[BootCamp] Cannot restore partitions

[luvTN]

Hi guys,

I installed windows vista on my MB some months ago. Now I want to uninstall it and restore my HDD to 1 partition, but when I try to restore it using Bootcamp, it's still there, no change at all. I think it's because I used NTFS for Vista. Anyone knows how to re-format it to FAT32 or restore it? Tired with Windows now...

 

[Asnyers]

I don't think you will be able to re-format a partition, you can only delete it. You said it youself, you used NTFS for Vista, so you will have to re-format the whole drive if you aren't able to delete the Windows partition.

 

[reflex]

Start the Bootcamp application in OSX, it has an option to merge the two partitions again.

 

[nbusse]

unpartitioning?

I don't think you will be able to re-format a partition, you can only delete it. You said it youself, you used NTFS for Vista, so you will have to re-format the whole drive if you aren't able to delete the Windows partition.

I'd like to unpartition my drive, can't find a way to do it w/ disk utility. Can I really just delete the drive? Have tried re-installing the OS a couple of times, there's never an option to unpartition.

 

[jbeck8176]

I have found a solution but still cant tell you the exact answer.

When boot camp sets up it's partitions there are 3. 1 large one with two smaller partitions surrounding it.

If you recreate these partitions then boot camp will restore the original partition.

The problem is I don't know what the original partition table looks like. So if anyone would let me know I can explain more.

**update**
1. Insert Ubuntu live CD or any other bootable partitioning tool
2. Delete all partitions but the OS X partitions
3. Create a FAT32 partition ***be sure to leave 128MB unpartitioned space between the OS X partitions and the FAT32***

Boot Camp uses this unpartitioned space for some reason.

4. Boot OS X and open Terminal '
5. Erase the newly made FAT32 partition by using the command "sudo diskutil eraseVolume MS-DOS FAT32 nonbootable /dev/disk0s3" (/dev/disk0s3) being the location of the FAT32 drive found by entering "diskutil list"
6. After that and the drive is mounted by OS X start Boot Camp Assistant and use it to restore the drive.