Unable to delete empty Bootcamp partition on Mac

FYI, your Mac contains a broken Fusion Drive setup. The only way to fix the broken Fusion Drive setup is by wiping both the internal 120GB SSD & 1TB Hard Drive & reinstalling macOS. By running macOS from the 1TB Hard Drive you are severely crippling the Mac's performance. The Fusion Drive setup is meant to greatly improve performance of that very slow 1TB Hard Drive.

Here is an Apple article for recreating the Fusion Drive.....it will destroy all data on both internal drives & requires reinstalling macOS afterwards as well as restoring your data from a backup.

How to fix a split Fusion Drive - Apple Support

If you are not ready for this drastic option, then read on.....

That 1.5GB APFS volume/Container I'm assuming was also from your Windows installation and does not contain any data? You will need to try & merge that 1.5GB APFS volume into the main macOS APFS Container. If successful, then try merging the actual Bootcamp partition. You may be able to merge Bootcamp partition into the 1.5GB APFS volume/Container as well followed by merging the resulting partition into the main macOS APFS Container.

If the Disk Utility GUI cannot do this, then check out my generalized instructions for using the command line to merge those two partitions (1.5GB APFS volume + Bootcamp partition). You will need to modify the instructions in the following link to match the current device identifiers for your drive layout (always check these device identifiers since they may be different the next time you restart the computer).

Before doing anything with the partitions, make sure you have a good backup of your data on the internal drive including that small 1.GB APFS volume. While the instructions I've linked should only be merging empty volumes into the main macOS APFS Container, you should always be prepared since managing partitions always carries the risk of data loss even when using the Disk Utility GUI interface. Using the Terminal command line provides no safety nets so if a critical mistake is made, then it may require performing a clean install by wiping the entire Fusion Drive.

If you encounter any problems with the Terminal commands, then make sure to show the full command used as well as all of the output. Also seeing the updated output of the previous "diskutil list internal" command may be needed if some of the commands were successful.

Bootcamp failure at partition creation -- @HWTech Instructions to Merge Partitions - Apple Community

meekzoo wrote:

1. Okay, I made a Bootcamp partition a while ago that's 250GB, right? I set up windows and everything on it. That was about a year ago.

Now, since I got a virus i decided to try to reinstall it. i booted into MacOS and i opened the boot camp assistant and removed windows. I have a empty partition now, great.

I'm unable to delete it. Yes i've gone into recovery mode, and Yes i've tried to use the diskutil commands. Nothing works. I can't eject it, delete it even from the actual partition page "You can't remove this volume, because the preceding volume cannot be resized." or press the plus and minus. They're greyed out.

I have two questions now,

Could I somehow install bootcamp onto this empty 250GB partition?

2. Is there any way to remove said partition without wiping my whole pc and restoring from a backup (only way i heard that can fix it)

Thanks,

James

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Unable to delete partition

Run the following command in the Terminal app and provide the complete output here so I can see the actual drive layout of your internal drive:

diskutil  list  internal

Boot Camp Assistant User Guide for Mac - Apple Support

Remove Windows from your Mac using Boot Camp - Apple Support

"You must use Boot Camp Assistant to remove Windows, or a partition that was created with Boot Camp Assistant, from your Intel-based Mac.

WARNING: Do not use any other utilities to remove Windows or a partition that was created with Boot Camp."

I believe that the definition of "other utilities" that you are not supposed to use would include Disk Utility, diskutil, and Recovery mode.

There are exactly two ways to remove a Windows partition created by Boot Camp and recover its storage allocation:

1. Use Boot Camp
   1. Recovers the storage consumed by the Windows partition and non-destructively rebuilds the drive partition map.
2. Reformat (e.g. wipe) the drive with Disk Utililty