[hayt3r]

Hi all, I'm really bummed out right now. After installing ubuntu on my macbook and deciding it wasn't to my liking, I wiped the linux partitions and tried to have boot camp merge the partitions before installing windows. Unfortunately it's giving me the following error:

"The Startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition. The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by boot camp assistant for installing windows."

This happened a couple months ago. So at the time I booted via the Mac dvd and tried to non-destructively merge the partitions with disk utility, but to no avail. Not having time to do a proper backup and whatnot, I didn't go about reformatting and put this off for a while.

Come this week, when I do have time for all that fuzz the macbook refuses to boot the mac dvd I've no idea why it wouldn't because a) there are no visible scratches on my boot disk, and b) the drive mounts other CDs fine.

So my question is quite simply what to do? Non-destructive method would be ideal but if I must I would reinstall OSX.

[ghporter]

Not wanting to boot from the DVD is a Bad Thing®. If you have another Mac, you could use Target Disk mode and copy your stuff-then wipe and reinstall, but that would only work if the machine boots from the disc. This is certainly an odd situation, and unfortunately I can't provide any help in the "boot from DVD" question.

Sorry you're having trouble, but mucking around with non-Mac partitions on Macs can be messy - which you've obviously identified.

[3spyder]

Unfortunately, I am having the same problem as hayt3r. However, my startup disk was already formatted as Mac OS extended (journaled) as the error message stated is must be. Also, I have already targeted my MPB to my PowerMac G4 and partitioned the disk again as 1 partition, formatted as Mac OX extended (Journaled) - again. I pushed my image back onto said mac partition and tried to run boot camp again... to no avail. I got the same error message again. This is quite discouraging. Any ideas on how to fix this problem would be wonderful! I also ran Single User the "/sbin/fsck -fy" command as I read that might fix the problem when the error message reads that "The disk cannot be partitioned because verification failed." However, it simply stated that the system appears to be OK and kindly told me to go on about my business. Some other forums have said to repair disk in disk utility from the startup disk, for that other error message, but they also said the single user command would meet the same end, so I didn't both with that yet.

I need Vista for the Fall and I would like to use Boot Camp. I've done this one other user's systems well over 100 times and I've never had this problem. Of course, my own machine decides to be difficult :/ Thanks for any assistance in advance.