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

Hi Loner T. I think you deserve an Apple accommodation for all of the support on this issue. I just ran into this problem this morning trying to remove the bootcamp partition and found this thread. If possible, could you help me out? I'm on an early 2015 Macbook Air running 10.13.3. I thought I just had an OS partition and a Windows 10 partition, but I'm worried something has gotten mucked up now that I'm seeing the error from BC Assistant. This is the output from diskutil list:

Last login: Sat Feb 24 09:03:25 on console

dans-air:~ DanMacBookAir$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.3 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 400.0 GB disk0s2

3: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 99.6 GB disk0s3

4: Windows Recovery 471.9 MB disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +400.0 GB disk1

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 297.6 GB disk1s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 19.5 MB disk1s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 509.8 MB disk1s3

4: APFS Volume VM 1.1 GB disk1s4

dans-air:~ DanMacBookAir$ diskutil cs list

No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

dans-air:~ DanMacBookAir$

You have a Windows RE (Recovery - disk0s4). This should work in your case as well.

Run (only once)

diskutil eraseVolume jhfs+ BC1 disk0s3

diskutil eraseVolume jhfs+ BC2 disk0s4

diskutil mergePartitions jhfs+ BCMP disk0s3 disk0s4

diskutil list

If you only see disk0s3, then

diskutil eraseVolume fat32 BOOTCAMP disk0s3

and now run BC Assistant and click on Restore/Remove.

Almost got rid of bootcamp.....

here is the situation now:

kkruger-mbp15-16:~ kkruger$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme 500.3 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 314.6 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk2 443.0 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_APFS Container disk1 56.8 GB disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +56.8 GB disk1

Physical Store disk0s3

1: APFS Volume BC1 995.3 KB disk1s1

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +443.0 GB disk2

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 191.1 GB disk2s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 23.3 MB disk2s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 509.8 MB disk2s3

4: APFS Volume VM 8.6 GB disk2s4

kkruger-mbp15-16:~ kkruger$

Just want to get that 56.8 GB back to 1 disk.

Thanks if anyone knows the command(s)!

So I think I got it back to one disk.....

But its a container. It does take a little longer to boot (from powered off)

probably cause startup disk was set to bootcamp before i mangled it all up?

kkruger-mbp15-16:~ kkruger$ diskutil apfs list

APFS Container (1 found)

|

+-- Container disk1 B9B48FC9-C3A8-44C2-8CD6-0A5AE8AAA92F

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

APFS Container Reference: disk1

Capacity Ceiling (Size): 499963170816 B (500.0 GB)

Capacity In Use By Volumes: 204400332800 B (204.4 GB) (40.9% used)

Capacity Available: 295562838016 B (295.6 GB) (59.1% free)

|

+-< Physical Store disk0s2 EE48EE72-69A7-4F13-9A26-A6779ED7B3F3

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

| APFS Physical Store Disk: disk0s2

| Size: 499963170816 B (500.0 GB)

|

+-> Volume disk1s1 10E3F702-F1E3-3E0D-A1EE-4C142DD6FD08

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

| APFS Volume Disk (Role): disk1s1 (No specific role)

| Name: Macintosh HD (Case-insensitive)

| Mount Point: /

| Capacity Consumed: 194041921536 B (194.0 GB)

| FileVault: Yes (Unlocked)

|

+-> Volume disk1s2 A9DB5E3E-E15F-410A-9F9E-852CBA70A829

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

| APFS Volume Disk (Role): disk1s2 (Preboot)

| Name: Preboot (Case-insensitive)

| Mount Point: Not Mounted

| Capacity Consumed: 23445504 B (23.4 MB)

| FileVault: No

|

+-> Volume disk1s3 15C89116-D3DC-4217-8991-8C3E4E034273

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

| APFS Volume Disk (Role): disk1s3 (Recovery)

| Name: Recovery (Case-insensitive)

| Mount Point: Not Mounted

| Capacity Consumed: 509820928 B (509.8 MB)

| FileVault: No

|

+-> Volume disk1s4 FB538FB2-3B03-48E9-A061-0D57790C4DAF

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

APFS Volume Disk (Role): disk1s4 (VM)

Name: VM (Case-insensitive)

Mount Point: /private/var/vm

Capacity Consumed: 9663705088 B (9.7 GB)

FileVault: No

kkruger-mbp15-16:~ kkruger$

Ok. thanks! I used what u posted for others. I then used gui disk utility to combine to 1 partition.

APFS is kind of a mess for consumer file system IMHO. Either or Both Bootcamp Util or Disk Util should have a

robust interface for this seemingly simple request of : "get rid of bootcamp"

Cheers, Ken

Run

diskutil eraseVolume jhfs+ BC2 disk0s4

diskutil mergePartitions jhfs+ BCMP disk0s3 disk0s4

diskutil list

If you only see disk0s3, then run

diskutil eraseVolume fat32 BOOTCAMP disk0s3

and now retry BCA and click on Remove/Restore.

Loner T, just want to thank you for this. My Mac hard drive was in a mess with Bootcamp and several other partitions I could not figure out how to delete. Your advice has worked like a dream and I now have my Mac back to a single fusion drive! Thank you so much! 😊

Also having same problem.

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *251.0 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 127.0 GB disk0s2

3: Microsoft Basic Data OSXRESERVED 8.0 GB disk0s6

4: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 65.0 GB disk0s4

5: Apple_HFS BOOTCAMP 50.7 GB disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +127.0 GB disk1

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 93.9 GB disk1s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 21.9 MB disk1s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 509.8 MB disk1s3

4: APFS Volume VM 1.1 GB disk1s4

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: FDisk_partition_scheme *31.3 GB disk2

1: Windows_NTFS Untitled 31.3 GB disk2s1

sorry for the newbi amateur question, but the commands you're going to tell me to type in, do i type them all and then hit enter? also i'm doing this in terminal, correct?

Well i tried to do what i thought was correct and this is what i have now.

Johns-MBP:~ johnbarlow$ diskutil mergePartitions jhfs+ BCMP disk0s3 disk0s6

The given partitions are not ordered sequentially on disk

Johns-MBP:~ johnbarlow$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *251.0 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 127.0 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_HFS BC3 7.9 GB disk0s6

4: Apple_HFS BC1 64.9 GB disk0s4

5: Apple_HFS BC1 50.7 GB disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +127.0 GB disk1

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 93.9 GB disk1s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 21.9 MB disk1s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 509.8 MB disk1s3

4: APFS Volume VM 1.1 GB disk1s4

Johns-MBP:~ johnbarlow$

How do i get them ordered sequentially on the disk?

Disks are renumbered at reboot. The underlying GPT index is used to order the slices.

Reboot and check the ordering and modify your merge command as appropriate, before you use it, otherwise you will lose data.

If there are not in order, post the output of

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

Last night while I was waiting for reply I tried to do what I thought was correct. I may have messed it up more than it was before. After reading up more about this I found out that I could absorb the other two partitions into the one using the pie chart in disk utility partitions section, so that's what I did, and now this is where I'm at.

Johns-MBP:~ johnbarlow$ sudo gpt -vv -rshow/dev/disk0

Password:

gpt: illegal option -- s

usage: gpt [-frv] [-p nparts] command [options] device ...

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *251.0 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 127.0 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_HFS BC1 123.7 GB disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +127.0 GB disk1

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 93.9 GB disk1s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 21.9 MB disk1s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 509.8 MB disk1s3

4: APFS Volume VM 1.1 GB disk1s4

I'm really hoping I didn't mess it up to bad, I pretty much don't know what I'm doing.

I just noticed I typed in that Sudo command wrong so I retyped it and this is what I got.

Johns-MBP:~ johnbarlow$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

Password:

gpt show: unable to open device '/dev/disk0': Operation not permitted

Johns-MBP:~ johnbarlow$

Hi Loner T,

Please help me merge these storages too.

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *121.3 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 79.0 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_HFS BC1 42.0 GB disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +79.0 GB disk1

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 73.7 GB disk1s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 20.5 MB disk1s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 509.9 MB disk1s3

4: APFS Volume VM 3.2 GB disk1s4

I'm also going to need your assistance please, Loner T. Here is my diskutil info:

/dev/disk0 (internal):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme 500.3 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 314.6 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 249.0 GB disk0s2

3: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 250.0 GB disk0s3

4: Windows Recovery 904.9 MB disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +249.0 GB disk1

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 39.2 GB disk1s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 23.6 MB disk1s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 517.8 MB disk1s3

4: APFS Volume VM 1.1 GB disk1s4

Brandons-MacBook-Pro:~ brandonps$ diskutil cs list

No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

My issue came when I tried to do a recovery on Windows 10 in the conventional way, via the Windows OS. Now the Windows OS encountered a problem and won't boot - and I wanted to try to start over again, recovering the partition with Bootcamp and using it to do a fresh install of Windows. Only trouble is - now I can't do anything with that Windows partition! Help! Thanks!!!!

This should work in your case as well.

Run (only once)

diskutil eraseVolume jhfs+ BC1 disk0s3

diskutil eraseVolume jhfs+ BC2 disk0s4

diskutil mergePartitions jhfs+ BCMP disk0s3 disk0s4

diskutil list

If you only see disk0s3, then

diskutil eraseVolume fat32 BOOTCAMP disk0s3

and now run BC Assistant and click on Restore/Remove.