Apple

macos – I tried to partition my internal Fusion Drive on intel iMac and ended up in a bad state

March 11, 2025
Vincent


How can I fix this and add two new partitions that I can use to dual boot linux distros. (I don’t need help with linux install, at least not yet, just fixing my partition map)

Using Disk Utility I tried to add 2 new partitions to my 3TB drive so that I can later dual boot with Linux. I didn’t get that far because disk utility failed to create the new partitions. I can still boot into macOS 10.15.7 normally (which is good). I booted into network recovery mode to try to create the partition again, but now I see that my disk is in a bad state. The disk utility UI seems to think I have an additional nearly 3TB of free space, and if I try to remove it, it says my total space is 6Tb (and of course it fails to update the partition). Here are screenshots of the disk utility UI as well as the partition map from terminal:

disk utility
extra free space

    /dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         121.1 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         3.0 TB     disk1s2

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +3.1 TB     disk2
                                 Physical Stores disk0s2, disk1s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data ... 195.6 GB   disk2s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 50.6 MB    disk2s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.1 GB     disk2s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk2s4
   5:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            11.2 GB    disk2s5
   6:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data     11.2 GB    disk2s6

diskutil apfs list output:

APFS Container (1 found) |
+-- Container disk2 D59C933E-37E8-48FE-B671-AC272A6BBAD2
    ====================================================
    APFS Container Reference:     disk2 (Fusion)
    Size (Capacity Ceiling):      3121506295808 B (3.1 TB)
    Capacity In Use By Volumes:   230344998912 B (230.3 GB) (7.4% used)
    Capacity Not Allocated:       2891161296896 B (2.9 TB) (92.6% free)
    |
    +-< Physical Store disk0s2 42F3F3A1-441C-4137-90B7-DFB9BF0431A0
    |   -----------------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Physical Store Disk:   disk0s2 (Main, "Faster" Disk Use)
    |   Size:                       121123069952 B (121.1 GB)
    |
    +-< Physical Store disk1s2 7ABADF32-6D61-4096-BED9-243DB0DD325E
    |   -----------------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Physical Store Disk:   disk1s2 (Secondary, Designated Aux Use)
    |   Size:                       3000383225856 B (3.0 TB)
    |
    +-> Volume disk2s1 A7012289-272F-4EA0-B168-E10EBB5FB87A
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk2s1 (Data)
    |   Name:                      Macintosh HD - Data - Data (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               /System/Volumes/Data
    |   Capacity Consumed:         195606179840 B (195.6 GB)
    |   FileVault:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk2s2 21FA52C3-C8A1-41C6-AC99-D1E696B3E0B0
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk2s2 (Preboot)
    |   Name:                      Preboot (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               Not Mounted
    |   Capacity Consumed:         50577408 B (50.6 MB)
    |   FileVault:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk2s3 94C2B55E-F32D-4E14-BDBB-DA048A244577
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk2s3 (Recovery)
    |   Name:                      Recovery (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               Not Mounted
    |   Capacity Consumed:         1053560832 B (1.1 GB)
    |   FileVault:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk2s4 9765A942-E05E-4AB3-886E-1BC102CDF58C
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk2s4 (VM)
    |   Name:                      VM (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               /private/var/vm
    |   Capacity Consumed:         2148552704 B (2.1 GB)
    |   FileVault:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk2s5 5A69CC11-7F08-42E0-8FA4-678ABEEC7CCB
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk2s5 (System)
    |   Name:                      Macintosh HD (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               /Volumes/Macintosh HD
    |   Capacity Consumed:         11237687296 B (11.2 GB)
    |   FileVault:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk2s6 3D0DB503-F92A-48CC-8994-E0C52020A4C5
        ---------------------------------------------------
        APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk2s6 (System)
        Name:                      Macintosh HD - Data (Case-insensitive)
        Mount Point:               /
        Capacity Consumed:         11228823552 B (11.2 GB)
        FileVault:                 No

partition map