Get that Bootcamp partition back

Some of the recent switchers that I know decided that it would be in their best interest to have a windows partition set up on their machines with Bootcamp, just in case they needed to get something done with an application that they could not find a replacement. I cringed, I laughed, I obliged them. Usually out of annoyance I would help them set it up. But, a few special cases aside, most have completely migrated to OS X and never use that partition. Their next complaint is all that wasted space that was setup for the Windows install that they never use anymore, and I get asked frequently to get it back and set them free. Here’s Apple’s official procedure for removing Windows.

  1. Open Date & Time preferences and deselect “Set date & time automatically” if it’s checked.
  2. Manually set the clock to a date before September 30, 2007.
  3. Click Save.
  4. Open Boot Camp Assistant Beta (in Applications/Utilities).
  5. Click “Restore the startup disk to a single volume” and click Continue.
  6. Click Restore.
  7. Type in your password and click OK.
  8. Boot Camp Assistant Beta will remove your Windows partition. When finished, click Restart.
  9. Open Date & Time preferences and check “Set date & time automatically” again if you wish to set the clock automatically via the Internet, or manually correct your date settings.
Joshua is the Content Marketing Manager at BuySellAds. He’s also the founder of Macgasm.net. And since all that doesn’t quite give him enough content to wrangle, he’s also a technology journalist in his spare time, with bylines at PCWorld, Macworld and TechHive.