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.
- Open Date & Time preferences and deselect “Set date & time automatically” if it’s checked.
- Manually set the clock to a date before September 30, 2007.
- Click Save.
- Open Boot Camp Assistant Beta (in Applications/Utilities).
- Click “Restore the startup disk to a single volume” and click Continue.
- Click Restore.
- Type in your password and click OK.
- Boot Camp Assistant Beta will remove your Windows partition. When finished, click Restart.
- 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.
