Disk Utility hangs after adding a partition with gpt; diskutil still works just fine

disk-utilitypartition

I'm trying to shrink my Time Machine partition to make more space for Windows games. The shrink went perfectly, but I was left with a chunk of free space Disk Utility wouldn't let me make a partition in. I would have to delete the free space and make a new partition.

I couldn't figure out how to get it to not resize my Time Machine partition again, and diskutil doesn't seem to be able to create new partitions from scratch, only split and merge them. So I turned to gpt using this answer.

After running gpt add -b 1739919576 -s 88606504 -t hfs disk2, Disk Utility could see the new empty partition just fine. Then I tried to delete the partition after it (it was 500MB with nothing on it), and resize the new one to compensate. Then Disk Utility hung on "Waiting for partitions to activate". I force quit it, which in retrospect was a pretty stupid idea.

Now I can use diskutil and gpt just fine, but when I open Disk Utility it just hangs immediately. Any ideas?

Before:

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage SG-1                    400.0 GB   disk2s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk2s3
   4:          Apple_CoreStorage SG-1_TM                 490.4 GB   disk2s4
   5:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk2s8
   6:                  Apple_HFS tmp                     500.2 MB   disk2s6
   7:       Microsoft Basic Data WTransfer               63.2 GB    disk2s7

       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   781240488      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   781650128      262144      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   781912272   957745160      4  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  1739657432      262144      5  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  1739919576    88868648         
  1828788224      976896      6  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  1829765120   123496448      7  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  1953261568      263566         
  1953525134          32         Sec GPT table
  1953525166           1         Sec GPT header

Current state:

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage SG-1                    400.0 GB   disk2s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk2s3
   4:          Apple_CoreStorage SG-1_TM                 490.4 GB   disk2s4
   5:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk2s5
   6:       Microsoft Basic Data WTransfer               63.2 GB    disk2s6
   7:                  Apple_HFS                         45.4 GB    disk2s7

gpt show: disk2: mediasize=1000204885504; sectorsize=512; blocks=1953525167
gpt show: disk2: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: disk2: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: disk2: Sec GPT at sector 1953525166
       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   781240488      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   781650128      262144      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   781912272   957745160      4  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  1739657432      262144      5  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  1739919576    88606504      7  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  1828526080     1239040         
  1829765120   123496448      6  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  1953261568      263566         
  1953525134          32         Sec GPT table
  1953525166           1         Sec GPT header

Update

Deleting the new partition, rebooting, and creating a new partition exactly filling the available space (taking into account the necessary 262144-sector gaps) fixed the problem…until I tried to resize a partition again. When I tried to delete the partition after the new one and again grow it to fit, it got stuck again on "Waiting for partitions to activate".

I ran a diskutil list, which seemed to indicate the operation succeeded and the partition had been properly grown. So I ran diskutil eject disk2, which worked fine. Then I force-quit Disk Utility, and strangely, it seemed to have no adverse effects. It didn't hang when I opened it again.

Best Answer

It turns out deleting the new partition, rebooting, and creating a new partition exactly filling the available space (taking into account the necessary 262144-sector gaps) fixed the problem. It's working perfectly now.

I'm not quite sure which of these were necessary, but hopefully this will help if someone else has the same issue.

Related Solutions

Disk Utility hangs prior to resizing partition

Yeah I do encounter this problem sometimes also, but I don't know why is it happening. For some verifying and repairing solves the problem, but for those that doesn't get solved, the command line tool diskutil often does the job.

You can just use

diskutil resizeVolume $1 $2

where

$1 is the Mount Point or Disk Identifier or Device Node of the disk you are trying to resize (obtained with diskutil list).
$2 is the size in decimal with suffix of B, S(512 byte blocks), K, M, G, T, P, or percentage of the current size(%).

e.g. diskutil resizeVolume disk0s6 100G will resize the volume disk0s6 to 100 GB.

I think I messed up the Fusion Drive on the 1TB iMac (with BootCamp)

Theoretically everything is fine with your Fusion Drive. Fusion Drives look like this. Disk0 is your SSD with 121 GB and disk1 is your HDD with ~1 TB (~1.121 TB summed up).

The larger parts of your SSD (disk0s2) and your HDD (disk1s2) are pooled to a CoreStorage LVG (Fusion Drive: disk3) with a size of 967.8 GB. The rest is reserved for EFIs, a Recovery HD (alltogether ~1.3 GB) and your old Windows partition - now probably free space (~152 GB).

The logical volume 'Macintosh HD' (967.8 GB) spans disk0s2 and disk1s2. This is the first 'Macintosh HD' in picture 1. The volume 'Macintosh HD' - it's the one visible on the desktop - should ideally also have about 967.8 GB. This is the second 'Macintosh HD' in picture 1.
In fact it has only 852.67 GB (see picture 3).

In the second picture the logical volume 'Macintosh HD' is the first listed in black, the volume 'Macintosh HD' is the second listed in black, the other two 'Macintosh HD's listed in grey are the parts of your SSD and HDD dedicated to the logical volume 'Macintosh HD'.

In my opinion something went wrong after deleting various partitions with the Bootcamp Assistant/Disk Utility or in Windows.

Preparation:

Detach any external drive (especially your external Time Machine backup drive)
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.
The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot into a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an apple/akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (preferably Mavericks or Yosemite) or a thumb drive containing a full system (preferably Mavericks or Yosemite).

Now you may either repair CoreStorage or rebuild your Fusion Drive:

'Repair CoreStorage' (not recommended):

First i would try to check the volume 'Macintosh HD' with Disk Utility. If the volume is corrupted consider a reinstall of Mac OS X.
If the volume is ok quit Disk Utility
Open Terminal and enter diskutil unmountDisk /dev/LVIdentifier and both diskutil unmountDisk /dev/DiskContainingApple_CoreStorageIdentifier
In your case: first diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk3 then diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0 and diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1
remove the EFI NO NAME partition with gpt remove -i IndexNumberOfEFINoName DiskIdentifier:
gpt remove -i 4 disk1
Remount the CoreStorage disks and then the Logical Volume:
In your case: first diskutil mountDisk /dev/disk0 and diskutil mountDisk /dev/disk1 and then diskutil mount /dev/disk3.

enter gpt -r -vvv show /dev/diskIdentfierOfApple_CoreStorage to get infos of your HDD CoreStorage disk.
In your case: gpt -r -vvv show /dev/disk1
It should look like this:

-bash-3.2# gpt -r -vvv show /dev/disk1
gpt show: /dev/disk1: mediasize=1000204886016; sectorsize=512;         blocks=1953525168
gpt show: /dev/disk1: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk1: GPT partition: type=C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B, start=40, size=409600
gpt show: /dev/disk1: GPT partition: type=53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC, start=409640, size=1671210848
gpt show: /dev/disk1: GPT partition: type=426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC, start=1671620488, size=1269760
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Sec GPT at sector 1953525167                               
     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    1671210848      2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1671620488       1269760      3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1672890248     280634887
1953525135            32        Sec GPT table
1953525167             1        Sec GPT header

The free space on your HDD has 280634887 blocks. Please calculate the biggest block number dividable through 8. That's 280634880 blocks (á 512 bytes) which equals 143685058560 B or ~143.7 GB. Add the size of your HDD CoreStorage Physical Volume (852666400768 B) The result is 143685058560 B + 852666400768 B = 996351459328 B
Resize your HDD CoreStorage physical volume with diskutil cs resizeDisk HDDPVUUID newsize
In your case: diskutil cs resizeDisk 93892BE8-2B7F-4ABD-A4C3-984495DCD98D 996351459328b
Calculate the maximal size of your CoreStorage Logical Volume in diskutil cs list: (size disk0s2) + (size disk1s2) In your case that's 120988852224 B + 996351459328 B = 1117340311552 B. That should be the size of your refreshed Logical Volume Group.
Resize your Logical Volume with diskutil cs resizeVolume LVUUID LVGSize-128 MB In your case that's diskutil cs resizeVolume D237FFDC-7DA4-41D7-AC13-4CC7E5E8C0A0 1117212311552b. If you get an error (There is not enough free space...) choose a smaller size like 1117148311552b.
Quit Terminal and open Disk Utility.
Check your expanded CoreStorage Volume for errors.
Quit Disk Utility, choose your CS volume as startup disk and restart your Mac

'Rebuild Fusion Drive' (recommended if you have a Time Machine backup)

Booted to Internet Recovery Mode open Utilities → Terminal in the menubar and enter:
diskutil cs list to get the CoreStorage listing.
Copy the Logical Volume UUID, it's the fifth listed.
Now delete the Logical Volume with diskutil cs deleteVolume LVUUID.
In your case: diskutil cs deleteVolume D237FFDC-7DA4-41D7-AC13-4CC7E5E8C0A0.
Copy the Logical Volume Group UUID, it's the first listed in the listing of diskutil cs list.
Then delete the Logical Volume Group with diskutil cs delete LVGUUID.
In your case: diskutil cs delete 1EFE58BC-3613-44C4-86EE-D816F3B66E3E
Enter exit and quit 'Terminal'
Open 'Disk Utility'. Enter 'Ignore' if you are asked to fix the drives.
Choose your SSD and partition it: 1 Partition Mac OS X Extended (Journaled), hit the Options button and choose GUID Partiton table and hit OK and Apply.
Please check that the size is ~121 GB

Example:
Choose your HDD and partition it: 1 Partition Mac OS X Extended (Journaled), hit the Options button and choose GUID Partiton table and hit OK and Apply.
Please check that the size is ~1 TB

Example:
Quit Disk Utility and open Terminal
Enter diskutil list

Example (your disk identifiers and sizes are different of course: Your volume SSD probably has the Identifier disk0s2 and the size 121 GB and your volume HDD probably has the Identifier disk1s2 and the size 1.0 TB):
Enter diskutil cs create "Name" IdentifierSSD IdentifierHDD
In your case probably diskutil cs create "Macintosh HD" disk0s2 disk1s2.

Copy the resulting LVGUUID

Example:
Enter diskutil cs CreateVolume LVGUUID jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%.

Example:
Enter diskutil cs list
Check the size of your Logical Volume. It should have the size ~1.121 TB

Example:
Quit Terminal
Open 'Disk Utility' and check your newly created volume for errors
Quit 'Disk Utility'
Attach your external Time Machine backup drive or check this answer if you use NAS or another network share.
Open 'Restore from Time Machine Backup'
Choose the appropriate Time Machine backup and restore your system
Reboot to your restored system.
Unmount and detach your Time Machine backup drive
Open 'Terminal' and enter 'diskutil list'
Check if your 'Recovery HD' is listed.
If your 'Recovery HD' is missing, usually reinstalling your current system with the latest available system installer (e.g. 'Install OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)' if Mavericks is currently installed) will recreate it without loosing any data. AFAIK Recovery Partition Creator 3.8 will NOT create a Recovery HD on CoreStorage volumes.
After reinstalling the system with the latest available system installer open App Store and install the latest security fixes.

Update

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Disk Utility hangs prior to resizing partition

I think I messed up the Fusion Drive on the 1TB iMac (with BootCamp)

Related Question