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.


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Posted on Oct 4, 2018 6:19 PM

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Posted on Oct 5, 2018 11:36 AM

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.

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24 replies

Oct 5, 2018 7:56 AM in response to Loner T

Thanks again for your patience...


Is this what you needed? Just text copied? That command doesn't work. Says no such file or directory.


Last login: Fri Oct
5 09:51:09 on ttys000

Rachels-MacBook-Pro:~ rachelvidal$ diskutil apfs list

APFS Container (1 found)

|

+-- Container disk1 5FC21253-87CA-4A08-8A05-D441B6301F7D

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

APFS Container Reference: disk1

Size (Capacity Ceiling): 375648309248 B (375.6 GB)

Capacity In Use By Volumes:
44890382336 B (44.9 GB) (12.0% used)

Capacity Not Allocated: 330757926912 B (330.8 GB) (88.0% free)

|

+-< Physical Store disk0s2 0BE3E000-49F6-4363-9036-FD22A1FE7D0C

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

|
APFS Physical Store Disk:
disk0s2

|
Size: 375648309248 B (375.6 GB)

|

+-> Volume disk1s1 26BA9EC4-02CF-32E4-A717-A47204304724

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

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

|
Name: Macintosh HD (Case-insensitive)

|
Mount Point: /

|
Capacity Consumed: 39913799680 B (39.9 GB)

|
FileVault: No

|

+-> Volume disk1s2 AC87469D-DE20-4E84-AF53-266DD3C96368

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

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

|
Name: Preboot (Case-insensitive)

|
Mount Point: Not Mounted

|
Capacity Consumed: 22142976 B (22.1 MB)

|
FileVault: No

|

+-> Volume disk1s3 BE673A40-528B-40E8-BA80-97AC60D74D25

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

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

|
Name: Recovery (Case-insensitive)

|
Mount Point: Not Mounted

|
Capacity Consumed: 509485056 B (509.5 MB)

|
FileVault: No

|

+-> Volume disk1s4 C43598B6-80CB-49BE-A505-C80B69A8EDD8

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

APFS Volume Disk (Role):
disk1s4 (VM)

Name: VM (Case-insensitive)

Mount Point: /private/var/vm

Capacity Consumed: 4294987776 B (4.3 GB)

FileVault: No

Rachels-MacBook-Pro:~ rachelvidal$


Oct 5, 2018 8:18 AM in response to RRack

Can you post the output of the command as shown in this example?


diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 limits

Resize limits for APFS Physical Store partition disk0s2:

Current Physical Store partition size on map: 500.0 GB (499963170816 Bytes)

Minimum (constrained by files/snapshots): 238.0 GB (238031659008 Bytes)

Recommended minimum (if used with macOS): 248.8 GB (248769077248 Bytes)

Maximum (constrained by partition map space): 500.0 GB (499963170816 Bytes)

Oct 5, 2018 10:26 AM in response to RRack

Boot into Local Recovery (not Internet Recovery) using Command+R during boot. Click on Utilities -> Terminal, run


csrutil status

csrutil disable

csrutil status


If it is disabled, run the GPT command. We can correct it using GPT Fdisk. If that does not work, then a Time Machine backup/erase/restore can be the fallback procedure. See How to use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac - Apple Support for reference.

Oct 5, 2018 11:18 AM in response to RRack

RRack wrote:


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.

Excellent.


RRack wrote:


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

😁. Not the first time I have been called that. Please run


sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0


and post the text output.

Oct 5, 2018 11:26 AM in response to Loner T

hahaha... glad I didn't offend you. actually was referring to myself... Just poorly typed. 😊


running now...


Last login: Fri Oct
5 13:23:24 on console

Restored session: Fri Oct
5 12:37:45 CDT 2018

Rachels-MacBook-Pro:~ rachelvidal$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

Password:

gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=750156374016; sectorsize=512; blocks=1465149168

gpt show: /dev/disk0: PMBR at sector 0

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 1465149167

start size
index
contents

0 1 PMBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1
GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640
731051384

731461024
733688104 2
GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC


1465149128 7


1465149135 32 Sec GPT table


1465149167 1 Sec GPT header

Rachels-MacBook-Pro:~ rachelvidal$

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How to Recover Missing Hard Drive Space on Macbook Pro?

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