03-09-2009, 09:39 PM

I've searched for this problem on other places, but haven't found anything that was the same as my case.

I recently repaired my disk with disk utility, and got back 40 gigs that had gone missing (sister turned off comp while i was partitioning, 40 gigs went and didnt come back). When I tried to then use Boot Camp to partition Windows, it said,

"Your startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition.

Back up your startup disk and use Disk Utility to format your startup disk as a single Mac OS Extendted (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the startup disk and try using Boot Camp assistant again."

However, when i looked at my disk, it was alread set as Mac OS Extendted (Journaled) volume. So im kinda clueless. When i was searching for this though, there was something similar where people had upgraded their memory size (i.e. 120g to 250g) and had the same problem. They were told it was because their disk was formatted as APM, not GUID. I however have used Boot Camp before to make a Windows Partition (which i deleted due to a system32 error). So unless when i repaired my disk it reformatted to APM, i don't know what the problem is.

03-09-2009, 10:23 PM

When you say memory you mean storage. Memory is a measurement of RAM, not hard drive space. I don't mean to be picky but there is a huge difference.

There is no way your drive is partitioned as Apple Partition Map or it would not boot at all. Intel Macs require GUID in order to boot. I don't think the error message you are seeing is suggesting that your disk is not already partitioned in the correct format, but is merely ensuring that when you do reformat you select it correctly. There is probably some kind of damage (probably not permanent) to the disk from being interrupted mid-partitioning, and this is causing the Boot Camp Assistant to fail in making the partition. You can try booting from your installation disk and running repair disk from there, but if it comes back with no errors the only way to fix it may be to follow the advice given in the message you saw. Back up everything using Time Machine or a backup application of your choice, format the disk as a single volume, then restore your backup and run the Boot Camp Assistant again.

03-10-2009, 12:15 AM

Since i have already run disk repair and nothing happens, i guess i will have to reformat the disk into a single volume. Just some questions about that though.
1. How exactly would I format it? It already appears as just one disk
2. If I format it, would my user's accounts stay the same?(password and login info)
3. After formating, how exactly would i restore the backup? Wouldnt formatting erease my data?

04-22-2009, 02:10 PM

Originally Posted by ADKhikerVW

When you say memory you mean storage. Memory is a measurement of RAM, not hard drive space. I don't mean to be picky but there is a huge difference.

There is no way your drive is partitioned as Apple Partition Map or it would not boot at all. Intel Macs require GUID in order to boot.

Sorry but you are wrong.

Intel Macs boot just fine from Apple Partition Map drives. The Leopard installer won't let you install on an APM drive, and you can't install Bootcamp on an APM drive. But if you make a bootable clone onto an APM drive, you can boot an Intel mac from it.

04-22-2009, 03:04 PM

To the OP:

That message will also appear when the disk is fragmented. You can as an option try using a program to clear the fragmentation: iDefrag works well but it's not free. ($34.95)

Otherwise, it's probably best to follow the advice given you by ADKhikerVW.

Regards.

06-23-2010, 01:43 AM

i did lots of looking and found lots of discussions with no solutions. i had a problem with the bootcamp (and macos) not showing up in the startup disk control panel and bootcamp setup assistant yelling at me. sure, i could hold down the option key at startup and choose mac or windows, or use BootChamp (kainjow) to boot into windows. the problem was with the Partition Map Scheme for the entire disk. it needs to be "GUID Partition Table" rather than MBR (or Apple). i didnt want to reformat the entire drive to fix the problem and then restore the mac and windows data, so i used iPartition (Coriolis Systems :: Products :: iPartition). it converted the partition scheme and everything now works as it should.