Eh.....Help please (Hard Disk Partition Stuff)

Fad

On a Macbook (A black one, so the spec is standard) bought last August.

Something has gone a little wrong.

I was messing around making a partition, and after I decided that XP was too shíte to use, I restored it using boot camp.

I was going to install windows 7 so I made a 32Gb partition, but couldnt get it to install. So then I decided to install Ubuntu, the installer seemed to be installing on the partition, which is want I wanted, after it had installed it prompted me to restart, but then, when I restarted it and held down alt during start up, so I could select the ubuntu one, but it wasnt there. I thought, grand, I can just restore the partition using boot camp and try again.

No chance!

When I try to use Boot camp I get this message

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

The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows.

I'd kinda like to get everything back to normal tbh, so any suggestions?

(I did a back up using Airport a two days ago, as a point of information, in the off chance I have to erase things.)

Sad Professor

I assume it's the Ubuntu filesystem (ext3, ext4, whatever) that is preventing Bootcamp Assistant from restoring.

Is the Ubuntu partition recognised in Disk Utility? I'm guessing it isn't in which case it might problematic getting rid of it. I've no experience of accessing ext3 within OSX however so I don't know what to suggest. But I'm sure there's some solution that doesn't involve a complete reformat.

Fad

I think the partition is recognised now, it's coming up on the desktop (Seperate to the bootcamp one though :S)

Anyone any suggestions, I'm slightly worried tbh.

Sad Professor

Fad wrote: »

I think the partition is recognised now, it's coming up on the desktop (Seperate to the bootcamp one though :S)

What do you mean separate? I thought you installed Ubuntu on the Bootcamp created partition?

Anyway, try using Disk Utility to reformat the Ubuntu partition as FAT32. Then see if Bootcamp will restore everything to a single partition.

john__long

To boot from a Linux formatted partition on a Mac u need a special bootloader.

http://refit.sourceforge.net/

Install this from your Mac partition and you should be in business.

PS:

I'm a moron.

I agree with Sad Professor. Sorry. I didn't read it right. Jumped to conclusion.

Ironically my mis-read solution would solve your initial problem.

Fad

Sad Professor wrote: »

What do you mean separate? I thought you installed Ubuntu on the Bootcamp created partition?

Anyway, try using Disk Utility to reformat the Ubuntu partition as FAT32. Then see if Bootcamp will restore everything to a single partition.

I thought I did, I think Ubuntu made a partition within the boot camp partition (That's what I suspect, not sure tbh)

john__long

In the "Terminal" perhaps the command "diskutil" might be of some use.

I'm assuming some knowledge of CLI!

diskutil(8) BSD System Manager's Manual diskutil(8)

NAME
diskutil -- Modify, verify and repair local disks.

SYNOPSIS
diskutil verb [options]

DESCRIPTION
diskutil manipulates the volume-level structure of local disks. It pro-
vides information about, and allows the administration of, the partition-
ing scheme of disks, optical discs, and AppleRAID sets.

Fad

Here's what my desktop looks like with the partitions and the "Main/Parent" HD

How I managed to post that sans picture I do not know

john__long

Can you run this command in Terminal and post the output:

"diskutil list"

You should get something similar to this:

john-longs-macbook-pro:~ jlo$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *232.9 Gi disk0
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 232.6 Gi disk0s2

Fad

john__long wrote: »

Can you run this command in Terminal and post the output:

"diskutil list"

You should get something similar to this:

I got

/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *232.9 Gi disk0
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 200.9 Gi disk0s2
3: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 64.6 Mi disk0s3
4: Microsoft Basic Data DISK0S4 30.1 Gi disk0s6
5: Linux Swap 1.3 Gi disk0s5

I should probably worry.....

john__long

OK.

I've never done this via Terminal before so don't hate me if it doesn't work and ****s up ur install. As you said, you have a backup so all shud be well!

If your run this command in terminal:

"sudo diskutil mergePartitions HFS+ WINDOWS disk0s3 disk0s6"

This will tell diskutil to merge all partitions BETWEEN disk0s3 AND disks06 and reformat to HFS+, name that partition to WINDOWS.

Thus effectively wiping out:

3: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 64.6 Mi disk0s3
4: Microsoft Basic Data DISK0S4 30.1 Gi disk0s6
5: Linux Swap 1.3 Gi disk0s5

and *HOPEFULLY* leaving you with something you can work with.

I include the warning that diskutil throws:

Usage: diskutil mergePartitions [force] format name
DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode
Merge two or more pre-existing partitions into one. The first disk parameter
is the starting partition; the second disk parameter is the ending partition;
this given range of two or more partitions will be merged into one. Both disk
parameters must of course be on the same whole-disk.
All data on merged partitions other than the first will be lost.
The first will be erased if it doesn't have a resizable type (e.g. JHFS+)
or if the "force" argument is given.
Merged partitions are required to be ordered sequentially on disk
(see diskutil list for the actual on-disk ordering).
Ownership of the affected disk is required.
The Format parameter is the specific filesystem name you want to erase it as
(e.g. HFS+, etc.). The Name parameter is the name of the final volume created.
Format and Name are ignored if the first partition is resizable.
Example: diskutil mergePartitions HFS+ NewName disk3s4 disk3s7
Note: This will merge all partitions *BETWEEN* disk3s4 and disk3s7!
This will destroy the data on disk3s5, disk3s6, disk3s7 and
any invisible free space partitions between those disks.
disk3s4 will be resized to cover the full space if possible.
Valid filesystems: "Journaled HFS+" "HFS+" "Case-sensitive HFS+" "Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+" "HFS" "MS-DOS FAT16" "MS-DOS FAT32" "MS-DOS FAT12" "MS-DOS" "UDF" "UFS" "ZFS"

lalee17

Wow that's weird, had the exact same error last night. But I'm just backing up my data using Time Machine on an external hard drive and then reinstalling the OS. It said on a different forum that that's the failsafe option.

Fad

I'll try the terminal option, thanks.

If I dont reply to this thread till monday, my HD is borked and I'll have gone to oxegen!

john__long

I hope it works. Otherwise I'll have to go into exile!

Fad

diskutil list now gives:

diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *232.9 Gi disk0
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 200.9 Gi disk0s2
3: Apple_HFS WINDOWS 30.2 Gi disk0s3
4: Linux Swap 1.3 Gi disk0s4

And when I try to run boot camp it tells me I have to update software, but then I ran software updates, and it still tells me to update software (I'm still here though! Thanks for all the help so far!)

john__long

Did you try to reformat the WINDOWS partition to FAT using Disk Utility now?

Then try running the Boot Camp Assistant.

Fad

john__long wrote: »

Did you try to reformat the WINDOWS partition to FAT using Disk Utility now?

Then try running the Boot Camp Assistant.

Will do.

Thanks!

Fad

I still have two partitions though (which I think is causing problems) I also cant reformat "Linux Swap" either.

Can I combine them somehow?

john__long

At this point I'm outta ideas.

I shall link this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=422771

& suggest that a restore might be the simplest (piece of mind) way to go!

I'm sure there's a way to do it without re-installing but I don't know it!

PS:

This may help?

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=5462372&postcount=5

Fad

Thanks for all your help!

Anyone else's input is more than welcome.

(Wont respond till monday afternoon, but I will try anything that is suggested)

Fad

Yeah.....me again!

Er, when I go into disk utility, there is three partitions; Mac HD, Windows and "Linux Swap"

When I try to mount the disk "Linux Swap" I get "The disk “Linux Swap” could not be mounted. Try running First Aid on the disk and then retry mounting." and then when I click into First Aid I dont have any options to use, (all the buttons arent clickable).

What should I do or how do I go about the formatting thing and installing everything?

(Is using a back up from airport just a matter of clicking restore?)