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Bootcamp Accident: Formated Disk with Windows

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DirkBreeuwer

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 22, 2008
97
0
I was trying to Install xp, yesterday night on my New MBP alum, I started bootcamp assistant and created a windows partition of 32 gb. Booted with Windows cd, and when windows told me on what disk did I want to install I just saw one disk. (Weird because bootcamp shoud´ve created a partition called Bootcamp), I didn´t pay much attention to it and formatted it. After it booted I saw that my OS X partition was missing!

I inserted my OS X installation dvd, and tried to install OS X. But I have a problem. It wont let me erase the disk! I think I really messed up. What can I do? Why did bootcamp just created one partition?

Help please.
 
DirkBreeuwer said:
I was trying to Install xp, yesterday night on my New MBP alum, I started bootcamp assistant and created a windows partition of 32 gb. Booted with Windows cd, and when windows told me on what disk did I want to install I just saw one disk. (Weird because bootcamp shoud´ve created a partition called Bootcamp), I didn´t pay much attention to it and formatted it. After it booted I saw that my OS X partition was missing!

I inserted my OS X installation dvd, and tried to install OS X. But I have a problem. It wont let me erase the disk! I think I really messed up. What can I do? Why did bootcamp just created one partition?

Help please.
Click to expand...
When you boot from the OS X DVD you need to run disk utility and FORMAT the disk to HFS+ then you can install os x.
 
nikhsub1 said:
When you boot from the OS X DVD you need to run disk utility and FORMAT the disk to HFS+ then you can install os x.
Click to expand...

Yes but it wont let me erase the disk... or how do you format it, because I don't see anything that says format here :(
 
oh, and this is just a suggestion. next time you want to do a screen shot try Grab. great program for screen shots... Just a suggestion. :D
 
jonbravo77 said:
oh, and this is just a suggestion. next time you want to do a screen shot try Grab. great program for screen shots... Just a suggestion. :D
Click to expand...

Mmmm well, I dont know much but can you use it even dough you dont have Mac OSX installed?
 
Same thing happened to me, my fault. Had to bring my Macbook into Apple store so Genius could re-format my harddrive as GUID (not Apple Partition something). Or you could do the same thing at home if you have another Intel based Mac. Basically you have to start all over, the contents of your hard drive are toast.

Oh, and the process of re-formatting requires the Firewire Target mode, and FW cable.
 
Damm, there is no Apple Store in my country :(. If i am able to get into another intel mac, how would I format it?
 
DirkBreeuwer said:
Yes as you can see in the picture above, it wont let me erase.
Click to expand...

1. Insert the Mac OS X CD.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the startup sound, press and hold the "C" key to start up from CD.
4. When the Installer screen appears, do not click Continue. Instead, choose Installer > Open Disk Utilities.
5. Select the hard drive to erase.
6. Click the Erase tab.
7. Select the volume format from the Volume Format pop-up menu.
...

From the Apple support page, this is the way you have to do it.
 
DirkBreeuwer said:
Mmmm well, I dont know much but can you use it even dough you dont have Mac OSX installed?
Click to expand...

I apologize for my Grab suggestion. I had a stupid moment and didn't think that you were looking at the Disk Utility screen that is loaded up from the disk itself..

Again, my apologies :eek:
 
AndiG said:
1. Insert the Mac OS X CD.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the startup sound, press and hold the "C" key to start up from CD.
4. When the Installer screen appears, do not click Continue. Instead, choose Installer > Open Disk Utilities.
5. Select the hard drive to erase.
6. Click the Erase tab.
7. Select the volume format from the Volume Format pop-up menu.
...

From the Apple support page, this is the way you have to do it.
Click to expand...


I followed step by step those instructions. I am still unable to click anything for the disk and the partition. All menus and buttons are greyed out. Unclickable.


Quote:
Originally Posted by DirkBreeuwer View Post
Mmmm well, I dont know much but can you use it even dough you dont have Mac OSX installed?
I apologize for my Grab suggestion. I had a stupid moment and didn't think that you were looking at the Disk Utility screen that is loaded up from the disk itself..

Again, my apologies
Click to expand...

Dont worry, man.
 
jonbravo77 said:
Do you have a BestBuy where you are at? They are (I believe) Apple certified to repair. Well Geek Squad inside BestBuy that is
Click to expand...

No bestbuy here in Guatemala :p. I called the only store were they sell apple things, and they told me apple didn't provide guarantee for software problems. Dunno how that works. Gonna go see what they can do. vultureboy70 do you know what they did to your mbp?
 
AndiG said:
1. Insert the Mac OS X CD.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the startup sound, press and hold the "C" key to start up from CD.
4. When the Installer screen appears, do not click Continue. Instead, choose Installer > Open Disk Utilities.
5. Select the hard drive to erase.
6. Click the Erase tab.
7. Select the volume format from the Volume Format pop-up menu.
...

From the Apple support page, this is the way you have to do it.
Click to expand...

ALL of this is correct, BUT, and I do mean but, first...

You have to "partition" the drive in Disk Utility before you can erase it, which effectively is the same as erasing it.

Use the original install disks, go into Disk Utility. SELECT THE DRIVE IN THE LEFT HAND COLUMN, not whatever the name of the volume is.

In the set of tabs, the one next to "Erase" is a tab named "Partition". Select this tab. Select the partition scheme (set it to 1 continuous partition), THEN select the "Options" button just below the partition window.

In here you will see 3 types of partition mapping. Select the GUID mapping format.

When Windows reformatted the drive, it changed this mapping of the drive to "Master Boot Record" which is Windows based. This is where I believe you are have troubles.
 
majorp said:
What about the partition tab. I'm 99% sure you don't have to take it to an apple store.
Click to expand...

The OP is trying to "Erase" the hard drive. Windows remapped the entire drive using the "Master Boot Record" scheme.

This needs to be changed back to "GUID" (Options button) first in the "Partition" tab, so Leopard can be reinstalled, then the drive can be erased and the OP can start over and do what he would like. I believe this is all an Apple Genius would do.
 
jdwingnut said:
The OP is trying to "Erase" the hard drive. Windows remapped the entire drive using the "Master Boot Record" scheme.

This needs to be changed back to "GUID" (Options button) first in the "Partition" tab, so Leopard can be reinstalled, then the drive can be erased and the OP can start over and do what he would like. I believe this is all an Apple Genius would do.
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree. Like you suggested you need to repartition the entire drive via the partition tab.

Hence..

majorp said:
What about the partition tab. I'm 99% sure you don't have to take it to an apple store.
Click to expand...
 
Could the OP use Norton partition magic in xp to create a partition and install it onto therE???
just an idea???:confused::confused::confused:
 
I don't have the Disk Utility open, but I know you can delete and add partitions with it because I've done it. Basically you will want to delete ALL the partitions that are there. Once you've done that you should be back to square one. Then create a single partition to take up the whole disk. Then you will need to format it as was indicated earlier in the thread. Once that is done you should be able to restore OS X.

You create partitions first... then format the space in a particular way. My guess is that either you haven't created a partition yet... so none exist. OR, you have a partition that is there and formatted for windows or something.
 
Ok, I took it to an apple certified support store, I was there for an hour and they tested somethings. They could not do anything from that macbook itself; the erase and the partition tab were completely locked. They told me to leave it there until Wenesday, and it would cost approx 50$.

I also realized something, it is probable that I only saw one partiton after bootcamp because I used a non service pack 2 Windows cd. Could that be the problem?
 
Bootcamp

Today I ran into the same issue.

Created a 15Gb Windows disk in bootcamp.
after rebooting I only saw one disk of 130Gb (my Mac disk is a 250Gb)
Apparently I wrong fully assumed bootcamp was also reporting empty space and decided formating was safe (Big Mistake).

Ran into the same issue of not being able to reinstall OS X (no disk)
Also the disk utility did not help (everything grayed out)

Decided to check the terminal apps and found a tool called "diskutil"

Starting "diskutil" showed a number of command line options one of which was "eraseDisk"

in the end doing a

# diskutil eraseDisk HFS+ untitled disk0

did the trick it removed the windows disk (including al my now garbled data), and allowed me to use the GUI disk utility to repartition my drive.

So much for Bootcamp I guess.
(still haven't completely figured out what went wrong but also im my case it could have to do with SP2 - not sure if my disk has that)
 
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