Macintosh HD drive listing as Recovery Partition and it is not available to boot

bootcampdisk-utilityhard drivepartition

I just wanted to merge 2 NTFS drives because I want to increase size of my BootCamp partition. But now, I can't boot to macOS. I can see it when I boot to Windows; its files and everything ok, but somewhy it is listed as Macintosh HD (D:) and my Recovery Partition is listed as Recovery HD (E:).

When I open Startup Menu, only my Bootcamp and Recovery partitions are avaible to select, no Macintosh HD.

Here is my Disk Management screen from Windows. My Macintosh HD (371GB) drive listed as "Recovery Partition"

How can I repair my main disk…

Best Answer

Generally, the first step, in reconstructing messed up the partition tables, is to dump the current contents.

If running High Sierra (macOS 10.13), you would need to boot to internet, internal or USB based macOS Recovery. The following commands would partially dump the contents of the GPT and MBR partition table.

gpt  -r  show  /dev/disk0
fdisk  /dev/disk0

The partition tables can then be repaired by using a variety of tools. A well known third party tool is gdisk.

Since you can only boot to Windows, the gpt and fdisk commands would be unavailable. There are third party Windows equivalents named readgpt.exe and readmbr.exe that can dump the contents of the partition tables. The syntax for executing these commands is shown below.

Note: These commands have to be run from a "Administrator: Command Prompt" window.

readgpt  -t0
readmbr  -t0

Additionally, the following command will dump the GPT attributes.

readgpt  -a0

There also a Windows version of the gdisk command. Below is the syntax for executing this command from a "Administrator: Command Prompt" window.

gdisk64  \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0

If you have trouble using the gdisk command, you can post the partition table information in your question and ask for help.

Related Solutions

Bootcamp – Expanding Boot Partition to Existing NTFS Data Partition

To share with other users facing a similar situation, here is how I solved the problem--and avoided completely reinstalling OS X and Windows. For reference, my OS X version was Mountain Lion when I started solving the problem--and I needed to upgrade to Mavericks in the end.

Back up Windows partition with WinClone to an external HDD
Run "Backup now" in Time Machine to make sure I have a latest backup of OS X partition
Under OS X Disk Utility, remove Windows system partition (which is typically labeled BOOTCAMP)
In OS X Recovery boot, remove OS X partition and create it from the scratch (make it use whole HDD space)
Install a clean OS X (my MBA 2011 allowed only Lion--if I remember correctly, it's fine as long as it's not a later release than my Time Machine backup)
Restore my OS X partition from Time Machine. It makes Recovery Partition disappear, we'll fix it in the next step
From AppStore, reinstall Mountain Lion. It's only needed to re-create the Recovery Partition.
Under OS X Disk Utility, manually create a FAT partition for Bootcamp following WinClone support article. WinClone will convert it into NTFS in the next step.
This is where you decide how HDD space will be split between OS X and Windows.
Restore Bootcamp partition from your backup (#1) to the Windows partition you created in #8.
Boot Windows under Bootcamp; it can run CHKDSK automatically, reporting that volume could be dirty--but didn't find any problems.
If you use Trackpad++, it needs to be reinstalled now. Boot Windows under Bootcamp, reinstall PowerPlan Assistant first, then Trackpad++.
Under OS X, re-create virtual machine in Parallels.
Upgrade to Mavericks.
Move to Bootcamp system partition all the data files that were originally stored on Windows data partition (provided you have their backup).

The only problem that's left at this point is that Parallels freezes VM when used in "all apps in one window" default mode (which is not Coherence, Fullscreen or Modality mode). Will seek solution for it later; at least it is stable for a week now in Coherence mode.

Before following the above sequence, I tried to recreate data partitition with Windows, converting the unallocated space that sized exactly like the lost partition. Failed: I found that there is a new partition which originally wasn't there: sized 620MB, but it didn't appear as recovery partition among Startup Disks on boot. Didn't try deleting it though, maybe it could help.

MacOS – How to Restore Macintosh HD to Original Partition Configuration

There is no need to delete the CoreStorage Logical Volume Group. Just resize it:

Have a backup!
Reboot into Internet Recovery Mode (hold Option-Command-R) as the machine is restarting). You'll eventually be presented with a Max OS X Utilities window.
In the menu bar along the top of the screen, click Utilities -> Terminal.

At the prompt, enter diskutil cs list and you should get output similar to the following.

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 9B4FB14F-DA7D-46EF-BBB9-FD99166C1E2F
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         920186970112 B (920.2 GB)
    Free Space:   49152 B (49.2 KB)
|
+-< Physical Volume DE3C1DD4-3EA5-4484-AE40-C8BD60AD5F75
|   ----------------------------------------------------
|   Index:    0
|   Disk:     disk0s2
|   Status:   Online
|   Size:     120988852224 B (121.0 GB)
|
+-< Physical Volume E1C56E99-3ED2-437F-AED0-A454FCC4E983
|   ----------------------------------------------------
|   Index:    1
|   Disk:     disk1s2
|   Status:   Online
|   Size:     799198117888 B (799.2 GB)
|
+-> Logical Volume Family D824D426-8315-405A-A7CD-5B62E549FBAE
    ----------------------------------------------------------
    Encryption Status:       Unlocked
    Encryption Type:         None
    Conversion Status:       NoConversion
    Conversion Direction:    -none-
    Has Encrypted Extents:   No
    Fully Secure:            No
    Passphrase Required:     No
    |
    +-> Logical Volume AC1A071B-63D0-488F-AFFF-D296E446FE6B
        ---------------------------------------------------
        Disk:                  disk2
        Status:                Online
        Size (Total):          914000052224 B (914.0 GB)
        Conversion Progress:   -none-
        Revertible:            No
        LV Name:               Macintosh HD
        Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
        Content Hint:          Apple_HFS`

Copy the Logical Volume (LV) alphanumeric UUID of your CoreStorage volume. The LVUUID should be the fourth (the fifth if you have a Fusion Drive) listed. In the above example the alphanumeric is:
AC1A071B-63D0-488F-AFFF-D296E446FE6B
Run the following command:
```
diskutil cs resizeStack LVUUID partsize  
```
According to the number found above it would be:
```
diskutil cs resizeStack AC1A071B-63D0-488F-AFFF-D296E446FE6B 0g  
```
This will expand your CoreStorage volume to full 1.24 TB
Quit Terminal.app and start Disk Utility and verify the expanded volume.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bootcamp – Expanding Boot Partition to Existing NTFS Data Partition

MacOS – How to Restore Macintosh HD to Original Partition Configuration

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