Are you receiving that uncomfortable notification from macOS informing you that “your disk is almost full“? You can save space by optimizing storage using iCloud Drive – if you rent enough space from Apple – or reclaim space by removing the Boot Camp partition that was required when you installed the Windows operating system.
What Is the Boot Camp Partition?
We have created a free utility called “Boot Camp ISO Converter” that copies all the files in the ISO to a folder, splits up the install.wim into parts no larger than 2GB, and creates a new ISO that can be used with Boot Camp Assistant. Here is a step-by-step instructions: Removing the installer partitions. If you did it manually use the BootCamp Assistant to delete the Windows partition and re-create it using the BootCamp, Assistant. When you are re=creating the partition you may get a message that you do not have enough space and you are sure that you have space then the drive has become fragmented we can address that issue if necessary.
Install the latest macOS updates, which can include Boot Camp updates. Make sure to use an external drive with the correct formatting (MS-DOS FAT). Check your storage space, and ensure there’s enough free space to download the Windows Support software. You need at least 16GB of free space. Make sure your Mac is connected to the Internet. Step 2 – Boot Camp Assistant. Open Finder, select Applications from the left panel, go to Utilities, and find and open the Boot Camp Assistant app. When the app starts, click on Continue, and then select Choose next to the ISO image field. How to fix problems in Boot Camp Assistant 1. Free up space on your startup disk. One of the most common reasons for problems with Boot Camp Assistant is the startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned. If you plan to install Windows 10, Apple recommends you should have at least 64GB of free space and 128GB for an optimal experience.
Software incompatibility may force some Mac users to take the ultimate step and install Windows on their computer using Boot Camp. As with every operating system, Windows requires its own partition and its own file systems, which means to use it on a Mac requires you to repartition the drive using Boot Camp assistant in order to install the Windows operating system.
If you are installing Windows for the first time, you will require at least 30GB of free space, increasing to 40GB if you are upgrading from a previous version of Windows. This space will be taken up on the built-in hard drive (which may have limited storage space), allocated to the Windows OS during the installation process. This newly created partition will be named Boot Camp by default.
Regardless of how much disk space you have allocated to Windows, it is nothing more than a waste of storage if your startup disk is getting full, and so in these situations it is recommended that users either wipe away the macOS partition using Mac optimization software such as CleanMyMac, OnyX, and the like, or remove the Boot Camp partition to reclaim gigabytes of disk space.
How to Remove the Boot Camp Partition
- Back up all the data that you need from the partition.
- Start the Mac in macOS.
- Quit all open apps and log out of any other users that are currently logged in.
- Open up Launchpad, click Utilities, and then Boot Camp Assistant.
- Click the “Continue” button.
- If you’re prompted to select a task, click on either “Remove Windows 7 or later version” or “Remove Windows 10 or later version”, whichever is relevant. Then hit “Continue”.
- If your Mac has a single internal disk, then you'll see a “Restore Disk to a Single Volume” window; click “Restore”.
- If your computer has multiple internal disks, select the Boot Camp disk with Windows installed on it and hit “Restore disk to a single macOS partition”, followed by “Continue”. Depending on the size of the drive this may take a few minutes.
- Click “Quit” once the process is complete. Launch Disk Utility and check if the drive is no longer available just to confirm that the Boot Camp partition has been removed.
Some users complain about receiving the “Your disk could not be restored to a single partition” error message, and therefore being prevented from restoring the internal drive back to a single partition. If, for some reason, Boot Camp fails to remove the partition, then you can always turn to Disk Utility, a powerful tool built into macOS.
- Launch Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
- Select the Windows partition.
- Click “Erase” and select either the “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” for Macs running macOS 10.12 Sierra or earlier, or “APFS file system” for users on macOS 10.13 High Sierra and beyond.
- Erase the partition.
- Select the complete disk.
- Click on the Partition tab.
- Select the newly formatted “Windows” partition and remove it by clicking on the minus button in the bottom left.
- Select the main partition and type in its full size into the “Size” option, then hit enter.
- Let Disk Utility complete the resizing to restore your full macOS-compatible partition once again.
Like most things in macOS, Boot Camp usually just works. Boot Camp Assistant does what it’s supposed to do and either creates or removes a partition so that you can install Windows or restore your Mac to running only macOS. However, occasionally it goes wrong. In this article, we’ll show you what to do when you see the message ‘The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition’ in Boot Camp Assistant.
What is Boot Camp Assistant?
Boot Camp Assistant is the tool in macOS that allows you to create or remove a partition on your boot disk so that you can install Windows or restore your Mac and remove Windows. It has been a part of macOS since the first Intel Macs and works on every recent version of macOS, including Big Sur. However, Apple-silicon Macs, those with ‘M’-based architecture, don’t support Boot Camp.
How does Boot Camp Assistant work?
It partitions your boot disk, placing all the files you need to run macOS on one partition and installing the firmware necessary to install Windows on the other partition. It then walks you through the process of installing Windows. While the process is very safe, you should always back up your Mac before running Boot Camp Assistant, just in case anything goes wrong.
What does the error message mean?
If you see ‘the startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition,’ it means that Boot Camp Assistant is having trouble partitioning or restoring your boot disk to a single partition. Fortunately, there are several things you can do to try and fix it.
How to fix problems in Boot Camp Assistant
1. Free up space on your startup disk
Boot Camp Assistant Not Enough Space
One of the most common reasons for problems with Boot Camp Assistant is the startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned. If you plan to install Windows 10, Apple recommends you should have at least 64GB of free space and 128GB for an optimal experience. If you have an iMac Pro or Mac Pro with 128GB RAM, you will need at least that much free space.
If you have less than 64GB free, you will need to clear space. You can do that by using macOS’ built-in storage optimization, or by using a tool designed to free up space on your Mac like CleanMyMac X.
CleanMyMac X has a System Junk module that eliminates all the junk files sitting on your boot disk. These include temporary files that weren’t deleted, cache files, and language support files for languages you don’t use. Here’s how to use it.
- Download and install CleanMyMac if you don’t already have it on your Mac.
- Launch it from your Applications folder.
- Choose System Junk on the left-hand sidebar.
- Press Scan.
- Choose Clean.
2. Check if your Mac is running an up-to-date version of macOS
Sometimes an upgrade can fix the problems with the Boot Camp Assistant. To check for macOS updates, do the following:
Boot Camp Assistant Not Enough Free Space
- Click on the Apple menu and choose About this Mac.
- Press Software Update.
- If there is an update available, install it.
3. Repair your boot disk with Disk Utility
Boot Camp Assistant There Is Not Enough Space
If you’re having trouble partitioning the disk, try running the First Aid from within Disk Utility to check for errors.
- Navigate to Applications > Utilities and double-click Disk Utility to launch it.
- Select your boot disk — it’s on top of the list on the left sidebar.
- Choose First Aid in the toolbar.
- Press Run.
![Boot Camp Assistant Not Enough Space Boot Camp Assistant Not Enough Space](/uploads/1/1/9/7/119750748/880778930.jpg)
Then run Boot Camp Assistant again. If it doesn’t work and you still get the error message, try the steps below.
4. Check for unallocated free space
- Launch Disk Utility.
- In the sidebar, select Macintosh HD, or whichever your boot disk is called.
- Select Partition in the toolbar.
- If you see a message about Apple File System sharing space, click Partition to confirm you want to partition.
- If the pie chart has a section called Free Space, select it.
- Press the ‘-‘ button to remove the unallocated free space and make it available for use.
- Press Apply and quit Disk Utility.
- Try running Boot Camp Assistant again.
If you still get a message saying your disk could not be partitioned, try turning off Time Machine backups in the Time Machine pane in System Preferences.
Boot Camp Assistant Usb Drive Not Enough Space
There are several reasons you may run into problems when you try to run Boot Camp Assistant. One of the most common is that there is not enough space on your boot disk or that there is unallocated free space. If you follow the steps above, you will fix those problems and should be able to use Boot Camp successfully to partition your startup disk.