HFS+ or APFS ?

[Rod]

I will try to keep this question short and concise.
I would like to remove my Windows 10 Boot Camp (100Gb) partition from my MBP 500Gb (APFS) High Sierra SSD internal drive.
This is no longer possible using Boot Camp Assistant.
I have a 1 Tb HFS+ HDD with a full CCC backup.

My question is how do I erase my internal drive to remove the Win 10 partition and restore my data while keeping the APFS filing system?
Correct me if I'm wrong but I assume that if I merely erase the SSD and reverse clone my CCC copy back to the Macintosh HD the filing system will then be HFS+?

I thought that if I was to use a USB bootable High Sierra installer to erase and format the Macintosh HD to APFS that would do the job but I am unsure if cloning the contents of my CCC backup back to the Macintosh HD would preserve the APFS?

I hope this is all clear as mud. I just want to reclaim the space on my Macintosh HD while preserving my data and the current APFS.

Nobody seems to have acknowledged that Boot Camp Assistant no longer works to reclaim a Windows partition created before the upgrade to High Sierra.

 

[Rod]

Of course I maybe overthinking this. What if I created an APFS CCC clone on my EHD and then cloned that back onto my Macintosh HD after erasing it from the recovery partition on the clone? Bombich seem to suggest that formatting an EHD (spinner) as APFS is not a good idea but I'm reading between the lines here.

 

[chscag]

Hey Rod:

I'm really not sure what will happen in your case, but this has been my own experience:

When I received my iMac from Apple it was already pre-loaded with High Sierra and the SSD was formatted as APFS. However, I needed to migrate all of my settings and data from my older iMac which had been formatted as HFS+, also running High Sierra. I used a CCC clone of that to overwrite what was on the new iMac. And it did not disturb the APFS formatting even though the clone was HFS+.

I suspect when you erase the MacBook Pro and then restore High Sierra to it, it will retain the APFS formatting. If it doesn't, you can always go the other way as you stated above.

 

[Rod]

That's what I was hoping but for the life of me I cant seem to find any documentation on the topic which confirms this. It's a bit odd because I'm sure there must be others in the same situation. I guess I will have to be my own guinea pig for this one.

 

[pm-r]

I cant seem to find any documentation on the topic which confirms this. It's a bit odd because I'm sure there must be others in the same situation. I guess I will have to be my own guinea pig for this one.

Using your question as a websearch, it seems it's a rather confusing mess out there and I'd say apple blew thing a wee bit with their APFS and SSDs, HS and a Windows partition, but a fair number of hits still showed up:
'how to remove Windows 10 Boot Camp partition from (APFS) High Sierra SSD internal drive'
https://www.google.com/search?clien...h+Sierra+SSD+internal+drive&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Sorry, nothing completely solid and guaranteed as I scanned through some of the hits. As you said, quite odd as there must be a good number in the same boat situation.




- Patrick
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[Rod]

As you say all a bit confusing but I’m sure I’m not the only one to have a Windows Boot Camp partition created before the upgrade to High Sierra and I can only imagine numbers will increase as current users decide to remove or resize their Windows partition. There does not seem to be any word from Apple Re the fact that Boot Camp is now unable to remove the partition. I have seen plenty of sites describing how easy it is but that was prior to High Sierra. Now it just states it cannot be done.

 

[pm-r]

There does not seem to be any word from Apple Re the fact that Boot Camp is now unable to remove the partition.

Does their support article help at all???:

Erase and repartition a device
You can erase all volumes on a device and create new ones. For example, if you want to change the partition map of a USB, Thunderbolt, or other storage device from Master Boot Record to GUID Partition Map. If you simply want to erase a volume, see Erase a volume.

WARNING: Erasing and partitioning a device destroys all data on all volumes of the device.

https://support.apple.com/kb/ph22240?locale=en_CA

Or any of these???:
https://www.google.com/search?clien...on+with+High+Sierra+and+SSD&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

That included this:
macOS High Sierra how to remove Bootcamp?
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/314415/macos-high-sierra-how-to-remove-bootcamp

I don't know if any of those will help and sorry, but I don't do any sort of Windows stuff.




- Patrick
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[Rod]

Thanks Patrick, I have looked at a lot of articles on the topic, interestingly many are concerned with switching problems between windows and macOS after High Sierra and resizing either the macOS or Windows partition. Some suggest that it is no longer possible to use Boot Camp to create a Windows partition under APFS at all and others suggest using Terminal commands to resize the macOS partition (https://apple.stackexchange.com/que...-merge-bootcamp-partition-with-apfs-container).
No one has suggested erasing the Macintosh HD from a bootable USB installer and installing a fresh copy of High Sierra then reverse cloning thier data from a CCC backup on a HFS+ formatted EHD.
chscag suggests that this process would retain the APFS on the Macintosh HD and I agree but have not had time to try it yet.
I will certainly feed back when I do. This solution suits my needs but there are obviously problems with Boot Camp behavior under APFS High Sierra that Apple needs to address.

 

[Rod]

This is what you get when you press Continue in Boot Camp Assistant on the Macintosh HD;

 

[Rod]

Well as with many things the task turned out to be easier than feared. I simply booted with a macOSX High Sierra bootable installer. Opened Disk Utility and deleted the partition used by Boot Camp. I received a message to say APFS would reclaim the erased space and after the process, (all of about 30sec) I had no Boot Camp partition in the sidebar and all of the HD storage space had been added to Macintosh HD.
Another two thumbs up for bootable macOSX USB installers.

 

[chscag]

All is well that ends well. I believe you could have done the same thing with a bootable clone made by CCC or SuperDuper. I really don't trust a bootable installer to do partition work but I guess if it works, why not. Anyway, it's after 2:30 AM here and time to get some sleep.

 

[Rod]

Yes I too had been going to use the ccc clone but since I had the flash drive I thought I would use it for the erase procedure. Handy hint for those that do not have ccc, yet.

 

[pm-r]

All is well that ends well. I believe you could have done the same thing with a bootable clone made by CCC or SuperDuper. I really don't trust a bootable installer to do partition work but I guess if it works, why not. Anyway, it's after 2:30 AM here and time to get some sleep.

I would agree with Charlie and I've never really trusted or used any USB/flash Mac OS X/macOS Installer.
Anyway, good info to know thanks Rod and glad to read things all worked out for you.

And BTW Charlie, you've got to get to bed and get your sleep earlier. ;D

PS: OT here, but did you know one can go a lot longer without water or food than without sleep. A serious lack of sleep can actually kill you. Not good.



- Patrick
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[IWT]

Patrick, this is how Charlie looks so young. He is one of the few who bucks the trend. Of course, we don't know when he gets up in the morning

Ian