How to Recover Missing Hard Drive Space on Macbook Pro?

Question

Level 1

7 points

How to Recover Missing Hard Drive Space on Macbook Pro?

I'm trying to help a friend with their mid-2012 MacBook Pro. Originally it wouldn't boot. I've gotten past that and have run Disk Utility and have it running again... and updated to Mojave. The issue now is that it shows 750.16 HD space. However, only half of that is available in the Mac HD. I'm guessing a partition (possibly Boot Camp) was deleted at some point. I've searched all over and tried a bunch of things. I just can't figure out how to recover that free space and merge all that space back to one partition. I know a little about Macs, but obviously no expert so forgive me in advance. I've tried remounting and creating new partitions, but it just divides the space up even more.

Posted on Oct 4, 2018 6:19 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Oct 5, 2018 11:36 AM in response to RRack

Apple Disk Utility (DU) will not expand a container/filesystem backwards. Your APFS is located after the Free Space between GPT1 and GPT2. GPT2 cannot grow backwards towards GPT1. This is what I was expecting to see.

In this specific case, Time Machine is your best friend. If you do not have it setup, use a locally-attached disk which is 750GB or larger, backup your macOS installation, erase the whole disk (not just the macOS partition in DU) and restore. Use the TM link.

Reply

Answer 2

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Oct 4, 2018 7:00 PM in response to RRack

Post the output of

diskutil apfs list

Reply

Answer 3

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Oct 5, 2018 7:48 AM in response to RRack

Can you post at text version of

diskutil apfs list

or run

diskutil apfs resizeVolume <Volume-UUID-Of-Macintosh HD> 0g

Reply

Answer 4

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Oct 5, 2018 8:21 AM in response to RRack

Also, run

diskutil apfs resizeContainer 5FC21253-87CA-4A08-8A05-D441B6301F7D 0g

and post any errors.

Reply

Answer 5

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Oct 5, 2018 8:52 AM in response to RRack

You may need to temporarily disable SIP. Post the output of

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

Also, can you download and install GPT Fdisk?

Reply

Answer 6

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Oct 5, 2018 1:00 PM in response to RRack

Please post back if you run into any issues. It is important to erase the whole disk.

Reply

Answer 7

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Oct 5, 2018 7:16 AM in response to RRack

Run

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk1 0g

'0G' tells the OS to expand the container contiguously to maximum available space. Post the output for verification.

Reply

Answer 8

RRack Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 5, 2018 9:32 AM in response to RRack

Wondering if I should just back this thing up with Time Machine and completely start over... If I did, would it reinstall the current Mac OS and other software installed? I've never done a full restore on a Mac.

Reply

Answer 9

RRack Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 5, 2018 10:51 AM in response to Loner T

I booted into the recovery and ran those commands. After the disable, it says to restart for changes to take effect. Rebooted back into recovery and ran status again and now it's disabled.

What commands do I run the GPT. Sorry, techie but this is new to me.

Reply

Answer 10

RRack Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 5, 2018 6:55 AM in response to Loner T

Thanks a bunch.

Reply

Answer 11

RRack Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 5, 2018 7:38 AM in response to Loner T

Reply

Answer 12

RRack Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 5, 2018 7:42 AM in response to RRack

Reply

Answer 13

RRack Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 5, 2018 8:06 AM in response to Loner T

oh duh...sorry bout that...

Reply

Answer 14

RRack Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 5, 2018 8:59 AM in response to Loner T

also downloaded and installed the GPT

Reply

Answer 15

RRack Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 5, 2018 11:41 AM in response to Loner T

I was just reading about that exact topic. Oh well, I learned a lot in the process. Thanks so much for your time and patience as well. I'll scrub a 1TB external drive and restore tonight.

Reply

How to Recover Missing Hard Drive Space on Macbook Pro?

Similar questions