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Trying to restore to one whole partition!

S

solamnus

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 10, 2014
8
0
So, i had a catastrophic day today trying to install Windows on my Imac using bootcamp. First of all after following all the steps in bootcamp, the Bootcamp partition i made on the Imac would not accept my Windows 10 install and i found no reason for it. Searched the internet for hours and could not encounter anyone having the exact same problem. I followed all the steps with formatting it etc.
So that was frustrating it itself since i just bought the Windows 10 software and now wont be able to use it.
Then a friend tried to help me doing the steps again but trying to make several partition and formatting them using different methods to try and install Windows again. Each attempt failed saying something about NTSF being the wrong format etc.
So i the end we gave up.
NOW the problem was we had several partitions that we had to get rid of and try to make it back to where we started, with ONE partition being only Mac.
Suddenly we could not do that in Bootcamp any longer . We could not check the box remove windows.
So he tried going into Disc utility and erase every partition.
He succeeded and got rid of most of them but could not with 3 of them for some reason.
After that i tried making a store fro my Time Machine and thinking that would take care of the problem it did not.
Now i still have 2 partitions. The big one with my mac stuff and one empty big partition with 300 or so GBs.
I cannot use the minus symbols to make it one whole partition again. What can be done if anything?
My Imac is a late 2014 with Retina 27 inch screen and using the Yosemite OS X.
/Martin
 
I had a similar issue. Eventually had to just boot into Recovery Mode and use the terminal to delete every partition on the machine. Then reinstalled OS X (which allowed me to create a new single partition) and restore from Time Machine.
 
CWallace said:
I had a similar issue. Eventually had to just boot into Recovery Mode and use the terminal to delete every partition on the machine. Then reinstalled OS X (which allowed me to create a new single partition) and restore from Time Machine.
Click to expand...
Ah right :) so you bsicly had to wipe it from there and then reinstall everything?
Yeh I'm thinking in the end that will be the only option, I'm just scared I'm going to somehow damage what i now have( functioning at least although a limited HD space) and not be able to make it work. But i guess its pretty straight forward doing that kind of recovery although time consuming.
/Martin.
 
My advice:

1. Create a bootable cloned backup of your Mac partition using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper
2. Boot from the backup
3. Re-initialize the internal drive into one partition using Disk Utility
4. Restore from the cloned backup

This -will- work for you, just takes time creating the backup and re-cloning from it...
 
Fishrrman said:
My advice:

1. Create a bootable cloned backup of your Mac partition using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper
2. Boot from the backup
3. Re-initialize the internal drive into one partition using Disk Utility
4. Restore from the cloned backup

This -will- work for you, just takes time creating the backup and re-cloning from it...
Click to expand...
So i cannot use the backup i have on timemashine to restore the computer again to one partition?
 
OP asked:
"So i cannot use the backup i have on timemashine to restore the computer again to one partition?"

You might be able to, but I've never used TM and have no "real-life" experience with it.

But I wonder if the following could work:
- Does the TM backup have a "partial boot" capability? By that, I mean, even if TM won't "boot to the finder" (it can't), can you at least boot to some kind of recovery mode that gives you access to Disk Utility?
- If so, get to DU, re-initialize the internal drive, then restore from the TM backup.

If you can't do this, again, the only reliable way I can suggest is to boot from a FULLY BOOTABLE BACKUP (one that lets you "boot to the finder") and then re-initialize the internal drive and proceed from there...
 
solamnus said:
So, i had a catastrophic day today trying to install Windows on my Imac using bootcamp. First of all after following all the steps in bootcamp, the Bootcamp partition i made on the Imac would not accept my Windows 10 install and i found no reason for it. Searched the internet for hours and could not encounter anyone having the exact same problem. I followed all the steps with formatting it etc.
So that was frustrating it itself since i just bought the Windows 10 software and now wont be able to use it.
Then a friend tried to help me doing the steps again but trying to make several partition and formatting them using different methods to try and install Windows again. Each attempt failed saying something about NTSF being the wrong format etc.
So i the end we gave up.
NOW the problem was we had several partitions that we had to get rid of and try to make it back to where we started, with ONE partition being only Mac.
Suddenly we could not do that in Bootcamp any longer . We could not check the box remove windows.
So he tried going into Disc utility and erase every partition.
He succeeded and got rid of most of them but could not with 3 of them for some reason.
After that i tried making a store fro my Time Machine and thinking that would take care of the problem it did not.
Now i still have 2 partitions. The big one with my mac stuff and one empty big partition with 300 or so GBs.
I cannot use the minus symbols to make it one whole partition again. What can be done if anything?
My Imac is a late 2014 with Retina 27 inch screen and using the Yosemite OS X.
/Martin
Click to expand...
Time machine imho suck's really bad. Anytime I tried reverting to it it caused more problems than it fixed. I'd make a bootable usb el capitan drive and do a clean install. Clean install's are good to do regardless, especially if you haven't done one recently dude.
 
Billphillips said:
Time machine imho suck's really bad. Anytime I tried reverting to it it caused more problems than it fixed.
Click to expand...
Really? I've always had great success with TM, whether it was a file, folder or full system restore. I've also not heard too many complaints.
 
Surely, Bootcamp still gives you the option to remove any windows partitions without screwing with the OSX side of things? Or is this another new feature of OSX?

Before you could just start Bootcamp and Remove a Windows Partition without the faff of having to touch OSX.
 
G4DPII said:
Surely, Bootcamp still gives you the option to remove any windows partitions without screwing with the OSX side of things?
Click to expand...
The Bootcamp Assistant in OS X, will delete the Windows Partition and then remerge the two partitions back together.
 
maflynn said:
Really? I've always had great success with TM, whether it was a file, folder or full system restore. I've also not heard too many complaints.
Click to expand...
yea it's more of a personal preference than anything. Im use to manually transferring data over to my external drives. I guess I'm old school when it comes to that. So I guess what im saying is my problem with time machine is more of a personal one than an apple software issue.
 
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