Bootcamp "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition" error.

Dear Loner T - you are the proverbial man! Thanks very much! This solved the issue I had as well.

Regards

SB

Nice. Glad to see this is still a viable method.

Please start a new discussion. This discussion is now difficult to manage.

I’m sorry for asking if the answer is obvious but what are some easy methods to check if disk0s4 is actually windows recovery?

Thanks, I really appreciate your input.

Thanks Loner, followed your instructions and proceeded to use bootcamp software to remove/restore. During the partitioning process there was an error message:

"Your disk could not be partitioned"

I suggest starting a new discussion. It is much cleaner without this 30+ page discussion.

Z1984- wrote:

Thanks

I suggest starting a new discussion. It is much cleaner without this 36 page discussion.

charguytechguy wrote:

I already tried erasing the disk and unmounting it in Disk Utility. Any help would be appreciated.

This is not valid. Please post the output of the following macOS Terminal commands

diskutil list

diskutil cs list

What is the year/model of your Mac (do not post the serial number)? Did you have any issues during the upgrade?

Post the output of

sudo dd if=/dev/rdisk0s4 count=1 2>/dev/null | hexdump -C

You may have to disable SIP.

Assuming you want to erase and install/re-install Windows using BCAssistant, disconnect the external disk first. Run

diskutil eraseVolume jhfs+ BC1 disk0s4

diskutil eraseVolume jhfs+ BC2 disk0s5

diskutil eraseVolume jhfs+ BC3 disk0s6

diskutil mergePartitions jhfs+ BCMP disk0s4 disk0s6

diskutil list

If you only see disk0s4, then

diskutil eraseVolume fat32 BOOTCAMP disk0s4

and now run BC Assistant and try to Remove/Restore.

It is also the case for me. Please help me how to deal with. The Boot camp doesnt allow me ta make a new partition and the Disk Utility doesn't detect any other partition. Here is the command

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.3 GB disk0

1: Apple_CoreStorage MacHD 499.4 GB disk0s1

2: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_HFS MacHD +499.1 GB disk1

Logical Volume on disk0s1

6AA3C76E-2C06-44E7-9E58-56210CD89004

Unlocked Encrypted

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *7.8 GB disk2

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1

2: Apple_HFS Install macOS Sierra 7.5 GB disk2s2

APFS Containers (2 found)

|

+-- Container disk1 D4D698E8-FCE4-4242-A82F-F2EC388F3411

| ====================================================

| APFS Container Reference: disk1

| Capacity Ceiling (Size): 36684869632 B (36.7 GB)

| Capacity In Use By Volumes: 85106688 B (85.1 MB) (0.2% used)

| Capacity Available: 36599762944 B (36.6 GB) (99.8% free)

| |

| +-< Physical Store disk0s4 498D90B8-9B9E-408E-AD9E-81B544EC3356

| | -----------------------------------------------------------

| | APFS Physical Store Disk: disk0s4

| | Size: 36684869632 B (36.7 GB)

| |

| +-> No Volumes

|

+-- Container disk2 7C0A19E4-5E17-4B36-A04D-2D6941555D9D

====================================================

APFS Container Reference: disk2

Capacity Ceiling (Size): 205999996928 B (206.0 GB)

Capacity In Use By Volumes: 186173960192 B (186.2 GB) (90.4% used)

Capacity Available: 19826036736 B (19.8 GB) (9.6% free)

|

+-< Physical Store disk0s2 45E3C46D-037A-4964-97CA-56ACFA574B3C

| -----------------------------------------------------------

| APFS Physical Store Disk: disk0s2

| Size: 205999996928 B (206.0 GB)

|

+-> Volume disk2s1 661CFA5D-9D77-3C64-B998-29EA8C2D0B55

| ---------------------------------------------------

| APFS Volume Disk (Role): disk2s1 (No specific role)

| Name: Macintosh HD (Case-insensitive)

| Mount Point: /

| Capacity Consumed: 184423346176 B (184.4 GB)

| Encrypted: No

|

+-> Volume disk2s2 C30C1B51-2A37-43D4-9648-5B0A15FA74B2

| ---------------------------------------------------

| APFS Volume Disk (Role): disk2s2 (Preboot)

| Name: Preboot (Case-insensitive)

| Mount Point: Not Mounted

| Capacity Consumed: 21860352 B (21.9 MB)

| Encrypted: No

|

+-> Volume disk2s3 9AF600A8-D3FF-4AA2-8BD9-2DF67BA91C03

| ---------------------------------------------------

| APFS Volume Disk (Role): disk2s3 (Recovery)

| Name: Recovery (Case-insensitive)

| Mount Point: Not Mounted

| Capacity Consumed: 520765440 B (520.8 MB)

| Encrypted: No

|

+-> Volume disk2s4 F1E92B55-1D59-445A-8264-EDB6CB6B803B

---------------------------------------------------

APFS Volume Disk (Role): disk2s4 (VM)

Name: VM (Case-insensitive)

Mount Point: /private/var/vm

Capacity Consumed: 1073766400 B (1.1 GB)

Encrypted: No

chkchk33 wrote:

Out of curiosity - where can I find out more about this? For instance, why did neither diskutil list nor diskutil apfs list show any reference to there being a 'fat32' formatted BOOTCAMP disk from what I can see, but instead showed APFS?

The remaining container has Macintosh HD, so it should not be touched. The standard High Sierra layout has only one container, so the second container is not expected. The second container was created, due to failure of BCA to remove the Windows partition correctly.

chkchk33 wrote:

What made you want to run diskutil apfs list in the first place and why did you delete in the order Volume-Container-Volume.

A Container is created first, a volume is created within a container, so the deletion order is reversed. It also exposes the underlying disk partition (disk0s3 in your case), which is formatted by default as HFS+.

chkchk33 wrote:

Sorry, I don't expect a full answer, but I am curious to learn more about this.

See these additional references.

Prepare for APFS in macOS High Sierra - Apple Support

How to choose between APFS and Mac OS Extended when formatting a disk for Mac - Apple Support

Here are the results:

diskutil eraseVolume jhfs+ BC1 disk1s4

Started erase on disk1s4 NO NAME

Unmounting disk

Erasing

Initialized /dev/rdisk1s4 as a 100 MB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 512k journal

Mounting disk

Finished erase on disk1s4 BC1

Admins-iMac:~ kris$ diskutil eraseVolume jhfs+ BC2 disk1s5

Started erase on disk1s5 NO NAME

Unmounting disk

Erasing

Initialized /dev/rdisk1s5 as a 100 MB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 512k journal

Mounting disk

Finished erase on disk1s5 BC2

Admins-iMac:~ kris$ diskutil eraseVolume jhfs+ BC3 disk1s7

Started erase on disk1s7

Unmounting disk

Error: -69874: Couldn't modify partition map

Admins-iMac:~ kris$ diskutil mergePartitions jhfs+ BCMP disk1s4 disk1s7

Merging partitions into a new partition

Start partition: disk1s4 BC1

Finish partition: disk1s7

Started partitioning on disk1

Merging partitions

Waiting for partitions to activate

Growing disk

Finished partitioning on disk1

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *2.0 TB disk1

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD 1.7 TB disk1s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk1s3

4: Apple_HFS BC1 266.9 GB disk1s4

Admins-iMac:~ kris$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme 121.3 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 314.6 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD 120.9 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *2.0 TB disk1

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD 1.7 TB disk1s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk1s3

4: Apple_HFS BC1 266.9 GB disk1s4

/dev/disk2 (internal, virtual):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD +1.8 TB disk2

Logical Volume on disk0s2, disk1s2

F688A158-319F-446D-B17E-0B4D2B6CABB5

Unencrypted Fusion Drive

/dev/disk5 (disk image):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme +9.3 GB disk5

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk5s1

2: Apple_HFS InstallESD 9.0 GB disk5s2

**I went to Disk Utility and now see that the partition is now named BC1 and the - is available to press:

Now waiting on next steps!