Formatting the hard drive while in the laptop

raptoleraptole
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
OK, so I have a 500GB hard drive in my laptop, I partitioned it and I put 80GB for Windwos and then the rest of it for MAC, I don't know how but I somehow got rid of the Windows. I ejected the BOOTCAMP on the Desktop of the Mac OS X and then I tried to delete the partition but it didn't work. Now I tried to go to BootCamp Assistant but It doesn't show that I have partitioned hard drive. It shows me that I have only 420GB and it shows only my Macintosh HD. The 80GB are lost somewhere. Tell me how can I format the whole hard drive and get the 500GB again? And i want to do it while the hard drive is in the laptop and is working? Is there any way of doing that(it is fine if i have to install the OS again) Or what do i have to get done so that I can fix it?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    kingofsomewherehotkingofsomewherehot Posts: 4,180member
    There are probably programs that will let you repartition as-is. But you'll have to pay for them... I don't know of any to specifically recommend.

    If you don't mind reinstalling Everything, you can startup from the DVD, run disk utility and reformat it while it's not the system disk. Disk utility can't reformat the disk that the currently-in-use OS is installed on.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    wplj42wplj42 Posts: 439member
    Go to the Utilities folder, then Disk Utility. On the left, highlight your HD, the item at the very top. Then click on the Partition tab. If there is blank space at the bottom, then you can pull the section at the bottom right, and make the drive full sized again. Then click apply.



    Ejecting, or un-mounting your BOOTCAMP HD is very possible. You can unmount any drive on your Mac, except for the one with Mac OS on it. Ejecting does not remove anything. If Disk Utility shows more than one partition, click on the minus button to remove the extra one. You will have to click to highlight it first.



    Maybe you know all this. Can't blame a guy for trying to help though.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    spotonspoton Posts: 645member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Raptole View Post


    Tell me how can I format the whole hard drive and get the 500GB again? And i want to do it while the hard drive is in the laptop and is working? Is there any way of doing that(it is fine if i have to install the OS again)



    If you can't fix your issue by the above steps you can do these things:





    You can get the installation DVD that comes with all new Mac's and hold C and boot from it.



    After a few screens you get a menu option at the top that will launch Disk Utility and can format your whole drive that way if need be. ALL DATA WILL BE ERASED.



    You should use the Erase with Zero option while formatting once per new drive to map off bad sectors ahead of time, improves data retention and reduces a lot of issues later on. So go ahead and take the opportunity to do that. Takes longer but it's worth it to avoid issues later.



    After your drive is reformatted/erased you can quit Disk Utility and install OS X fresh., set up and install everything all over again.





    [b]OR BETTER!![/but]



    If you have a blank external drive, you can use something like the free (donationware) Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the whole boot drive to the external (Disk Utility/repair permissions on both afterwards and hold option to boot from the clone to check it out good) and then while booted from the clone use Disk Utility to Erase/zero/reformat the internal and then simply reverse clone.



    Cloning is the easiest method than a fresh install and setup. Set it and go do something else for a hour or so.





    or





    Also one can use Time Machine, but Time Machine drives are not bootable, meaning wading through the slow OS install method via the install disks and then using TimeMachine to restore.
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