related? And I also wonder whether the other problems people are reporting, with partitions disappearing under Windows 10, could also be related?

Aug 4, 2016 8:32 AM in response to Brian Kendig

Paragon HFS+ should be checked for driver signatures. You may also want to check for events in Event Viewer.


My original tests are W7-to-W10 and W8.1-to-W10 and then Apple Software Update. Both the AppleHFS.sys and AppleMNT.sys are at 6.x versions.


I am going to try a clean install of W10 and check these again. I am staying away from the Anniversary Update.

Aug 4, 2016 10:34 PM in response to Prof Z10

Apple can deploy drivers through Apple Software Update, as they did in April 2016 when the AMD FirePro GL D700 drivers were updated from 15.201 to 15.301, before they reverted back to 15.200:

User uploaded file

...but they almost certainly will not do that for file system drivers; i.e., a new package needs to be downloaded in Boot Camp Assistant in Mac OS (Applications > Utilities). The Apple HFS and Apple Mount Manager drivers are still v.6.0.1.0 and 6.0.0.0, respectively, as of today which is the same as on 23 July 2016 and both drivers still have digital sigs from 12 August 2015. The BootCamp.msi is also still v.6.0.6136 on both dates and has the same hash. Will re-post if and when that changes... hopefully I'll hear of an MS patch at work before Apple has to do anything.

Aug 5, 2016 7:01 AM in response to Brian Kendig

I have clean installed W10 using the latest Win10_1607_English_x64.iso. There are no functional HFS drivers. I will run

Win10_1511_English_x64.iso (both the _1 and _2 versions) and test. Next test is replacing these two files from a 5.1.5621 (for my specific model - 2012 13-in MBP) distribution and testing. I also have an older BC package 6.0.6133 to be tested.


This is a W10 problem based on testing so far. Diskpart reports the partition but no volume is created/reported. The BIOS installations have the correct MBR. Either volume discovery is broken or the drivers do not support the latest builds.

Windows 10 Anniversary + Boot Camp = no longer mounting Mac partition

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