Cannot remove Windows Bootcamp partition

Question

Although both the Windows OS and Mac OS open without problems, I am unable to read the Windows partition from the Mac. When I attempt to open Bootcamp Assistant, I receive the message "Boot Camp Assistant was unable to verify if the Windows partition contains a Windows installation. This may be because BitLocker is enabled on the partition. If so, disable BitLocker on the disk before removing Boot Camp." I have checked, and BitLocker is not enabled.

Here is my diskutil list:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk1⁩         208.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data ⁨BOOTCAMP⁩                42.8 GB    disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +208.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume ⁨Macintosh HD — Data⁩     173.8 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume ⁨Preboot⁩                 671.9 MB   disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume ⁨Recovery⁩                623.7 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume ⁨VM⁩                      3.2 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume ⁨Macintosh HD⁩            22.3 GB    disk1s5
   6:              APFS Snapshot ⁨com.apple.os.update-...⁩ 22.3 GB    disk1s5s

I've done some research and found that deleting/restoring Bootcamp via Disk Utility is an option, but https://stellarinfo.com/blog/remove-boot-camp-partition-from-mac/ said that that would make the device "unstable" and "boot into Windows recovery mode randomly". Is it safe to delete Bootcamp via Disk Utitilty?

Answer 1

Entering commands is usually more reliable than using the Disk Utility. In your case, the commands would be the following.

sudo diskutil mount disk0s1
cd /Volumes/EFI/EFI
rm -rf Boot
rm -rf Microsoft
cd ~
diskutil unmount disk0s1
diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s3
diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 0

The above commands should work unless there is something wrong with a file system or a hardware failure. Since the Boot Camp Assistant has issued an error message, there very well might be something wrong with a file system or a hardware failure.