Resolved Never mind. The problem wasn't what I thought it was at all!

[Riverside]

And if you thought this was going to be an easy post to answer, think again:

Long story short, somehow during an attempt to install Ubuntu to a totally separate NTFS drive on my Mac Pro, the Windows bootcamp partition vanished from bootcamp. Holding down option no longer does anything. It just boots in Mac as if there were no other systems installed. No idea why this would happen. I actually think it's bootcamp data that's somehow corrupted during so many reboots, but unfortunately I didn't think of that until now, and it's too late to simply reinstall it because of the following.

I've already wiped the Windows partition and reformatted it as Mac, but can't seem to find any way at all to reformat the entire drive as a single volume since even Disk Utility can't see any more than half the drive anymore. Furthermore, I have another Mac formatted drive installed, and Disk Utility now thinks the former Windows partition is part of that drive, but of course it's not. Huh?

Anyone got a clue how the heck to reformat this drive so it's back to a single volume so I can just start over with this thing?

OS X 10.6.7, Bootcamp 3.04

 

[balamw]

In the Mac Pro I always found it easiest to physically remove the other drives I am not actively working on.

I'd recommend keeping only the drive you want to wipe in the box and hitting from the ODD to see what the situation actually is.

B

 

[Riverside]

In the Mac Pro I always found it easiest to physically remove the other drives I am not actively working on.

I'd recommend keeping only the drive you want to wipe in the box and hitting from the ODD to see what the situation actually is.

B

No offense, but I really hate buzz words. There are simply way too many to remember, and too many of them have multiple meanings.

By "ODD," do you mean "Original Distribution Disk?"

Never thought of removing the other drives. Way too obvious.

I'll have to try that next.

 

[ckleerun]

I'd guess Optical Disc Drive. Booting an OS installer disc would allow you to inspect the drives/partitions via Disk Utility.

 

[Riverside]

I'd guess Optical Disc Drive. Booting an OS installer disc would allow you to inspect the drives/partitions via Disk Utility.

Yeah, that makes sense. Amounts to the same thing anyway.

BUT, unfortunately, I tried removing the added drives, and no go.

The volume on the main drive won't show up anywhere at all with the secondary drives uplugged. I'm suspecting it's the way I formatted it. The Mac system seems to be reading the partition as a virtual extension of the space on the secondary drive (as in "dynamic?").

Not sure, but it's the only explanation I can think of right now.

Neither Bootcamp, nor Disk Utility, nor the finder can see the partition unless the secondary drive is plugged in. True whether I boot from the CD or the installed OS.

Time to do a little reading on Mac formatting. In the meantime, if anybody has a quick explanation for this, I'd really appreciate it. The partition showing up as part of the "wrong" drive happened right after formatting the Bootcamp partition as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Maybe it shouldn't be journaled?

 

[Riverside]

Oh Gawd! *smacks self in head*

Sorry for all the confusion folks! That partition is right where it's supposed to be. I COMPLETELY forgot about a system reconfiguration i performed several months ago, during which I MOVED the Bootcamp installation to the secondary drive.

Sorry for the confusion folks. I have severe ADD and totally forgot. The system isn't screwed up, my memory IS.

I am still quite curious what exactly caused bootcamp to "lose track" of all the boot systems, but I have to say now that I'm pretty sure what to do now to get both Windows and Ubuntu working well now.

Thanks.

 

[balamw]

I'd guess Optical Disc Drive. Booting an OS installer disc would allow you to inspect the drives/partitions via Disk Utility.

Correct. Hitting should have been Booting too.

That's what I get for responding on the iPad.

Glad it is resolved.

B