Software :: Way To Convert Back To GUID Partition?
May 29, 2009
I'm a bit unsure as to the best way to tackle this. I have a single partition on my Leopard install with that partition map scheme being a "Master Boot Record" as apposed to a GUID Partition Table (GPT). Not sure why it is not a GPT but I appear to have formatted it incorrectly when I installed it (as a replacement drive / upgrade of the original). In any case, I now need to change this partition system back to a GPT so that it will allow me to run firmware updates as EFI upgrades are dependent on a GPT partition.
My question is more or less what is the best way to accomplish this given it's going to require a reformatting of all my data in any case. I have it all backed up to a Time Machine backup on a Time Capsule but to reformat the drive would then mean I have to re-install the Tiger install, followed by the Leopard upgrade disks, followed finally by the restore from Time Machine.
Is there an easier way to clone the data perhaps, such as with a Carbon Copy Cloner disk to disk clone? Or would that "restore" then merely include the actual partition format back to Master Boot Record as part of the clone? (I suspect the clone includes the partition type). Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Are there any other options?
the osx 10.6 partition is giving errors (the black and white multi language message that tells you to hold down the power button..)
have done a permissions repair, run techtool from a boot disc, all have failed to repair.
next step is for me to reintall snow leopard, and as i have no dual layer disks or usb keys i intend to install from external usb drive using the instructions here:
I converted a 500G External USB SATA hard drive from MBR to GPT no problem. It could be done using either Vista 32bit or WinXP 64bit the conversion under XP Pro SP3 32bit was not possible maybe because diskpart was still an older version and not updated to a newer version. My work on the Mac is done now and I want to convert my drive back to MBR so I can use it with windows. I've erased and then deleted all the partitions I had created on the drive. Using WinXP 32bit and Disk Management I see only one big partition (465.76 GB Healthy (GPT Protective Partition)) Using WinXP 64bit and Disk Management I can see there is a 200Mb EFI Systems Partition followed by 464.44 Gb of Unallocated space. How do I get rid of this EFI Systems Partition that is stopping me when using diskpart to convert to MBR?
My sister bought a second hand Mac Book Pro. According to Mac Book Pro specs. this unit should have had a 250G - 320G Hard Drive but someone had replaced with a 120G before she got her hands on it. My assumption then is that theywhoever it was that switched the drive must have also replaced the DVD drive at the same time as well........................
So much for upgrading... Does anyone have a fix for not having a GUID partition table scheme? I was hoping I wouldn't have clean install, I just got everything how I wanted it. *sigh*
I just popped a 256GB Samsung SSD into my (old) PowerBook Pro1,1 2.16Mhz machine.
I used the disk utility to properly partition the drive (1 partition) and set the Scheme to GUID Partition Table successfully. Verified the drive and the disk utility seems to like it.
I restarted with the install DVD (10.5.7 from a "13-inch Mac OSX Install Disk" - 9J3050) and it still gives me the old, "You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume"
So... the OS is newer than the one that shipped with the machine, and the partition table is correct... what gives?
I'm having problems installing OS 10.6 on my iMac. I had to replace my hard drive with a new 1TB drive and in trying to install the OS I get a message saying I need to use Disk Utility to repartition the hard drive using GUID Partition Table but I don't see any such option in the Disk Utility menu!
I've been going on two weeks now without my 13-inch mid-2009 mbp...i installed the 10.7.3. lion update but after it was completed i powered down my laptop and started it up only to find a blinking folder with a question mark...the logic board was replaced in mid-2010...i'm able to boot of an external drive running lion 10.7.3...i replaced the wd hdd with a new one & now it doesn't recognize it in disk utilities...i've replaced the ram with new ram & changed the hdd cable...i took it to apple & they said it should be either the cable or the hdd...i tested the hdd in another enclosure & it's running fine..
Info: MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2009), Mac OS X (10.7.3)
I had my hard drive partitioned into 2, where one was mac the other windows xp. I received this macbook as a gift from my sister so i wanted to reformat everything into mac. I popped in the Mac OS x install cd and just installed it. Now there is two hard drives and I am not able to re-partition it where i can bring it back to one again...I was suppose to delete windows first before re-formating my macbook.
I've been running Fusion for quite a while and have a VMDK (XP) that is fully configured and running all the tools I need. My question is - is there a way to convert the VMDK over to a Boot Camp partition? I'm trying to avoid reinstalling all the tools I have on the VMDK.
I am going to partition a 160 gig hard drive to use as 1. a dedicated os back-up, i.e. no videos or pictures or anything needless, and 2. storage for some media items. How big should the partition for the os back-up area be and still allow for some expansion as the os gets larger?
I partitioned my hard drive to install windows. I rebooted, loaded up the windows disc. And then realized my disc only had one partition. I quit the windows installer without installing windows, went into boot mode and I can only see my bootcamp partition. Is there any way to get my osx partition back?
I tried to Partiton my hardrive for bootcamp which was going fine. i then accidentally cancelled it in the middle of partitioning and now its saying that there is only 87GB of memory left
Info: MacBook (13-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)
I have a G5 with 10.4.11. There is 3 partitioned drives that I want gone and set back to the original 1 drive. I just cant seem to figure out what I am doing wrong. I don't need anything on the Mac as I have already backed up all info I wanted saved. When I go into the disk utilities/partitions/volume scheme it shows 3 drives. When I switch the volume scheme to 1 partition their are no options to "apply" for me to revert to 1 partition only.
I really need to free up space on the windows partition of my Mac so that I can install certain software I need in order to complete a project due really soon. What would be the best way to accomplish this (I'd rather not increase the partition w/ a third party app)? I was thinking the best is to eliminate unnecessary files that I am pretty certain were installed as part of the Vista install so that I can recover as much HDD space on the windows partition as possible, but don't know what I can eliminate safely? Can someone please offer some ideas and very basic steps of where to find any of the items you reference?
I would like to uninstall windows from my i-Mac and revert back to a single partition hardrive. Unfortunately I installed Windows about three years ago (never to use it really) and now when I go to uninstall in Mac OS X it says my Boot Camp beta has expired.
I upgraded to Yosemite, but I kept my small partition of Snow Leopard. I got on the Snow Leopard partition this morning to use an old program, and that worked as normal. Now that I'm done, I am stuck in Snow Leopard. I can't find Yosemite to start in that partition. It doesn't show as a startup disk. I feel like I have lost my computer. The Yosemite disk partition shows up in disk utility, and I verified it. However, I cannot seem to figure out anything to get it to restart into that partition.
By the way, I tried restarting and pressing Command-R to get into Recovery Mode. That did not work at all. The Snow Leopard opened every time without going into Recovery.
I have XP installed in my Intel Macbook Pro in the separate partition created by boot camp. Recently while I was running on XP the computer crashed badly and XP system seemed to have been damaged and I can't boot as XP anymore. I would like to simply erase the XP partition and merge it with the main drive. But the problem is that Boot Camp got expired and I can't use the application to do that. Can anyone tell me how I can do that?? I am guessing that Disk Utility would be the one to use but I want to make sure I know what I am doing before I screw up anything.
I have messed around with using bootcamp and and disk utlity to create partitions for Ubuntu. I decided to erase the extra partition and give all the space back to my macintosh HD. I go to the partition tab in disk utility and drag the macintosh box to fill the whole box and then hit apply. After a few moments I then recieve the error saying: "Partition failed with the error: Couldn’t modify partition map because file system verification failed." I ran a verfiy disk on my macintosh hd and then recieve these errors:
Invalid volume file count (It should be 545026 instead of 544821) Invalid volume directory count (It should be 140857 instead of 140673)
[code]....
Error: This disk needs to be repaired using the Recovery HD. Restart your computer, holding down the Command key and the R key until you see the Apple logo. When the Mac OS X Utilities window appears, choose Disk Utility. I then command R while boot and repair the drive. Tried resizing the partition again and same error. I have spent some time googling what people have done but find this problem occuring with alot of people upgrading to Lion or something. I'm on a 2011-late macbook pro that came with lion. I have tried things such as doing the Lion restore and booting in command S and typing fsck -fy for a repair. Nothing work.
Info: MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3), Macbook Pro late 2011
Microsoft files (e.g. excel) when forwarded as attachments and received by MacBook Winmail, get converted to winmail.dat files. However, MS Office products cannot open these winmail.dat files. Does anyone have a solution for this "bug"?
I'm thinking about installing Windows 7 on my hard drive using Bootcamp. I'd like to know if in the future I decide to remove windows, am I able to remove the partition and revert back to the full hard drive space or not?
I recently got rid of a partition I had made for bootcamp since I never use it, and would rather have the space back. I deleted the partition through disc utility, and then through the partition tab, tried to get back that space by dragging down the tab to restore the space originally set for the partition. When I go to apply this change, it notifies that my hard drive will be re-sized. I accept and then a few minutes later it comes back with the error "Partition failed with the error: Filesystem verify or repair failed" Does anybody know how I can restore this space successfully back into my main hard drive? I've attached some screenshots
I currently am on an early 08 Macbook Pro 17". 2.4ghz with 4gb of RAM.
I've recently purchased a 32gb SDHC card. Trying to create a bootable emergency drive with os installed on it.
I plugged it into my Mac via usb adapter and it mounted fine. Was formatted as Fat-32. So went to disk utility and reformatted as 1 partition, GUID, Mac Os Extended (journaled), to make it a bootable disk for the os. When doing this it appeared to complete fine, but disappeared from my desktop. No longer showing up in finder. Still mounts in disk utility though. Tried different ports, rebooting, and reformatting,, with no resolve. Reformatted it back to Master Boot Record/ Ms Dos, and it mounts again fine in Finder. Can drag data to it with no issue.
Reformatted again as GUID and again it disappeared from Finder and desktop. This is where I'm confused...In Disk Util it completes the formatting and shows Map Scheme as GUID and journaled. The odd thing is that on the left where disks are mounted it shows the indented partition as disk3s2. Even though I've renamed it when formatting. It will maintain the name formatting back to Fat32, but not with GUID. Also if I try to repair disk it fails. " Disk Utility stopped repairing �disk3s2� because the following error was encountered:
Filesystem verify or repair failed."Does not fail doing repair as Fat32.
Figured I would just try to install Os anyways and booted to install disk. When booted to Os it did list the SD card as an optional drive, but had the exclamation point listed as not being in correct format. Instructs to reformat as GUID. Went to disk util and reformatted and it disapears from select a destination.
My questions are.. am I missing something technical about these cards and formating as GUID? Why will this mount in Finder and also in the destination screen for install if its formatted as FAT32, but wont show up in either as GUID? Why does it show disk3s2 similar to windows partitions, even though it was formatted as GUID and renamed?
Not sure if I'm having an actual hardware issue with card, or have to do something to modify this to be useable. Tried this on a newer iMac with same result.
I am trying to install the Snow Leopard upgrade on my MacBook (Mac OS 10.5 Leopard), and I can't seem to do it because it tells me to change my partition scheme table to GUID. I went into disk utilities and clicked on the "partition" tab, but I can't click on the "options" button. I cannot erase my hard disk either. What could be the problem?
Just in case this is important: I changed my 160GB original HD to one of those WD passport HDs. So now my internal HD is the 500GB WD passport HD.
I already backed up my HD onto an external HD using Time Machine, but I cannot erase my internal (WD) HD
I just bought my first Mac (2.93 GHz iMac) and I bought a brand new MyBook 1TB to use as my Time Machine. I upgraded the firmware to try to avoid any problems with the Firewire that I've seen reported. From there, I forgot about the stuff I had read about changing it to GUID from MBR. I just plugged it in and let Time Machine delete it and start doing it's thing. Am I at any kind of disadvantage? I have a lot of stuff on it, but it's only 1 day of history so not a big deal to start over. I want to do it now if it's the right thing to do.
I bought a 320Gb external HDD which was to replace my internal 160Gb drive in my Unibody Macbook.
I used SuperDuper! to copy my original disk on to the new one, then swapped the disks. My 160Gb is no loger working, which is fine, but I want to install a fresh OSX on to the new hard drive. I can use the Disk at the moment but the mac can't boot from it. I need to hold down the option key and select it at startup, I presume because of the format/partition type.
When I try to do a fresh install of OSX, I get an error saying cannot install on this disk because of partition type (GUID Tables).
I'm not allowed to do anything to this disk because I can't 'unmount' it, so, can I run disk utilities from my install DVD? before mounting the disk?
I've downloaded Lion and the first "complaint" the installation software has is that neither my Mac hard drive nor Time Machine drive uses the GUID partition scheme. The software instructs me to use Disk Utility to select the appropriate format but Disk Utility states that I can't re-size the partition because it uses the Master Boot Record scheme. Further, it tells me that the drive can't be erased because it's the start-up disk.
I have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 installed on my MacBook (Core 2 Duo, 4 GB). The Mac HD has 220GB available.I waited for Lion to be reasonably fault-free and carefully looked at Lion's requirements only to find out too late about this GUID scheme business. I haven't seen anything about this requirement until I tried to install. I have great fear of re-formatting the drive as that always seems to be the beginning of many problems that take months to resolve. Maybe the choices are to forget Lion or get a new drive and format it to GUID before restoring from my Time Machine
