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The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition

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becauseoftacos

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 30, 2013
22
0
Western Australia
Hello, I recently deleted my whole computer in order to start again. I wanted to start using windows on the mac, but when going into Boot Camp Assistant on Mavericks it came up with:
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.

Code: 
frasers-mbp:~ becauseoftacos$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS becauseoftacos HD       599.8 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS Recovery HD             130.0 GB   disk0s4

Could someone please give me steps to help me run Windows XP on the Mac? (Have a disk)

-becauseoftacos
 
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Bruno09

macrumors 68020
Aug 24, 2013
2,202
153
Far from here
becauseoftacos said:
Hello, I recently deleted my whole computer in order to start again
Click to expand...
Did you erase the whole disk, or only "becauseoftacos HD" before installing the OS X ?

I wonder why you have TWO Recovery partitions ?
What is the HFS Recovery HD partition, 130 GB ??

At the moment you have "becauseoftacos HD" + "HFS Recovery HD" = 730 GB
 
Last edited:
B

becauseoftacos

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 30, 2013
22
0
Western Australia
Bruno09 said:
Did you erase the whole disk, or only "becauseoftacos HD" before installing the OS X ?

I wonder why you have TWO Recovery partitions ?
What is the HFS Recovery HD partition, 130 GB ??

At the moment you have "becauseoftacos HD" + "HFS Recovery HD" = 730 GB
Click to expand...

I did not erase the whole disk, I just erased "becauseoftacos HD". I don't know what "HFS Recovery" is. But I know that one is ML and one is Lion.
 
B

Bruno09

macrumors 68020
Aug 24, 2013
2,202
153
Far from here
You need to erase the whole disc, not "becauseoftacos HD" only.

Alternatively you could try this :

- rename the BIG "Recovery HD", to "big Recovery", for instance.

- boot up from the "small" (actual) Recovery HD

- use its Disk Utility to erase the "big Recovery" partition.

This would give enough room to install Windows.

If it was me, I would prefer to erase the whole disc and reinstall Mavericks.

To do this you can :

- use Internet Recovery (Cmd + Alt + r) if Mavericks is the OS the Mac came with, or :

- download Mavericks from the App Store, create a bootable installer with Disk Maker X, boot up from it, use its Disk Utility to erase the whole disc, then install Mavericks, then use Bootcamp to install Windows.
 
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