Can't Partition SSD on Mac (HELP PLEASE)

[Devin321]

Okay, so I have this MacBook Pro Mid 2010 and I want to Install Windows 10 on it. Apple doesn't officially support it, so I went into info.plist and changed some things. I create a USB stick and I'm ready to install Windows 10 on BootCamp, until it says "the startup does not have enough space to be partitioned. I have either 44 gb free or I have 70. My user only takes 14 gb but I am taking up 70 gb of storage from system files. Different apps tell me different things. Either way, I have enough free space to partition the drive, so I go on google and it says to partition the drive using Disk Utility. So I try, and the plus sign is greyed out. The solutions online regard erasing the drive and most consist of people using external drives. Am I overthinking this, or is there an answer that someone could give? Any response is welcome, thanks.

[DrMacintosh]

Just to make this easier. Format the drive as mac os extended journaled (HFS+) and try again. APFS has to do wonky container disks to work properly.

 

As you can see, Bootcamp requires a partition and then macOS must be relocated into a wonky container disk. On a Mac running Windows in Bootcamp, Windows is actually the main OS, the SMC just tricks the boot order to load into macOS. 

 

HFS+ is a lot more straight forward and allows two distinct partitions. The downside is that HFS+ is slower and not as secure as APFS. 

[Devin321]

2 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Just to make this easier. Format the drive as mac os extended journaled (HFS+) and try again. APFS has to do wonky container disks to work properly.

Is there a way to solve it without erasing data or is there a way to backup data and put the data into the newly erased SSD?

[DrMacintosh]

4 minutes ago, Devin321 said:

Is there a way to solve it without erasing data or is there a way to backup data and put the data into the newly erased SSD?

Use Apple’s built in backup tool. Time Machine will make a carbon copy of all your programs and documents/files and will replicate them exactly as they should be when you select restore from Time Machine when setting up macOS. 

 

It really, “just works.” Lol

 

Be sure to use an external drive though for making your backup. 

[Devin321]

11 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Just to make this easier. Format the drive as mac os extended journaled (HFS+) and try again. APFS has to do wonky container disks to work properly.

Also, could you walk me through how to format the drive?

 

[Devin321]

32 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Just to make this easier. Format the drive as mac os extended journaled (HFS+) and try again. APFS has to do wonky container disks to work properly.

What do you mean by HFS+? I only see Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

[DrMacintosh]

First off we need to make a backup of your data. We need an external USB HDD that you are willing to format into Mac OS Extended Journaled or is already formatted in Mac OS Extended Journaled. Once you have a drive we need to tell Time Machine to use the drive:

System Preferences> Time Machine> Select Disk> select your external HDD 

 

If your HDD is HFS+ and has free space, you can make a partition for Time Machine to use. 

 

Once the backup is complete, we can make a Bootable USB Drive since we want to completely erase your internal SSD. Here is how you do that:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

 

Once that is created we need to shut the machine down and insert the USB Drive that you just made the installer for. 

 

Press the power button and hold option down to bring up the boot loader> Select the USB Drive

 

Once it loads you should be presented with this screen:

 

Launch Disk utility and format your internal SSD. Once that is finished, you can reformat the drive as HFS+, and then go back to the initial screen and select reinstall macOS. Run through the process and when it asks you, select restore from Time Machine backup. 

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Devin321 said:

What do you mean by HFS+? I only see Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

They are the same thing. 

[Devin321]

1 hour ago, DrMacintosh said:

Press the power button and hold option down to bring up the boot loader> Select the USB Drive

 

Once it loads you should be presented with this screen:

Ok, I was able to create a bootable USB and booted from there, but instead of saying "reinstall macOS", is says "install macOS". Is there a difference and did I do something wrong?

[DrMacintosh]

19 minutes ago, Devin321 said:

Ok, I was able to create a bootable USB and booted from there, but instead of saying "reinstall macOS", is says "install macOS". Is there a difference and did I do something wrong?

no difference

[Devin321]

1 hour ago, DrMacintosh said:

you can reformat the drive as HFS+,

I erased the SSD and there is no option to reformat it as HFS+. The only formatting options include APFS