MacOS – Lost partitions after a botched Windows install attempt via Bootcamp

bootcampmacospartitionwindows

I tried to install Windows 8 using the bootcamp assistant, but when I got to this screen,

enter image description here

The BOOTCAMP partition created by bootcamp wouldn't accept the windows install. Meaning, I reformatted it, and normally the little sun button "New" would then allow me to proceed with the Windows install.

I thought it was very weird so I instead deleted the partition, which turned into a 47.3Gb of Unallocated Space.

I tried formatting said unallocated space which created a bunch more partitions, but ultimately the same problem persisted: Can't install Windows.

In OSX, the Disk Utility wouldn't let me actually delete or remove the partitions so I went back to the Windows install menu and turned all the undesirables into unallocated space.


Here's what my Disk Utility looks like now:

enter image description here

As you can see there's some purple stuff at the top and some dark-grey stuff at the bottom, which I imagine represents free space?

Finally, here's a diskutil list readout:

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         121.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         948.5 GB   disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s3
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *1.1 TB     disk2
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2, disk1s2
                                 A952E93D-0902-4BEC-B4D2-93A8BB1CDDD0
                                 Unencrypted Fusion Drive
/dev/disk3
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *16.0 GB    disk3
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 WININSTALL              16.0 GB    disk3s1

Questions:

  • WTF happened?

  • How can I reset everything to the way it was so I can
    try bootcamp again?

  • More specifically, how do I add unallocated space
    to my primary OSX partition?

  • List item

Please help!

Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

I don't know what exactly happened, usually it works.

To get back to your original disk layout, just format the unallocated space with the Window installer (FAT32 or NTFS), boot to OS X and open Bootcamp Assistant. Skip building an installation medium or downloading any drivers, just remove the Windows Partition.

If that doesn't work give me a comment. There are several solutions to restore the original disk layout.

Item List:

Actually you have a Fusion Drive.

To build a Fusion Drive several physical disks are combined to a CoreStorage Logical Volume Group.

  • Disk0 is your physical SSD

  • Disk1 is your physical HDD

  • Disk2 is your logical Macintosh HD volume (CoreStorage Logical Volume) which resides in a Logical Volume Group spanning over disk0s2 and disk1s2. Disk2 is no real physical disk like disk0 and disk1 but in the Disk Utiliy context an own "logical" one.

  • Disk3 is your thumb drive containing the Windows 8 installation environment.