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On a MacBook Pro, a wrong decision long time ago still causing numerous problems.

In a nut shell, I run bootcamp and OS X together on the same drive and the OS X stopped booting a while ago (I was trying to resize so that I make space for Win7). Today I fixed some issues but along the way, I messed up the boot system and moved to GPT (mistake!).

Here is my existing partition table:

    Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
      1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   AF00  EFI system partition
      2          409640          819239   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition
      3          819240       300150351   142.7 GiB   AF00  Apple_HFS_Untitled_2
      4       300150352       301419887   619.9 MiB   AB00  Recovery HD
      6       390352896       488396799   46.8 GiB    0700  BOOTCAMP

I like to solve the following problems:

  1. Notice the number 5 that is missing, that is 50gb, recover this and make this seen from Win7.
  2. Somehow see my main OS X partition from Win7 (this was the case before I move to GPT, now windows just says protected GPT)
  3. Merge my existing 50G Bootcamp to the newly minted 50Gb so that I have a decent windows machine with a single drive letter.

Directions appreciated, especially 1 and 2 are more Mac specific, I think I can figure out 3, if I can solve 1 and 2.

SOLVED I basically use the gpt application and there is an option that converts GTP to MBR. That solved the problem 1 and 2. http://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/ is the tool I have used.

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  • I want to add some general questions that might help an answerer: GUID (GPT) isn't bad necessarily - but the layout you have now will confuse bootcamp. You will certainly want to merge the windows partitions using a windows tool. Are you without backup or just hoping to live fix things and avoid re-loading things.
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Oct 10, 2012 at 15:15
  • @bmike I don't mind wiping out OSx and reinstall from time machine but Windows must survive in its current form.
    – user4749
    Commented Oct 10, 2012 at 15:16
  • If you've solved the problem, please post it as a solution, and don't edit the solution into your question.
    – Daniel ♦
    Commented Oct 11, 2012 at 2:36

1 Answer 1

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Here is what I know in case it's relevant or helpful to you or someone else.

  • Bootcamp is cranky with more than three partitions (the non-hidden partitions that you see in Disk Utility without debug mode enabled)

  • You can always delete the Recovery HD and let the installer make it again.

  • Disk Utility is good at live resizing volumes (especially on the Mac side) - if it doesn't offer to expand the size of the windows partition (after you delete the one that is free).

  • Disk Utility is bad at moving / restoring non OS X data - yes it can move the bits, but it won't set EFI / BootLoader / other data needed for the OS to run. Better to use a windows tool for that end of things.

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