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Are you trying to Fix “Your disk could not be partitioned” issue? Can’t do it by hand either with Disk Utility? You’re not alone. It’s a problem that a lot of windows and Mac users have had. The mistake is easy to fix, though. Boot Camp will add a folder to your system drive on the fly, but there are a few things that can stop that from happening.
If the helper gives you an error message that says “Failed to partition.” Even though the problem has been around for a long time, many users are still looking for the right answer. But in this piece, you’ll find a unique way to fix the Boot Camp disk partition error that will make it easier to reach your goal.
Before we move on to the advanced answer, let’s look at the standard and official way to fix this problem, which is to turn off Timeline and delete any free space that is not being used. These are the first ways to fix the problem message about the Bootcamp partition. You can also go to the official Microsoft support site for more information about this issue.
Ways to fix “Your disk could not be partitioned” issue
Run the fsck command to fix corruption
The fsck (file system check) tool can check that your Mac’s file system is correct and fix it if it isn’t. If Disk Utility wasn’t able to fix your drive, you can often try running the command line tool fsck in Single User Mode. Note that different Macs have different ways to boot into Single User Mode.
- Shut down your Mac.
- Turn on your Mac and immediately hold down Command + R until you see the Apple logo.
- Type in your password if asked.
- Click Disk Utility, then Continue.
- Select your startup disk from the left side and click Mount.
- Exit Disk Utility.
- Click Utilities > Terminal from the top menu bar.
Troubleshoot the issue by creating a FAT partition
Since Boot Camp doesn’t tell you more about the problem “Your disk could not be partitioned. “An error happened while partitioning the disk.” To find out more, we can use Boot Camp to make a FAT32 partition of the same size as you planned. After all, this is what Boot Camp mostly failed to do.
- Launch Disk Utility from the Applications > Utilities folder.
- Select your startup disk from the left side and click Partition.
- Click the ( + ) button below the pie chart and click Add Partition.
- Enter a name in the Name field. (E.g., Boot Camp)
- In the Format pop-up menu, choose MS-DOS (FAT).
- In the box next to Size, enter the same size as you wanted for the failed Boot Camp partition.
- Click Appy.
Remove unallocated free space
Apple also suggests checking for unallocated free space and removing it if you see “Your disk could not be partitioned” on Monterey or other macOS. This is in addition to checking and fixing your Mac’s hard drive. This makes the free room available for Boot Camp to use as a partition.
- Open Disk Utility from the Applications > Utilities folder.
- Select your startup disk from the left sidebar, then click Partition.
- If you see a section of the pie chart labeled “Free space,” select it and click the ( – ) button beneath the chart to remove it.
- Quit Disk Utility.
Repair your disk with Disk Utility
You may have listened to the advice to run Aid to check for and fix disk errors that could cause Boot Camp to say “Your disk could not be partitioned.” If that’s the case, make sure you do it from macOS Recovery. If not, take the steps below to check the health of your startup disk and fix its data structures if you need to:
- Restart your Mac in Mac Recovery Mode.
- Select Disk Utility and click Continue.
- In Disk Utility, click View > Show All Devices from the menu bar.
- You should now see your available disk and storage device in the order of startup disk > container > volumes.
- Select the last volume of your startup disk(In this case, Macintosh HD – Data) and click First Aid.
- Wait for First Aid to complete, then continue with the next volume above it until the startup disk gets repaired.