Boot Camp Partition Trouble

[PlanEx]

Hello all,

I'm having a bit of trouble with Boot Camp and Partitions due to a misstep on my part, any help would be appreciated. A few days ago I used Boot Camp Assistant to install the Windows 7 Beta onto my Unibody MacBook Pro, everything went fine and I was using Windows without any problems. I noticed eventually that I had installed the 64 bit version of Windows when I wanted the 32 bit version, so I booted back up into Mac OS X with the intention of redoing it so that I would have the 32 bit version.

This is where the trouble starts. I wanted to get rid of my windows partition so that I could re-do everything and get the 32 bit version. Instead of erasing the partition through Boot Camp Assistant, I erased the data on my Boot Camp volume with Disk Utility. Being a fairly new OS X user, and first time Boot Camp user, I just didn't know until after I had erased the data that one is supposed to erase a boot camp partition using the Boot Camp Utility, not Disk Utility

Now I have two partitions, one of them empty and one of them with all my Mac OS stuff on it. I tried to go through the process of using Boot Camp Assistant to repartition my drive, but I got the following message: "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition. The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing windows"

Is there any way I can get rid of that other partition, so that I can use Boot Camp Assistant to install the correct version of windows?

 

[DJ567]

have you tried recreating the partition as either a fat32 (MS DOS) partition or journaled os x parititon and then re attempted boot camp assistant, i usually only have this problem if i have a vmware image on the drive as for some reason this confuses it with regard to free space available

 

[PlanEx]

have you tried recreating the partition as either a fat32 (MS DOS) partition or journaled os x parititon and then re attempted boot camp assistant, i usually only have this problem if i have a vmware image on the drive as for some reason this confuses it with regard to free space available

Sorry to be a bit thick about this, but how do I recreate the partition?

Also, in Disk Utility, it shows the volume's format as being Mac Os X Extended (Journaled)

 

[DJ567]

not at all

open up disk utility click the hard disk and click partition.

there should be a diagram with either free space or a second parititon if it is free space i think you can click it and erase as a ms dos partition (as boot camp will be more likely to recognise this i assume)

if it is a partition click that and do the same thing. bare in mind the only way to partition (by which i mean divide up space that hasnt already been split or joining partitions) a disk in live os x is with the boot camp assistant otherwise it will require you to run disk utility by booting from your os x disc.

whilst booted into os x dont worry about deleting the os x partition as it wont let you (im not sure this is the case if you were to boot from your os x disk)

 

[PlanEx]

not at all

open up disk utility click the hard disk and click partition.

there should be a diagram with either free space or a second parititon if it is free space i think you can click it and erase as a ms dos partition (as boot camp will be more likely to recognise this i assume)

if it is a partition click that and do the same thing. bare in mind the only way to partition (by which i mean divide up space that hasnt already been split or joining partitions) a disk in live os x is with the boot camp assistant otherwise it will require you to run disk utility by booting from your os x disc.

whilst booted into os x dont worry about deleting the os x partition as it wont let you (im not sure this is the case if you were to boot from your os x disk)

Wow! That could not have been easier. This entire time I had been trying to erase the partition in Disk Utility with the partition selected. I had never even though to select the HARD DRIVE. I just went in there, selected the partition and pressed the minus button, and erased the partition. I then resized my Mac partition to use up all the free space. Everything seems to be working fine now.

Thanks for the help and sticking with me on this issue. You saved me a trip to the apple store!

 

[DJ567]

no problem

god knows i had enough problems when i got my first mac in 06, but i had my mate who had been a mac man for years before hand and i would just ask him if i had a problem with anything. once you play around enough you just tend to learn these things anyway