MacOS – Internal, virtual drive and recover HD missing. Unable to boot windows. How to fix this

hard drivemacospartition

I was testing out a Linux Mint installation on an iMac in order to run some programs written for Linux. This iMac was a dual boot with Windows installed through bootcamp. I think it corrupted the boot system for Windows (The MBR and hybrid MBR is confusing me).

I thought of removing the Linux installation and thus I used Disk Utility and reformatted and removed the Linux partitions.

However, when I list the disk, the (internal, virtual) and Recovery HD drive is missing since after the removing the first installation.

Currently I repartition the drives and reinstall Linux Mint to run the required program. I would like to ask for help with the following:

What is the internal, virtual drive? And why is it and the recovery HD missing? (I want to know what I did wrong)
Does the missing internal, virtual drive need fixing? How to do it?
Is it possible to fix Windows boot in without reinstalling it?
- I am actually fine with dual boot for now and lose the Windows. If I need to I would follow the guide on triple booting (which I saw after this had happened). But if there is a way to fix it please let me know.

Here is the readout from disk util when I formatted it for the first linux installation

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            250.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data                         649.9 GB   disk0s4
   5:       Microsoft Basic Data                         18.9 GB    disk0s5
   6:       Microsoft Basic Data                         29.9 GB    disk0s6
   7:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                50.0 GB    disk0s7

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            Macintosh HD           +250.0 GB   disk1
                             Logical Volume on disk0s2
                             A2849F4D-66EA-4FFF-8FB2-5247B5407C0C
                             Unencrypted

After that I formatted and remove the linux partition of MacOS disk utility.I formatted partition 4,5 and 6 and resize with the Macintosh HD partition. Now it reads

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            949.9 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                50.0 GB    disk0s3



gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         MBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34           6         
          40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      409640  1855197144      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   1855606784     262144
   1855868928   97654784      3  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
   1953523712       1423        
  1953525135          32         Sec GPT table
  1953525167           1         Sec GPT header

I repartition and installed linux mint again with a Home drive, a OS drive and a swap drive.

Now this is what the disk util reads:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            250.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data                         649.9 GB   disk0s3       
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data                         14.9 GB    disk0s4
   5:       Microsoft Basic Data                         34.7 GB    disk0s5
   6:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                50.0 GB    disk0s6


gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         MBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34           6         
          40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      409640  1855197144      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   488690888      262144
   488953032  1269269104      3  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7                      
  1758222136      262144
  1758484280    29034728      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7                                                                              
  1787519008      262144
  1787781152    67825632      5  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7                      
  1855606784      262144 
  1855868928    97654784      6  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  1953523712        1423        
  1953525135          32         Sec GPT table
  1953525167           1         Sec GPT header

Best Answer

The internal virtual disk is a Logical Volume and part of a CoreStorage Logical Volume Group. CoreStorage itself is a logical volume manager similar to Linux' LVM. An LVM is an additional abstraction layer in between hard disks and partitions on one side and volumes on the other side.

In macOS you can convert a partition (e.g disk0s2) with a HFS+ file system lossless to a Logical Volume Group which initially contains several nested items: a Physical Volume, a Logical Volume Family and a Logical Volume. The final Logical Volume is slightly smaller than the original partition, because CoreStorage needs some space to save administrative data.

The Logical Volume contains the data of the previous standard volume/partition and is mapped to its own (virtual) disk device: disk0s2 > disk1

If your Logical Volume disk1 contains a lot of free space you may resize it and add a second Logical Volume in the same Physical Volume and after formatting it you will get a second virtual device: disk0s2 > disk2

If you have a second physical partition on your main disk or a second disk with a partition you may add either or all of them to the first Logical Volume Group. They will be added to the total space available in the Logical Volume Group. You may also create a second Logical Volume Group.

If you have added a second partition (= Physical Volume) to the LVG you can expand the initial Logical Volume to span both Physical Volumes. If the second partition is on a different disk (SSD) this is called a "Fusion Drive". If the second Physical Volume is on the same drive it's a fake Fusion Drive. If you additionally add a partition on a third drive it's a Uber Fusion Drive.

Depending on how you created the LVG you can revert a 1(LVG):1(PV):1(LVF):1(LV) to a normal volume. This is not possible with an e.g. 1:2:1:1 or 1:2:1:2 LVG because you can't map 1(LV)→ 2(HFS+-volumes) (~technically-mathematically).

Another feature of CoreStorage is volume encryption > FileVault2.
The "missing internal, virtual drive" doesn't need fixing because it's not missing but was converted to a normal partition/HFS+ volume again (see 1.)

The Recovery HD partition probably got deleted while installing Mint.
The main problem of your partition table is the MBR and its restrictions (four entries). Your Windows partition resides on the sixth partition which is actually not included in the MBR. You may fix this by following one of the many of David Anderson's answers related to MBR/PMBR/multi boot.

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Thanks @Tetsujin. The listing looked a little screwy so I was a little hesitant to go mucking around with the command-line diskutil. But I ended up doing a

diskutil corestorage list

and then

diskutil corestorage delete [UUID of 50GB Logical Volume Group]

GUI Disk Utility correctly saw the 50 GB of empty space as part of the other Logical Volume Group and I was able to delete it and merge it back in fine.

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.

Best Answer

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MacOS – Can’t modify partitions

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

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