Boot Camp Assistant failure

[hugosheehan]

So I wanted to make a 120GB Windows 7 partition using Boot Camp on my 320GB internal HD that came with my MacBook Pro that I got a few months ago. I went into Boot Camp Assistant and downloaded the Windows software support onto a DVD and then put in my Windows 7 Startup disk in when I was prompted to. It accepted it, and I hit OK. It brought up the loading bar that says "Partitioning..." but then my computer froze. After about ten minutes of waiting, I hard reset it and went back into Boot Camp Assistant. I skipped the software support download this time and went straight to the screen where you slide the bar and tell it how much you want to partition for Windows 7, but 120GB of space on my Macintosh HD was gone, and I only had the space for about 40 GB of Windows. Disk Utility says that there is still only one partition on my HD, with a 320GB capacity but 120GB less space than it had before I restarted. Can I get those 120GB back without wiping my HD?

 

[murphychris]

Can I get those 120GB back without wiping my HD?

Yes, but as far as I know, not with GUI based tools. I think it's easier, though tedious and time consuming, to boot off a Lion DVD or Lion Recovery USB stick, repartition with 1 partition only (not "Current" which is the default), and reinstall. That your computer froze is concerning and suggests other problems. In one year I've had maybe 3 kernel panics. It's pretty rare for there to be a complete freeze requiring a forced shutdown. Starting from scratch is the surest way forward.

Otherwise...

Go to Terminal and issue these commands, with a return after each line, and post the results. The first command requires admin authentication. All of these are read only commands, and make no modifications to the disk.

sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0

df -h

diskutil resizevolume /dev/disk0s2 limits

When you post the results, please highlight them in the forum's reply window, and add the code tags by clicking on the # button in the toolbar so they format properly.