Can't delete a partition in Disk Utility.

[Weaselboy]

Try this to get rid of the last recovery volume. Then repeat diskutil list to get updated volume numbers, and repeat with the volume numbers needed to get rid of the one that is disk0s7 now.

diskutil eraseVolume JHFS+ Blank disk0s6

diskUtil mergeParitions JHFS+ disk0s5 disk0s6

 

[loudtubeamps]

Thanks..... my list as of now

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS #1 target partition 250.2 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot 650.0 MB disk0s3

4: Apple_HFS #2 750 GB 748.5 GB disk0s4

5: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s5


[Process completed]
[doublepost=1534173694][/doublepost]

your commands and the result below...


Unable to find disk for disk0s6


[Process completed]
[doublepost=1534173798][/doublepost]

 

[loudtubeamps]

Just realized the disk 6 you put in the command was an external..so ran this

diskutil eraseVolume JHFS+ Blank disk0s5

against my list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS #1 target partition 250.2 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot 650.0 MB disk0s3

4: Apple_HFS #2 750 GB 748.5 GB disk0s4

5: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s5



[Process completed]

and got this



Started erase on disk0s5 Recovery HD

Unmounting disk

Error: -69874: Couldn't modify partition map


[Process completed]


any thoughts?? Thanks again...

 

[Weaselboy]

I'm running out of ideas here. How about boot to the installer then in Disk Util select the drive itself up top where it says ST3100 and erase the whole disk to wipe everything. Then make the two partitions you want and go ahead with the OS installs after.

 

[loudtubeamps]

I'm running out of ideas here. How about boot to the installer then in Disk Util select the drive itself up top where it says ST3100 and erase the whole disk to wipe everything. Then make the two partitions you want and go ahead with the OS installs after.

I hear ya' ...I can't seem to do much with modifying the HD..... The Main HD is protected?? Erase is greyed out..

[doublepost=1534194078][/doublepost]Would you have any suggestions where to look online for some additional support?
This thing is killing' me..

 

[loudtubeamps]

I have been trying terminal commands to delete the recovery hd. It's a real PITA with the High Sierra OS.

Ideally I would like to have a clean sweep and partition my 1 TB HD with Sierra and Snow Leopard sharing the HD. I use a lot of the older Snow leopard apps ...garage band and especially iPhoto.

I did have this set up with a dual boot between Snow leopard and Sierra...then I upgraded to High Sierra and messed some of my apps. up. Now....I can't revert....tried everything I can find online to delete the recovery partition. I am assuming if I can delete it...it will allow me to reinstall older versions. I'm on a 27" iMac ..late 2009.

here's what I have currently...any help would be greatly appreciated.Thanks, Doug


/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):


#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER


0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0


1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1


2: Apple_HFS #1 target partition 250.2 GB disk0s2


3: Apple_Boot 650.0 MB disk0s7


4: Apple_HFS #2 750 GB 748.5 GB disk0s5


5: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s6




[Process completed]



as it stands I'm booting /running off of the second partition #2 750 GB.

I am happy to leave it as is if I could only install Leopard /snow Leopard on the #1 target partition.
[doublepost=1534200621][/doublepost]My dilemma is...I can't add an older os when I partition my hd, anywhere, any how..
Sierra , as mentioned is what the Mac is running now in the second partition...

I have tried as well to revert to El Capitan using an external HD formatted as a "bootable installer" I believe Capitan wasn't locked down as much, allowing more options for installing older versions. I can't budge or move around very much with High Sierra...........

 

[davidmartindale]

Why can't you just format one of the partitions as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" then boot to the Snow Leopard installer disk and choose that partition to install to? Or Format that partition once booted from the Snow Leopard install media/

 

[loudtubeamps]

I wish it were that simple Dave.. I would love nothing more than to do a complete erase and reinstall with any OS other than high Sierra. There is something in this OS and it's permissions that will not allow me to boot form any previous versions.Both partitions are Mac OS Extended (Journaled) at this time. When trying to boot from a disk or external drive , I get a message saying that I have to install the latest OS. I believe there is something in the recovery HD that is prohibiting me from installing a previous OS. I cannot delete the Recovery HD or the High Sierra OS. This OS has taken over my pooter! If you have any specific instructions, I'm all ears. Thanks, d
Note: Even when I reboot with the key command "shift-option-command-r" which , so I am to understand , should take me to the recovery option to restore from factory settings....upon reboot just takes me back to the High Sierra login window.

 

[Weaselboy]

Try booting to one of the installer USB keys again and try this in Terminal to erase the whole disk.

diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ macOS disk0

 

[loudtubeamps]

Try booting to one of the installer USB keys again and try this in Terminal to erase the whole disk.

diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ macOS disk0

Thanks for the suggestion WB...I'll try anything...the result.....

 

[davidmartindale]

I wish it were that simple Dave.. I would love nothing more than to do a complete erase and reinstall with any OS other than high Sierra. There is something in this OS and it's permissions that will not allow me to boot form any previous versions.Both partitions are Mac OS Extended (Journaled) at this time. When trying to boot from a disk or external drive , I get a message saying that I have to install the latest OS. I believe there is something in the recovery HD that is prohibiting me from installing a previous OS. I cannot delete the Recovery HD or the High Sierra OS. This OS has taken over my pooter! If you have any specific instructions, I'm all ears. Thanks, d
Note: Even when I reboot with the key command "shift-option-command-r" which , so I am to understand , should take me to the recovery option to restore from factory settings....upon reboot just takes me back to the High Sierra login window.

What happens if you insert your Snow Leopard disk and choose "Option" when booting and then select the Snow Leopard disk.

 

[Weaselboy]

Try this first then the other command.

diskutil unmount /dev/disk0

 

[loudtubeamps]

Try this first then the other command.

diskutil unmount /dev/disk0

Thanks for hanging' in here WB...Ok here is what happened..

then I ran your other command...just to see what would happen......

[doublepost=1534297919][/doublepost]

What happens if you insert your Snow Leopard disk and choose "Option" when booting and then select the Snow Leopard disk.

Hi Dave. I've tried everything I can think of including your suggestion but just in case I missed something...I ran the procedure again....holding down the "option" key during restart. The cursor froze in place when I clicked on the "Install DVD". I left the Mac for about 10 minutes and came back to find nothing had happened, so restarted and the High Sierra OS booted up without prompting.Thanks for any and all suggestions...keep em' coming....sooner or later ,I'll have my iMac back!

 

[Weaselboy]

This is really odd. That disk should not be greyed out like that in Disk Util if you are booted to an installer USB key. Was everything working fine before you undertook all this? I'm wondering if the drive is bad somehow?

 

[loudtubeamps]

This is really odd. That disk should not be greyed out like that in Disk Util if you are booted to an installer USB key. Was everything working fine before you undertook all this? I'm wondering if the drive is bad somehow?

Mornin' WB....I know..this thing is driving me crazy. I like a challenge but this has too many dead ends.
The machine was and is to my knowledge, working just fine... no issues with performance or apps, it's all good.
Before apple asked me to upgrade to High Sierra (and me like a dummy accepting), I could delete, partition add and older OS...whatever.
H.S. OS has locked things down, like some kind of parasite.
I would imagine there is something running in the background that is preventing me from deleting the H.S. OS.
I firmly believe it has to do with the recovery HD..it all reverts back to that.
If I could blow that away , I think the system would allow me to backtrack and install a previous OS.
Maybe something in the Activity monitor that could be disabled?? but I can't find anything that I'm positive would kill the security around High Sierra.
There must be some higher level terminal command that would disable the current permissions and open up some of the dead ends..like the greyed out erase and refusal to allow an older OS to be reinstalled...even in a separate partition. Crazy.

 

[Weaselboy]

Just to be clear here, when you are trying to do this, you are booted to an external USB key OS installer? You are holding the option key then selecting the USB key to boot to?

 

[MD16]

My goal is to delete the container disk but I am unable to do so. I want to add that volume back to Macintosh SSD.

Any help will be appreciated.


/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *250.1 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk2 156.0 GB disk0s2

3: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 48.8 GB disk0s3

4: Apple_APFS Container disk1 45.0 GB disk0s4


/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +45.0 GB disk1

Physical Store disk0s4


/dev/disk2 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +156.0 GB disk2

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume Macintosh SSD 119.2 GB disk2s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 20.5 MB disk2s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 514.9 MB disk2s3

4: APFS Volume VM 8.6 GB disk2s4


Manojs-MBP-3:~ Manoj$

 

[Weaselboy]

Backup first in case this goes badly. Then command-option-r boot to Internet recovery and start Disk Utility.

Then set it to show all devices. Now select the drive itself at the very top like in my screenshot. Then click the partition button and see if it will let you setup those containers like you want.

 

[mennc]

Hi! I’m having trouble deleting Acads HD. Disk utility would only let me remove Main HD, which is the one that I need to retain. When I typed diskutil list and diskutil cs list, this is what I got
[doublepost=1558475765][/doublepost]Should’ve signed up earlier when @Weaselboy was still online lmao RIP me
(btw I think it’s worth mentioning that my wifi is down so I can’t really do internet recovery)

 

[Weaselboy]

Hi! I’m having trouble deleting Acads HD.

It looks like that is the boot disk, and you won't be able to erase that while running off it, so you do need Internet recovery. An alternative would be to make a Time Machine backup to an external drive, then option key boot to that from there you could erase the internal drive then restore.

 

[DuncanGarp]

It looks like that is the boot disk, and you won't be able to erase that while running off it, so you do need Internet recovery. An alternative would be to make a Time Machine backup to an external drive, then option key boot to that from there you could erase the internal drive then restore.

On Mojave, I'm also having issues with erasing/deleting a secondary partition and merging/resizing the primary partition.
Please see this thread on Mojave for detailed information:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/merging-partitions-on-device-with-mojave.2182712/

Thanks.

 

[AdiNeedsHelp]

Hi there, so I have been having a really big problem and I have spent the past 3 hours watching YouTube videos and going on Reddit but I couldn’t find anything and I would be so grateful if someone could help me. So a while back I downloaded windows on my Mac and I made a patrician and everything and it was all great and working well. I no longer needed windows so I decided to delete the partician so I go into boot camp and I press continue and then restore so I can have my storage back. While it is restoring I get an error and then a message that tells me the restoration was not successful or something like that. I then go to disk utility and I try to delete the patrician from there. It turns out that the patrician is now called free space and when I try to delete it I keep getting error after error. I have tried deleting in disk Utility after restarting with cmd-R but it still gives the same error. I have firevault turned off so that is not a problem either. I also tried doing the command in the terminal but that doesn’t work either. I would be so great full if someone could help me.

 

[Fishrrman]

The following procedure will remove that BootCamp partition, 100% guaranteed:

1. Get either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper. Both are free to download and use for 30 days (doing this will cost you nothing)
2. Get an external drive (if your internal drive is 500gb, the external should be that size or larger)
3. Use CCC or SD to clone the contents of your Mac partition (the regular partition you boot into and work from) to the external drive
4. Now, BOOT FROM the external drive (press the power on button, IMMEDIATELY hold down the "option" key CONTINUOUSLY until the startup manager appears, then select the cloned drive and hit return).
5. When you get booted from the external drive, open Disk Utility
6. In the upper-left-hand-corner of Disk Utility, choose "show all devices"
7. Now, click the uppermost line for your internal drive (this represents the physical drive itself).
8. Next, click the "erase" button and ERASE the internal drive, completely. You would choose APFS, GUID partition format if you want APFS formatting. For HFS+, choose "Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format".
9. Once the drive is erased, quit Disk Utility and re-open CCC (or SD).
10. Now, RE-clone the contents of the cloned backup BACK TO the internal drive.
11. When done, disconnect the external cloned backup and reboot to the internal drive.
12. Done.

 

[prymel]

Having a similar(ish) problem deleting some very small partitions that "cannot be resized". They are not boot disks. I ended up damaging a software raid I created with 3x 2TB SSDs when I tried to add a 4th (I've since learned that I need to un-raid the previous drives first before adding another drive to the raid). So I have 3 drives with 1x 2.32MB partition that cannot be resized (format is listed as unknown) and 1x 7.34MB partition that cannot be resized because "the previous volume cannot be resized". The final partition is one that I was able to format (2TB). I was thinking of using the certify function of SoftRaid to zero out the drives but not sure if that will actually solve my problem or just "certify" that the 2TB partition is writeable. I'd rather have each of these 3 drives without partitions so I avoid problems down the road once I tie them all together in a raid.
TL;DR - how do I delete small partitions that "cannot be resized"