cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition

P

potatok

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Hi all,

I'm a newbie with bootcamp. I'm trying to install Fedora 6 on a Mini before I really do it on my MBP. After successful installation of Fedora, I went back to OS X and tried to see what would Bootcamp assistant tell me. I got the message "Your startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partion".

I wonder if it has anything to do with my partition scheme. After bootcamp assistant shrinked OSX, there's a little piece of free space between the OSX partition and the "Windows" partition. I deleted the windos partition and create my own Linux partitions, /boot, / and swap.

Any idea ?

potatok
 
Here's some relevant info from your BootCamp installation guide:
If you have already partitioned your disk using Disk Utility or some other utility, you cannot use Boot Camp Assistant until you restore your disk to a single-partition Mac OS X volume
Click to expand...

According to your post, you originally changed the partitions with BootCamp, is that correct?
But, then you changed the formatting for your purpose of installing Fedora. So the partition setup is no longer recognized as one created by BootCamp.
If you now want to install Windows via BootCamp, you will have to restore the drive back to a single partition through the normal method, which means erasing the drive (you lose everything not backed up). iPartition software might help, but I don't know what that would do with the linux partition that you have now.
 
This is more like a bootcamp test run before I screw the MBP. I don't like Parallels because it is limited compared to VMWare. While I'm not sure why VMWare is SO DXYZ slow in rolling out the Mac version, I need to use Bootcamp to work on fedora/linux. The most important is whether I'll be resize the OS X partition back to a full-disk partition by the time VMware is REALLY ready.

I think Bootcamp doesn't know how to handle ext3 partitions. DiskUtility doesn't know either. I'll try to delete the partition I added and see if BootCamp assistant would be able to do anything when all ext3 partitions are removed.

By the way, is there's a way to set the defult boot OS without pressing the alt key?

Thanks
Potatok
 
You'll have to take your lumps on this one. BootCamp isn't likely to help you out after you change the type of partition to one that BootCamp doesn't expect to see.
You set the default boot before you shutdown. In OS X, go to System Preferences/Startup Disk, and click to select your desired boot partition. I doubt that you would see a Linux boot. If you would have Windows installed, and you are booted to that, you can do the same through the Control Panel/Startup Disk. I assume if you are booted to Fedora, there is a way to set the startup partition as a default.
The Option boot screen is for choosing a boot partition different from the default.

Do you see the Fedora partition from the Option-boot screen?
 
Here is how it WON"T WORK

1. Boot to Linux rescue disk, run fdisk
- I tried to delete the partitions with fdisk. Everytime I get back to OSX, the partitions were back. I even deleted the partitions, created a new one and even mkfs it.
- DOH, forgot mac uses the "ultra modern" EFI and fdisk actually warned me on top of the screen on not supporting EFI.

2. Use OSX utilities
- I tried to su to root, run command line tools such as diskutility to reformat the extra partitions. Only the linux swap was "killed".


The solution is GNU Parted.

- boot Fedora CD to rescue mode
- run parted to remove the Linux partitions
- if you reboot to OSX now, bootcamp assistant will work. However, it runs like the very first time you install bootcamp. It asks you if you want to get a Windos drive CD and partition the drive for Windos. There's no option to return to one OSX partition

- you'll need to make a new partition on the disk to fool Bootcamp assistatn. Make a new partition with the free space available. Don't worry about the partition type or filesystem format
- after a second partition exist, bootcamp assistant will be happen about it and let you return to one big OSX partition.

If you need help with parted, let me know

Potatok
 
Using iPartition will help, had the same problem when I used a Version of Leopard.

can download bootable utilities image 1.02 from demonoid, burn and your all set, its very handy..
 
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