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Windows Partition Disappeared

Hardware: 2018 macbook Pro w/Intel i7 Processor

Mac Software: Sonoma 14.6

Windows Software: Windows 10 (missing)


My window partition disappeared. I had been using Bootcamp to run specific software for work (would not run on parallels) as well some select steam games (age of empires anyone?).


It's been awhile since using this macbook, but trying to launch Bootcamp, I now only see MacOS with no option to boot into my Windows partition.


Looking under storage, I still see "Other Users & Shared" taking up 37.69GB of data. I believe this is my Windows partition space. I had set a small one as I only used it for DDTC uploads and AOE. There are no other users on this laptop.


My question is... How do I get my Windows partition back? If I cannot, how do I reclaim my almost 40GB of lost space and reinstall?


Thank you for any help!

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Nov 9, 2024 9:38 AM

Reply
16 replies

Nov 9, 2024 1:18 PM in response to Baby Ollie

Hard to say actually. It looks like Disk Utility is only displaying Volumes. Up at the top where it says "View" you should switch it from "Show all Volumes" to "Show all Devices".


If there is a BOOTCAMP disk, it is in a different partition than your macOS volumes, and may not be mounted even if it exists. Right now you can only see mounted volumes, so there's a chance something is there but you can't see it unless you are looking at the device level instead of the volume level.

Nov 9, 2024 6:47 PM in response to Baby Ollie

you are looking at stuff under the heading: "disk Images"


These are packed away and compressed things that CAN be unpacked and Mounted if required, but these are NOT your active disks. MacOS Base System is the stripped-down system that runs recovery, for example. That is why it can be under 2 GB in size.


Your active disks are at the TOP of that display, based on your Apple SSD AP0265M media device.

Nov 10, 2024 7:33 AM in response to Baby Ollie

The part you have highlighted is under Disk Images - and is, in fact, the uncompressed recovery disk image for your computer. You need to be looking under Internal (for you, APPLE SSD AP0256M Media) - that's the disk in your computer with all the structures built on it.


Unfortunately, the only thing on the disk structure is the APFS container (disk3) and the macOS volume group inside of that. No sign of Windows.


Can you highlight the APPLE SSD AP0256M Media line and see if it shows any free space when you do that. If it does, then there are a couple of people here who have the background to help you - maybe - rebuild the disk partition map to recover - maybe - the partition.



Windows Partition Disappeared

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