Lost Space deleting Windows Partition (bootcamp)

[SamratSog]

I am new here. i know there are tons of similar posts like this but i cant figure from where to start because i have a fusion drive (which complicates things). really need help!! i have imac5k 2017 2b fusion drive with mojave, had windows installed. decided to delete it through bootcamp and my space is gone now. nowhere to be found in disk utility. i am new to mac, diskutil list is confusing, need some clarity on that. hoping to get it fixed.

attached screenshot of diskutil list.

 

[Brian33]

Well, 'diskutil apfs list' will give you some more info, but I'm not sure if it will help.

My experience is with Fusion drives with HFS+ and Corestorage, not APFS containers, so I probably can't help you much. My understanding was that APFS didn't support Fusion drives yet, but maybe that has changed in Mojave??? (I'm running High Sierra).

I can see disk2 doesn't look right -- it's limited to 1.8 TB (would expect over 2 TB if you really had a Fusion drive setup, or 2TB if not) and the MACINTOSH Volume has only 576 GB. Not sure how to fix it, though. I'd probably ensure I had a proper backup, boot to recovery mode, wipe all the internal drives, reinstall macOS, migrate user account, documents, settings with Migration Assistant from the backup.
[doublepost=1551552209][/doublepost]Hmmm.... looks like this person had the same problem?
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-after-deleting-a-bootcamp-partition.2169229/

 

[Fishrrman]

"i have imac5k 2017 2b fusion drive with mojave, had windows installed. decided to delete it through bootcamp and my space is gone now. nowhere to be found in disk utility."

What follows is THE GUARANTEED WAY to "get that space back".
But you'll need an external drive (I'll bet 1tb would do), and some time.

What to do:
1. Get an external drive 1tb or larger in size. Use Disk Utility to erase it. Use APFS, GUID partition format.
2. Download CarbonCopyCloner from here:
http://www.bombich.com/download.html
(CCC is FREE to download and use for the first 30 days)
3. Use CCC to clone the contents of your Mac partition (the drive you boot into) to the external drive.
4. Now, power down, all the way off
5. Press the power-on button and hold down the option key, and KEEP HOLDING IT DOWN until the startup manager appears.
6. Select the EXTERNAL drive with the pointer and hit return.
7. The Mac will boot from the cloned backup
8. When you get to the finder, open Disk Utility
9. In DU's upper left, choose "show all devices" from the popup menu
10. You want to select the uppermost item that represents the entire fusion drive.
11. Now, ERASE it. Again, use GUID partition format, APFS
12. When done, check the size of the newly-erased drive. Is it now "all there"?
13. If it is, open CCC.
14. Use CCC to clone the contents of the cloned backup BACK TO the internal drive.
15. When done, power down and disconnect the cloned backup
16. Now, the moment of truth. Press the power on button. AGAIN, hold down the option key and choose the internal drive from the startup manager.
17. Can you get logged in, back to the finder. Is all the space "there"?
18. If so, good, but one more thing.
19. Open the "startup disk" preference pane (system preferences). Click the lock and enter your password, then click the internal [fusion] drive to again be the boot drive. Close system prefs.

That should do it.
YES, it's going to take some work and time.
But if nothing else works, THIS WILL WORK.

 

[SamratSog]

Well, 'diskutil apfs list' will give you some more info, but I'm not sure if it will help.

My experience is with Fusion drives with HFS+ and Corestorage, not APFS containers, so I probably can't help you much. My understanding was that APFS didn't support Fusion drives yet, but maybe that has changed in Mojave??? (I'm running High Sierra).

I can see disk2 doesn't look right -- it's limited to 1.8 TB (would expect over 2 TB if you really had a Fusion drive setup, or 2TB if not) and the MACINTOSH Volume has only 576 GB. Not sure how to fix it, though. I'd probably ensure I had a proper backup, boot to recovery mode, wipe all the internal drives, reinstall macOS, migrate user account, documents, settings with Migration Assistant from the backup.
[doublepost=1551552209][/doublepost]Hmmm.... looks like this person had the same problem?
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-after-deleting-a-bootcamp-partition.2169229/

thanks for replying, i didnt know about APFS not being supported with fusion drives. it seems my last resort is to clean install macOS. there are lot posts with the same issue and few of em did find the solution without clean installing. but the thing is, none of them were using fusion drives, and i didnt want to take the risk of accidentally messing with fusion system. thanks anyway!

 

[SamratSog]

"i have imac5k 2017 2b fusion drive with mojave, had windows installed. decided to delete it through bootcamp and my space is gone now. nowhere to be found in disk utility."

What follows is THE GUARANTEED WAY to "get that space back".
But you'll need an external drive (I'll bet 1tb would do), and some time.

What to do:
1. Get an external drive 1tb or larger in size. Use Disk Utility to erase it. Use APFS, GUID partition format.
2. Download CarbonCopyCloner from here:
http://www.bombich.com/download.html
(CCC is FREE to download and use for the first 30 days)
3. Use CCC to clone the contents of your Mac partition (the drive you boot into) to the external drive.
4. Now, power down, all the way off
5. Press the power-on button and hold down the option key, and KEEP HOLDING IT DOWN until the startup manager appears.
6. Select the EXTERNAL drive with the pointer and hit return.
7. The Mac will boot from the cloned backup
8. When you get to the finder, open Disk Utility
9. In DU's upper left, choose "show all devices" from the popup menu
10. You want to select the uppermost item that represents the entire fusion drive.
11. Now, ERASE it. Again, use GUID partition format, APFS
12. When done, check the size of the newly-erased drive. Is it now "all there"?
13. If it is, open CCC.
14. Use CCC to clone the contents of the cloned backup BACK TO the internal drive.
15. When done, power down and disconnect the cloned backup
16. Now, the moment of truth. Press the power on button. AGAIN, hold down the option key and choose the internal drive from the startup manager.
17. Can you get logged in, back to the finder. Is all the space "there"?
18. If so, good, but one more thing.
19. Open the "startup disk" preference pane (system preferences). Click the lock and enter your password, then click the internal [fusion] drive to again be the boot drive. Close system prefs.

That should do it.
YES, it's going to take some work and time.
But if nothing else works, THIS WILL WORK.

thanks for the reply, lot of work indeed. isn't it easy to do it through the mac recovery mode (command r) ? and formatting/clean installing from there using wifi ? one and the same thing right ? completely formatting the drive wont split the fusion system ? i was hoping to fix it without going through all the trouble of wiping the whole drive and reinstalling OS though.

 

[Brian33]

Fishrrman's instructions will give you a proven, good, bootable, backup disk. We don't know what sort of backup you have or how reliable it is, so I can understand his recommendation. If you are certain you have a good, full backup setup and know how to use it, you should be fine to use command-r recovery mode to repartition/reformat your disks, and then either restore the entire system directly from your backup, or reinstall macOS and then use Migration Assistant to copy user accounts and file from your backup onto the newly-installed system.

We're not sure what backup procedures you have, or if it's reliable, or how much risk you're willing to take regarding losing data. How are you doing backups?

As far as the Fusion drive, I believe that if you use Disk Utility to reformat your internal storage devices, it will automatically combine them into a single Fusion drive if that is how the machine was originally set up. I read this somewhere; I could be wrong, though, as my machine didn't come that way (I set up a home-made DIY fusion drive).

Just for interest, I would bet it is possible to reclaim the missing disk space without reformatting (after all, Boot Camp Assistant.app normally does do that). I notice that the 'diskutil' command has 'resizeVolume' and 'apfs resizeContainer' sub-verbs, but I'm not confident of the exact right forms to use, so any instructions I would give you would likely result in you having to re-format the drive(s) again anyway. However, if you want to give it a shot, go for it!