Installing linux with boot camp

[Insectoid]

Well, I did. I installed Linux over BootCamp on a mac, with devastating results. Simply put, the files are all there, but the computer doesn't recognize that it is installed. To open linux, I have to use the live CD and select 'boot from hard drive' before it will launch. This is quite a pain, and now that I have linux on a VM, I want to get rid of the partition and reclaim the lost space(Boot Camp lets you undo partitions). The problem is, BootCamp doesn't see the partition and so won't undo it. Any mac users out there that can help?

[Tony]

open up Disk Utility from OSX -- you can manage your disk's partitions from there.

[Insectoid]

I looked through there and completely wiped the partitions I don't want, though the linux wap partition could not be mounted. The problem is merging them back with the original partition. I still can't figure that out.

[Tony]

I don't think you can (easily) merge a partition into another, without deleting both, and creating a new one in its place.

If your system is on the original partition, then you might be better off keeping that 2nd partition as a secondary drive.

[Insectoid]

Well, I can't do that if the drives aren't recognized, can I? Anywho, BootCamp is supposed to be able to merge partitions back together. I might try the complicated, risky way, but then I'll have to get an external hard drive to back up to...

[S_Grimm]

Sounds like the good way. Backing everything up is always a good idea before installing any hard drive altering stuff (ie. Linux OS)

[Insectoid]

Alright, It seems that the the big drive has been recovered (38.6 GB, now you can see why I wanted the space back), but the linux swap partition (1.4 GB) is still unmountable. So I have 2 drives now...interesting....

[S_Grimm]

you need to format the linux swap partition as something else. If you are using an ubuntu live boot cd, i believe it allows you to edit the linux swap partitons. just delete the large partition and the small partition then format the whole thing as something that mac reconizes such as fat32.

[Insectoid]

How would I do that?

[andrew.]

You could use the Linux LiveCD to edit the partitions (I think it's System>Administration?>Partition Editor) but I found that the Ubuntu Partition Editor is not very reliable so I use a LiveCD called GParted. It's also free and open-source. LINK

Try that and see how it goes! Good luck!