MacOS – Missing HDD space after running diskutil commands

apfshigh sierramacospartition

I was trying to resize my bootcamp partition and add a new partition as exFat to share between the two… I formatted my bootcamp partition, was unable to figure out how to merge it with my main macOS partition… After some searching, I came across : https://www.macobserver.com/tips/deep-dive/resize-your-apfs-container/

I followed the steps I thought I needed… using the command

sudo diskutil eraseVolume "Free Space" %noformat% /dev/disk0s4

for the appropriate disks… So far so good, or so I thought.

I entered the command

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

But recieved the following:

Started APFS operation Error: -69771: The target disk is too small for
this operation

After running the diskutil list command, I realized that I can't even find the space I erased earlier anywhere… Can someone help me figure out how to reclaim that space? I do have a backup of data on time machine; however, someone else is experiencing a similar issue, and they did a clean install and their space is still missing as well. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8291525

I'm not one to usually post or ask for help, I tend to search and find solutions out there, but I'm not having any luck. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Any info needed, I'll be happy to provide.

Below is the results of disktil list

/dev/disk0 (internal):
    #:                       TYPE NAME           SIZE       IDENTIFIER
    0:      GUID_partition_scheme                500.3 GB   disk0
    1:                        EFI EFI            314.6 MB   disk0s1   
    2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1  423.0 GB   disk0s2
    3:                  Apple_HFS XPlatform      15.9 GB    disk0s3
    4:                 Apple_Boot                134.2 MB   disk0s4
    5:       Apple_KernelCoreDump                655.4 MB   disk0s5

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
    #:                       TYPE NAME       SIZE       IDENTIFIER
    0:      APFS Container Scheme -         +423.0 GB   disk1                                 Physical Store disk0s2
    1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD  319.3 GB   disk1s1
    2:                APFS Volume Preboot    22.4 MB    disk1s2
    3:               APFS Volume Recovery    509.8 MB   disk1s3
    4:          APFS Volume VM               1.1 GB     disk1s4

 /dev/disk2 (disk image):
    #:                       TYPE NAME        SIZE       IDENTIFIER
    0:                CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US... +4.7 GB     disk2

As you can see, I'm missing about 60 gb, which is the amount of space I was attempting to free up.

EDIT:

Results for the fdisk /dev/disk0 command:

Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 7602/255/63 [122138133 sectors]
Sector size: 4096 bytes       
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -  122138132] <Unknown ID>
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused 
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

Results for the gpt -r show /dev/disk0 command:

    start       size  index  contents
        0          1         PMBR
        1          1         Pri GPT header
        2          4         Pri GPT table
        6      76800      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    76806  103270257      2  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
103347063    3873482      3  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
107220545      32768      4  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
107253313    2441407 
109694720     160000      5  GPT part - 5361644D-6163-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC 
109854720   12283408           
122138128          4         Sec GPT table
122138132          1         Sec GPT header

EDIT 2: Ran the commands from macOS Recovery and the results were a bit different, so I thought I'd share that as well.

-bash-3.2# csrutil disable
Successfully disabled System Integrity Protection. Please restart the machine for the changes to take effect.
-bash-3.2# fdisk /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 520/128/63 [4194024 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -    4194023] <Unknown ID>
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
-bash-3.2# gpt -r show /dev/disk0
    start     size  index  contents
        0        1         PMBR
        1        1         Pri GPT header
        2       32         Pri GPT table
       34        6         
       40  3931800      1  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  3931840   262151         
  4193991       32         Sec GPT table
  4194023        1         Sec GPT header

EDIT 3: Original results recreated.

sudo fdisk  /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 7602/255/63 [122138133 sectors]
Sector size: 4096 bytes
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -  122138132] <Unknown ID>
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      

sudo gpt  -r  show  /dev/disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2          4         Pri GPT table
          6      76800      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      76806  103270257      2  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  103347063    3873482      3  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  107220545      32768      4  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  107253313    2441407         
  109694720     160000      5  GPT part - 5361644D-6163-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  109854720   12283408         
  122138128          4         Sec GPT table
  122138132          1         Sec GPT header

EDIT 4:

Results after running sudo diskutil erasevolume free n disk0s5

diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         423.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS XPlatform               15.9 GB    disk0s3
   4:                 Apple_Boot                         134.2 MB   disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +423.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            307.6 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 22.4 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                509.8 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4

sudo fdisk  /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 7602/255/63 [122138133 sectors]
Sector size: 4096 bytes
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -  122138132] <Unknown ID>
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused   

sudo gpt  -r  show  /dev/disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2          4         Pri GPT table
          6      76800      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      76806  103270257      2  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  103347063    3873482      3  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  107220545      32768      4  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  107253313   14884815         
  122138128          4         Sec GPT table
  122138132          1         Sec GPT header

EDIT 5: Command results once again.

diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         438.9 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot                         134.2 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +438.9 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            307.6 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 22.4 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                509.8 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4

sudo fdisk  /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 7602/255/63 [122138133 sectors]
Sector size: 4096 bytes
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -  122138132] <Unknown ID>
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      

sudo gpt  -r  show  /dev/disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2          4         Pri GPT table
          6      76800      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      76806  107143739      2  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  107220545      32768      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  107253313   14884815         
  122138128          4         Sec GPT table
  122138132          1         Sec GPT header

EDIT 6: Someome kindly pointed out that I had not shared my end goal. Am now looking to have one drive with the full 500gb available and then go from there to establishing a bootcamp partition and then an additional exFat partition that can be shared between the two OS!

EDIT 7: All issues have been resolved!

Best Answer

The folks at Apple seem to be operating under a paradigm where no drive space is ever unallocated. Therefore, when System Integrity Protection (SIP) is enabled, the macOS operating system prevents execution of any utilities or commands which could report the location of lost space on system drives. Your Mac uses a single physical system drive named /dev/disk0.

System drives generally contains two types of partition tables. The first is the Master Boot Record (MBR) table and the second is the GUID Partition Table (GPT). The command fdisk dumps the contents of the MBR table, while the command gpt partially dumps the contents of the GPT. To used these command on a system drive, you need to either disable SIP or execute the commands while booted to macOS Recovery. The commands you need to enter are given below

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

The gpt commands prints a table of the space occupied by each partition. The table also prints unallocated space. Generally, you need to know which partitions are located before the lost (unallocated) space you wish to recover. Usually, the diskutil command can then used to recovery this space. Although, other commands such as fdisk, gpt and gdisk can also be used.

Note: Generally the identifier produced by disktuil output contains the index for a given partition. This is not alway true. You may need to consider other output from both the diskutil and gpt commands before matching a partition index with an identifier.

If you could post the output from the above commands, then someone (or I) could help with the correct commands to repair your Mac.

Update 1

You can erase the Apple_KernelCoreDump` partition by executing the command given below. The result will a block of free space the the end of your drive. The size of this block will be about 61 GB.

sudo  diskutil  erasevolume  free  n  disk0s5

Beyond this change, I am not sure what to post. I need to know how you want the drive partitioned. So far, you have mentioned partitions for ExFat and Windows. Currently you have Apple_HFS and Apple_Boot partitions. You can not merge the free space back to the APFS container until these partitions are erased. Also, if you are going to reinstall Windows, you probably should state the model/year of your Mac and the version of Windows.

Update 2

The following command will return all free space back to the APFS partition.

sudo  diskutil  erasevolume  free  n  disk0s3
sudo  diskutil  apfs  resizecontainer  disk0s2  0

If the above commands work, are you then going to attempt to install Windows 10 through the use of the Boot Camp Assistant? Other users have reported problems using the Boot Camp Assistant when the internal physical drive has an APFS partition.

Related Solutions

MacOS – Can’t modify partitions

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.