Removing Core Storage Volumes on Macintosh hardware with Fusion Drives

Apple introduced the concept of CoreStorage volumes in OS X 10.7 (Lion), and currently most hardware shipped by Apple will ship configured with a Core Storage volume enabled.

Deep Freeze Mac currently does not support CoreStorage nor Fusion Drive. If you are attempting to install Deep Freeze and get the following error: "This version of Deep Freeze cannot be installed on a Mac with FileVault turned on.", or Error 0xE00002c2 when attempting to use the product your system is configured with a Core Storage device.

To verify that the system in question is configured with a Core Storage Volume and that a Fusion Drive is present, open Terminal and type "diskutil cs list" (without the quotes). The output will tell you if CoreStorage present or not. A sample of the output is below;

    CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
    |
    +-- Logical Volume Group xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx
        =====================================================
        Name:         Macintosh HD
        Size:         1120333979648 B (1.1 TB)
        Free Space:   0 B (0 B)
        |
        +-< Physical Volume xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx
        |   ----------------------------------------------------
        |   Index:    0
        |   Disk:     disk0s2
        |   Status:   Online
        |   Size:     120988852224 B (121.0 GB)
        |
        +-< Physical Volume xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx
        |   ----------------------------------------------------
        |   Index:    1
        |   Disk:     disk1s2
        |   Status:   Online
        |   Size:     999345127424 B (999.3 GB)
        |
        +-> Logical Volume Family xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx
            ------------------------------------------------------
            Encryption Status:       Unlocked
            Encryption Type:         None
            Conversion Status:       NoConversion
            Conversion Direction:    -none-
            Has Encrypted Extents:   No
            Fully Secure:            No
            Passphrase Required:     No
            |
            +-> Logical Volume xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx
                -----------------------------------------------
                Disk:               disk2
                Status:             Online
                Size (Total):       1115853029376 B (1.1 TB)
                Size (Converted):   -none-
                Revertible:         No
                LV Name:            Macintosh HD
                Volume Name:        Macintosh HD
                Content Hint:       Apple_HFS

Machines configured with a Fusion drive will show two logical volumes as opposed to one listed like the bold text in the example above. In the event that a single volume is shown you may be able to revert the Core Storage volume back to a traditional volume using the information linked below;

Problems installing Deep Freeze Mac on Core Storage Volumes

In the event that two volumes are listed you will need to break the Core Storage volume and reinstall the operating system on a single volume using the instructions below.

Please note: The steps listed below will cause data loss. Do not attempt these unless you have a working backup of any information stored on the computer in question.

Resolution (to remove CoreStorage volume and reinstall OS):

1. Start the Mac and hold down Option key to select the startup disk, and Choose the Recovery HD. Alternatively you can hold down Command and R keys to start from the Recovery partition. For more info, refer to Apple’s support document: OS X Recovery.
2. From the Utilities menu, select Terminal
3. On the prompt, type "diskutil cs list" and copy the UUID of the Logical Volume Group (see the highlighted section in the image)
4. Type "diskutil cs delete <UUID>" to remove the CoreStorage volume. Note: the OS will be deleted after this step and you will need to reinstall it later
5. Once the operation has completed, quit Terminal and from the OS X Utilities window, select Disk Utility to reformat the hard drive.
6. After formatting, run Terminal again and execute the command newfs_hfs to construct the HFS file system. The goal here is to create HFS volume with allocation block size set to 4096 bytes, so use the following parameters: "newfs_hfs -b 4096 -J [-v volume_name]", where -J tells to create a journaled HFS+ volume, and -v is optional if you want to specify a volume name (default is Untitled).
7. quit Terminal and from the OS X Utilities window, select Reinstall OS 
8. Follow the instruction provided by Apple to reinstall the OS: OS X Mountain Lion: Reinstall OS 

If you have more than one Mac to process, you will need to perform steps 1 - 4 on each of the Mac. You can then create a disk image of the freshly installed OS (using Steps 1 to 6), and use your favourite deployment method/software to install the OS on all your Macs.