Need some help folks!! Storage volume reading half its capacity.

[Rdm06]

Just to get the spec out the way I’m using a mid 2012 MacBook Pro.

today I installed a trial of vmwarefusion to use windows. I done the instal and everything was fine and then I figured just put windows on an external. So far so good.

however I got to the part where I assumed the instal went well and to test it. I went into security settings within preferences and set the startup disk to the windows external.

problem is the external didn’t go over properly and I now can’t boot up in Mac OS anymore.

So from hours and hours of pulling my hair out I’ve managed to get os working again.

The help I need guys and gals is that my 1tb hard drive is now reading half its capacity, it’s says there’s 2 partitions in disk utility yet when I move the slider it’s still only at 1 of 500gb with 17 gb used. Yet there are over 350k files currently. Which will be from my original os start up. I’ve tried erasing with no luck.

Is there anyway I can access or delete my partition that is hidden just now as I’ve tried reformatting, erasing, repairing and verifying. I’ve never ever had this issue until now.

I can do most things but wouldn’t say I’m at all code or tech savvy but can follow instructions.

any help would be greatly appreciated as it’s a machine I use daily. Happy to erase and start again if needed. Just need the original 1tb space back.
Thanks.

 

[barbu]

I think you have made an error In expectations somewhere. First of all, VMware is a virtualization enviornment. If you set up a windows install in VMware, there is no “changing the startup disk and booting into” it. You simply run Windows in VMware while continuing to use your Mac as normal. They both run at the same time. MacOS is the “host” OS and Windows is the “guest” OS. I’m surprised the startup disk chooser let you select the external

But if you were actually wanting to fully
boot into Windows natively, you want BootCamp.

 

[matram]

A Fusion virtual machine is just a set of files in a folder from the perspective of the Mac OS. There is nothing in a normal VM installation that would affect the formatting of the MAC disk. So I am sorry to say you story does not make much sense.

As a general statement, if you need to change the partitioning of a boot disk you need to run Disk Utility from recovery mode, Cmd-R during boot on the MAC. You can not repartition a drive where you are running the OS from while the OS is running. If you want to repartition the disk of the VM I typically boot the VM with a partition editor like Linux / GPARTED which in a similar way allow you to edit the partitions

Given your somewhat confused description I would definitely suggest you seeks expert help instead of trying to do this yourself.

 

[Fishrrman]

Quit VMWare for now.
Then, do this:
Download DiskWave from here:

DiskWave Homepage

It's small in size and free.

Open DiskWave and go to the preferences.
Put a checkmark in "show invisible files".
Close preferences.

The DiskWave window shows you all your drives in plain English (no ridiculous graphical formats).
Click on any drive or folder "on the left".
Now, you'll see what's ON the drive, listed in order of "largest to smallest".
You can easily locate what's eating up your space.

 

[jeyf]

I am not to much an expert but:
like said above vmWareFusion has nothing to do with the stupid boot camp native on macOS. It behaves like any other application running on your host base MBP macOS. You run vmWare than you can start up your guest OS inside the running vmWare. For each guest OS vmWare creates one or a pair files. These file(s) are a container type that holds all the data to describe and run the guest OS. Windows in this case. They are large and easy to spot visible so figure where these are. Just so you know.

These guest OS (windows in your case) are quite isolated fromt the host os that is acutally running the hardware on your base MBP. To overcome this isolation you can create shared space. The container files, shared spaces and virtual drive space is handled through vmWare. you should create and delete them via vmWare save thigns get confused.

I am trying to bring you into proper thinking so you can describe what hppened.

some questions:
-Does your MBP start up w/o the external drive?
-when booted w/o the external drive, w/o vmWare running, plug in and mount the external drive. Use Finder's Get Info and use Applicaitons-Utilities-DiskUtilities to inspect the external drive. what do you see??
-what were you dong in systemPreferences?

hope this helps