Mac – Unable to boot – facing stop sign; Virtual Whole Storage needs repair; Time-Machine cannot find restoration disk destination

bootcore-storagedisk-utilitypartitiontime-machine

Dear respected experts,

I have a MBP Retina 2015 (Yosemite). I tried to partition my Macintosh HD ( internal 1TB SSD) disk (by splitting into half). It seemed to have split but has given me some errors about mapping or mounting…So I restarted the computer. After which, I was unable to bootup again – facing the 'stop'/'block' sign every time.

I got into Recovery Mode (cmd + R while restarting) and tried using the repair disk option. After clicking repair it keeps telling me the disk needs to be repaired. I click repair again but the same message prompting to repair again pops up. By the way, it's showing my disk as a Virtual Whole disk (500.2GB partition + 499.8GB partition). NB. I managed to erase one of the partitions (I think the 499GB one) within the Virtual Whole Disk. However, the other one cannot be erased (the option is greyed-out)

I would like to repair my disk as opposed to starting over with a brand new install. I have a pre-partition Time Machine backup on a USB drive. I tried to restore it via the recovery mode. However, it was unable to find a destination (disk) to restore it to. I am assuming the destination disk needs to be 1TB since that was the disk's size (single paritioned), although I had only used ~70GB capacity; ie the backup size on my USB drive is also 70GB.

I tried Internet Recovery Mode, as I read that I can't repair my disk via the normal recovery mode…but still to no avail. Should I perhaps bootup a Mac OS via an external USB and and try disk the utlility from there? If yes, how can I download a bootable yosemite OS onto a USB drive? (I only have one mac machine, which at the moment is not booting – have never accessed mac app store before – it's a new machine).

I am unable to boot into Single User mode (it ends up showing the stop sign plus a message about being unable to find root). I tried resetting PRAM and SCM but it didn't solve the issue.

I am worried that if I restore it would mean upgrading to El Capitan or Sierra, which (my guesses are), would render my Time Machine backup useless.

Is there any way I can repair the disk or flawlessly restore the time machine backup, which I have on a USB drive?

I accessed the terminal via recovery mode;

diskutil cs list shows the following:
CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
Logical Volume Group (random digits)
name: none
status: initializing
size: 0 B (0 B)
free space: -none

Physical Volume (different random digits)  
    Disk: disk1s2  
    Status: Failed  
    Size: -none-

diskutil list shows:
14 different /dev/disks (ie. last one is /dev/disk14).

/dev/disk0
   disk 0 is 1.3GB (Apple parition scheme)  
   disk0s1 is apple partition map (30.7KB)  
   disk0s2 Apple_HFS OS X Base System 1.3GB.  

/dev/disk1
   disk1 GUID partition scheme 1TB  
   disk1s1 EFI EFI 209.7MB  
   disk1s2 Apple Core Storage 500.2GB  
   disk1s3 Apple_Boot Recover HD 650MB

I've triped checked that disks 2 to 14 are single partitions and are sized from 6.3MB to 524.3KB.

    gpt -r show disk0
    start        size        index          contents
        0     2600084

    gpt -r show disk1
    start        size        index          contents
        0           1                        PMBR  
        1           1                        Pri GPT header  
        2          32                        Pri GPT table
        34          6                       
        40     409600            1           GPT part - (random nos C1***3B)
    409640  976970432            2           GPT part - (random nos 53***AC)
 977380072    1269536            3           GPT part - (similar abv 42***AC)
 978649608  975560479                      
1954210087         32                        Sec GPT table
1954210119          1                        Sec GPT table

Best Answer

You probably repartitioned the main volume the wrong way. At least your CoreStorage Logical Volume Group got corrupted either by partitioning or by "repairing".

The ultimate method to reset the drive is to completely destroy the GUID partition table of the main internal disk. This will render all data on the disk useless and you need an up-to-date backup to restore your old volume.

To destroy the GUID of your internal physical disk you have to boot to an external boot volume. This may be a OS X installer thumb drive or Internet Recovery Mode (which net-boots to a recovery image provided by Apple over the network). You mustn't boot to Recovery Mode which loads a basic system in a mounted but compressed recovery image in your recovery partition diskXs3).

Detach any external disks - especially your Time Machine backup drive
Boot to Internet Recovery Mode
Open Terminal in the menubar Utilities -> Terminal
Get an overview (especially the gpt command is important!):
```
diskutil list
gpt -r show disk0
gpt -r show disk1
```
Check which of both disks is your internal disk. Usually the internal disk is disk0 and the recovery volume is disk1 if you have only one disk in your Mac. In rare cases disk1 is your internal disk and disk0 is the recovery volume. The recovery disk has ~ 2600000 blocks (or ~1.3 GB). Even the smallest SSD is much larger. Below I assume your internal disk has the disk identifier disk0 - so use disk1 (or disk2, disk3) instead of disk0 in the commands if you find an other disk identifier for your internal physical disk.
Unmount disk0:
```
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
```

Delete the GUID:

gpt destroy disk0

If this doesn't help, then the hard way:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk0 bs=512 count=40

Create a new GUID partition (this also creates a fresh pMBR):
```
gpt create -f disk0
```
Enter exit and quit Terminal.
Open Disk Utility and partition your internal disk: one or two partitions and at least one JHFS+ volume.
Quit Disk Utility
Attach your Time Machine backup drive, open Restore Time Machine backup (or similar) from OS X Utilties and restore your backup.

This usually won't restore your Recovery HD. You have to do this either manually with Recovery Partition 4.0.4 or by reinstalling your current system with an Apple system installer (i.e. "Install OS X Yosemite" 10.10.5, which usually won't affect your data)

Related Solutions

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.

MacOS – Boot Camp failed and reduced Macintosh HD partition from 3TB to 1,46TB

The first thing I would try is to open Boot Camp Assistant and see if you can remove the partition. Whether Windows was installed or not, this should be possible.

Alternatively, since I'm guessing you haven't repartitioned your drive since you installed El Capitan, you won't be able to resize the partition unless you use a source outside of your computer. Even in recovery mode, you won't be able to repartition. You might be able to resize it in Disk Utility if you use Internet Recovery: CMD + Option + R at boot. Another option would be to boot into recovery mode, install OS X on a USB drive, then from the installation on that USB drive, you would for sure be able to resize your partition.

I have done this many times, so I understand the frustration it can cause when you have space that you can't recover and the only way to get it back involves several hours of your time.

The good news is that if you ever start with a fresh partition in El Capitan, their new partition scheme is resizable even when you're using it live so you wouldn't need to ever even touch Recovery Mode.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

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

MacOS – Boot Camp failed and reduced Macintosh HD partition from 3TB to 1,46TB

Related Question