roostishaw Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Hello, hopefully my first thread will go well. I, like many people, have been recieving the error, "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition", while trying to launch Boot Camp Assistant. I've been reading about this error for days and have learned that this is usually caused when you have another partition. The strange thing is that I don't have another partition. I've been able to confirm this with Disk Utility (running from both my hard drive and from the install disk) and GParted. Both of the apps confirm the existance of only one partition. I just repaired the permissions and a "Volume Header" using the Disk Utility on the first install disk. Still no dice. I'm trying to do this in order to install Ubuntu along with OS X. I did previously have rEFIt installed, but the Ubuntu partition was removed (and I removed rEFIt by hand) in the process of moving to my new, larger hard drive. Could this have messed something up in the MBR (I know it's something else on macs)? Anyone know what I can do to fix this and use Boot Camp Assistant to successfully partition my drive in two? Thanks! Edit: If I hold down Option during boot, I get the option to boot from my mac drive or 'Windows'. When I select windows, I get this error (when I choose the mac disk, it obviously works): GRUB Loading stage1.5 GRUB Loading, please wait... Error 21 I'm sure this will end up being part of the problem... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erbic Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Looks like you still have GRUB left over from your Ubuntu install. When installing Ubuntu, you should have told it to install GRUB on the Ubuntu partition instead of in the MBR. However, you didn't... so now even though your Linux partition is gone GRUB remains in Boot Camp's pseudo-MBR on your HDD. Which is causing your Mac to show a Windows partition when there isn't one, and also is causing Boot Camp's refusal to partition your HDD. That's your problem, anyway... although I have no idea how to fix it. It may involve doing something with the fdisk Terminal command, but I'm not sure. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I can instruct you on how to fix this problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roostishaw Posted June 10, 2007 Author Share Posted June 10, 2007 ErBiC, thanks for the reply. At least I now have a clear understanding of what's going on. Would anyone like to enlighten me as to the solution? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roostishaw Posted June 14, 2007 Author Share Posted June 14, 2007 Update: I just went ahead and did a wipe and reinstall. Everything is crisp and clean. Now, I still want to install Ubuntu on the same drive. How can I do this while still allowing Boot Camp Assistant to remove Ubuntu and return my drive to a single partition at a later date? Using the 7.04 instructions from [ https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook ], will I be able to later remove Ubuntu using Boot Camp Assistant? If not, how can I install Ubuntu in such a way that I will be able to remove it later on using Boot Camp Assistant? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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