Array created using Disk Utility keeps disappearing.

I've got a 4-bay Drobo unit that I use for my iTunes and iPhoto libraries. I recently ordered a handful of new 2TB drives to max out the capacity on it.
In order to keep all of my data intact, I installed a couple of drives in a spare 4-bay disk enclosure and used Super Duper to duplicate the Drobo files onto half of the new hard drives. I then pulled two drives out of the Drobo (a 1TB and a 1.5TB) and used Disk Utility to create a concatenated disk set in the spare 4-bay enclosure.
Next step was to use Super Duper to duplicate the libraries from the two new drives (still in the spare 4-bay enclosure) to the new concatenated disk set (also in the 4-bay enclosure).
When that was finished, I pulled the two new 2TB drives out of the 4-bay enclosure and put them into Drobo with the other new drives, fired it up, formatted, and told Super Duper to duplicate the libraries from the concatenated disk set (in the spare 4-bay enclosure) to the newly supersized Drobo.
Maddeningly, the concatenated disk set keeps "unmounting" and disappearing from the Finder - usually right in the middle of a copy operation. I get a handfull of folders and their files, and then "Poof!" it disappears. Restarting the Mac has no effect; I have to unplug and repower the hard drives.
I've got about 1,300GB left to copy over; I can't sit there for thirty straight hours and babysit this setup. Anybody have any idea why this keeps happening?

You don't have a problem and repairing disk permissions does not need to be performed daily or on a regular basis - only after installing software (especially after installing 3rd party software that uses an installer) and as a system troubleshooting procedure only.
Check Maintaining Mac OS X for recommended maintenance for OS X (which isn't much) focusing on the Maintenance Myths section.

Similar Messages

HT3275 I continue to get the following error message: Unable to complete back up.an error occurred while creating backup folder. It's a brand new drive. When I attempt to repair it using disk utility I get:unable to repair disk cannot unmounted

I have been trying to use time machine on a new lacie 2tb usb 2 drive for back up. I continue to get: "unable to complete backup.An error occured while creating backup folder". When I use disk utility to repair I get another error message: unable to repair disk unmountable.
Help me Obie One Canobie you are my last hope

I have confused myself with the facts! Started out keeping track of every step and every variable but have sort of lost it as we progress here. First I quit all applications then swapped connections between mouse port and backup disk port to influence possible bad connections question. Changed power outlet receptacle for the backup disk. Disabled the put-the-HD-to-sleep option. Then powered down the computerator.
Next started up computerator. Turned Time Machine ON and experienced multiple successful backups! Then I started up a few applications, Mail and Text Edit (but not Safari so far). Had a few more successes. After each backup, I used Disk Utility to verify the backup disk is still OK. This because the error about unable to unmount the backup disk seems to go hand in hand with Disk Utility finding the backup disk to be bad.
Put computer to sleep for the night. Upon starting up in the morning, and before doing anything else, I did a backup disk verification... BAD! Did a restart and verified the backup disk... OK.
Did a few Sleep-bad, Restart -OK repetitions.
It seems consistent: Sleeping the computer apparently messes up the backup disk but doing a Restart "repairs" it.
=============================
Now then, I don't understand everything I know here. Methinks that maybe keeping the HD from sleeping during lulls in activity has allowed successful backups through the day but manually putting everything to sleep for the night causes a return to the problem of spinning-back-up-too-slowly (which was explained earlier). Is there any truth in this?
I may abandon this Seagate thing for something more compatible. What's out there that we know works reliably for us?

I can't burn a dvd using any method, Idvd tells me that my super drive is missing, dvd studio pro quits when i click burn and disk utility keeps spitting the disk out when i click burn and enter the disk??? how do i repair my superdrive for imac

I can't burn a dvd using any method, idvd tells me that my super drive is missing, dvd studio pro quits when i click burn and disk utility keeps spitting the disk out when I click burn and enter the disk??? how do i repair my superdrive for imac, or how do I do whatever I need to do to get it working: I have already tried using a lens cleaning cd and also restored my nvram or something i forget what it was called but i restarted my computer holding down command+optoion+p+r and still nothing???
Free solutions are the best, although if I have to pay I will, I would prefer to not have to buy an external burner if possible and already know that is an option so please don't give me that answer... thank you for any help you can give

Unless your iMac is still covered by AppleCare, get an external DVD burner.
You can get perfectly good ones from Amazon for less than $40.

HT1176 My airport TM will not backup and i keep getting the error msg "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup...An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk."

My Airport TM will not backup and i keep getting the error msg "Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup...An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk."

My Airport TM will not backup and i keep getting the error msg "Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup...An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk."

Can't create disk image using disk utility

Recently,i have been trying to backup my DVDs and CDs(mainly movies) using disk utility.To my disappointment, i wasn't able to create a disk image despite several attempts using dual-layer DVDs,normal CDs,single-layer DVDs.
It is so frustrating.....i can't figure out what went wrong.
Can anyone help me in this?
Macbook Pro 15.4' Mac OS X (10.4.8) Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz

BadPenn,
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
By any chance, do you use Norton AntiVirus? If yes, turn off Auto-Protect.
Hope this helps.

Using disk utility to create a disk image then burn to an external drive

I have an iMac which does not have the ability to burn my iDVD projects to a DVD. Can I save my iDVD proj. to a disc image? Then write that image to an external DVD writer via Disk Utility?

This is from _Disk Utilty Help_. Erasing a disk is the same as formatting it. These directions are for Tiger; check this topic in Leopard to see if there is any difference in the directions.
+_Erasing a disk or volume_+
+You use Disk Utility to erase disks and volumes.+
+Erasing a disk deletes all the volumes and files on the disk. Erasing a volume deletes all the files on that volume, but does not affect other volumes. Erasing a recordable disc, such as a CD-RW or DVD-RW disc, creates a blank disc with no formatting.+
+IMPORTANT: If you have any files you want to save, be sure to copy them to another disk before you erase the disk they are on.+
+Usually when you erase a disk or volume, Disk Utility erases only the information used to access the files on the disk, not the actual files. Because of this, the erased files can be recovered. If you want to erase a disk so that the files cannot be recovered, you can select security options to write zeros over the disk space.+
+If you want to erase an external disk, connect the disk to your computer.+
+In Disk Utility, select the disk or volume in the list on the left.+
+Click Erase.+
+Choose a format from the Volume Format pop-up menu. Usually you will choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled).+
+Type a name for the disk or volume.+
+If you're erasing a disk and plan to use the disk with Mac OS 9, select the checkbox to install the Mac OS 9 drivers.+
+You do not need to install the Mac OS 9 drivers to use the disk with the Classic environment.+
+If you want to erase the entire contents of the disk by writing zeros, click Security Options, then select the option you want and click OK.+
+Click Erase.+
+To erase your computer's startup disk, you must start up from another disk. You can use your Install Mac OS X disc.+
What does "journaled" mean?
Check this out for the answer. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/8835.html

I got 3.95GB available on my flash drive and need 4GB to reinstall lion osx how can i create space on usb using Disk Utility ??!

I got 3.95GB available on my flash drive and need 4GB to reinstall lion osx how can i create space on usb using Disk Utility ??!

What is the capacity of the flash drive?
You might also be able to reinstall Lion without a flash drive, by booting up the computer holding the Command + R keys, and choosing Reinstall OS X.

How to properly create disk iimages using Disk Utility?

Can some one help explain how to properly use Disk Utility? When making an image of a CD, should I click on the CD drive and click on NEW IMAGE, or should I click on the mount name, which is indicate just beneath the CD drive?
Thanks!

"read only" means just that that the disk image is read only and you can't add files to it once the disk image is mounted. but as I said, if you want to make a backup of the original CD then you have to choose "CD/DVD master". then, when you burn the disk image to a blank CD it will be formatted properly.

How do I make a data disk using Disk Utility (Panther 10.3.9)

I am trying to back up some of my data to disks, so I can upgrade my OS to Leopard. I have done this in the past but either forgot how or it isn't working right (some things are not working right on my computer at present..?? my Final Cut Pro won't open, that's why I decided to upgrade) Could you please tell me how it is supposed to work. I think I have made a disk image okay but when I highlight it in disk utility and hit burn it says invalid argument?? If I install Leopard will I loose all my files?

Not necessarily, but you should never do a major upgrade without having a bootable backup of your system. In fact you should never be without backups:
Basic Backup
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. PsynchX 2.1.1 and RsyncX 2.1 (Freeware)
6. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware - 3.0 is a Universal Binary)
7. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
8. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
9. Data Backup (Commercial)
The following utilities can also be used for backup, but cannot create bootable clones:
1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
2. Toast
3. Impression
4. arRSync
Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of also backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility as are the other two.
Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Although you can buy a complete FireWire drive system, you can also put one together if you are so inclined. It's relatively easy and only requires a Phillips head screwdriver (typically.) You can purchase hard drives separately. This gives you an opportunity to shop for the best prices on a hard drive of your choice. Reliable brands include Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. You can find reviews and benchmarks on many drives at Storage Review.
Enclosures for FireWire and USB are readily available. You can find only FireWire enclosures, only USB enclosures, and enclosures that feature multiple ports. I would stress getting enclosures that use the Oxford chipsets (911, 921, 922, for example.) You can find enclosures at places such as;
Cool Drives
OWC
WiebeTech
Firewire Direct
California Drives
NewEgg
All you need do is remove a case cover, mount the hard drive in the enclosure and connect the cables, then re-attach the case cover. Usually the only tool required is a small or medium Phillips screwdriver.
Upgrading does not have to be difficult unless you choose to make it so. You have three installation options. I would recommend an Archive and Install option when feasible:
How to Perform an Archive and Install
1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.5.2 for Tiger) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

Upgrading HD and cloning using Disk Utility

I'm going to upgrade my MacBook Aluminum Unibody with a larger and faster hard drive (500 Go Seagate Momentus 7200.4 SATA 2,5" 7200T 16 Mo).
As you'd probably expect, I will need to clone my current system to the new HD.
To achieve my needs, my strategy is the following:
1) booting up using Snow Leopard install DVD
2) connecting my new drive through a USB enclosure
3) using Disk Utility's "Restore" feature with Macintosh HD as source, and the new drive as destination
4) switching the drives
I came across tons of people in the same scenario as mine during my research for the best solution, but it always ended up with Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper. Almost nothing about Disk Utility.
If they seem to work fine for most of us, I find Disk Utility more trustful (1), and I prefer block-to-block to file-to-file copy (2), as the last method will necessarily skip some "uncopyable" files.
I have none of the above software, and according to its documentation, I believed to understand that CCC can't achieve a block-to-block copy running on the source system (which does make sense).
So, considering I only need to clone & switch (no backup purpose or whatever) my hard drives, why would I use CCC/Super Duper over Disk Utility?
Yeah, a file-to-file copy will kind of defragment my system, but is there something wrong with my method? I really don't understand why DU is so underrated.
Any feedback much appreciated!
Thanks,
Mickael

Mickael
I see nothing wrong with using disk utility to do what you want. If I'm correct, you can only create a disk image with disk utility, so it will not be bootable. It will accomplish the same goal as other software to restore as you described. The advantage to cloning you drive with the other applications is that you will be able to boot from the external drive if problems arise. Both applications are free to download.
I used super duper to clone to an external drive as a backup and keep it updated. I always have it to boot from if my main drive fails. The process is up to you.
Note: I though you needed a disk image to restore from, but I was wrong. You can do a restore from the drive itself.
As i said, I see no problem. It's your choice.
Message was edited by: Glenn Leblanc
Message was edited by: Glenn Leblanc

Mounting .dmg updates using Disk Utility?

Hello Apple Forum,
I've got a problem you might be able to solve.
Adobe Illustrator CS is crashing. I have posted the prob here and at the Adobe forum. The Adobe forum has advised me to install the 11.0.2. Illustrator update.
Can you tell me how to mount the .dmg file after downloading with Disk Utility? It's not just double click is it?

I concur with Alex that something is amiss with your system. Normally, double-clicking on a .dmg file will invoke DiskImageMounter which decompresses the .dmg image and puts a virtual drive on the Desktop, from which you can copy files or run an installer (this is what 'mounting' the .dmg disk image means). If you open a .dmg using Disk Utility, either via the 'Open Disk Image' command from Disk Utility's File menu of by control-clicking the .dmg file and selection Open With... to call up Disk Utility, you see a message window about "attaching disk image" while Disk Utility is mounting the mage.
That you're mounting a .dmg image, briefly seeing the mounted image on the Desktop, only to have the mounted image disappear, suggests you either have the Finder Preferences of the System Preferences> CDs&DVDs set to ignore the mounted hard drive images, or the sysytem prefernces are corrupted and think that's what they should be doing. Alex's suggestion on running Disk Utility> Repair Disk and Repair Permissions is the first step in troubleshooting the issue.
You can also check preferences by logging in to a different user account (if necessary, create a new, troubleshooting only account to work with a fresh set of default permissions and preferences) and seeing if that different account shows the same behavior; you can download and run Preferential Treatment; or launch Applications> Utilities> Terminal, then copy and paste the following exactly into Terminal and press return:
find ~/Library -name '*.plist' -exec /usr/bin/plutil -lint {} \;
The refernce to using ther Finder's Go menu was to look for the mounted disk image in the leftmost pane of the Finder window that opens; e.g., if I doble-click "gc593x.dmg", after a few seconds I'll see a hard drive icon "GraphicConverter" in the Finder window and also on the Desktop. If I click on the GraphicConverter hard drive icon in the Finder window, I see that mounted drive's contents. What happens when you click on the mounted drive's icon on your Mac?

"Resource Busy" error during image creation,using disk utility when booting up from installation DVD

Hi all, first post to this community, wish all well
I have a MBP which is more than three years old, installed with OSX Leopard 10.6. Recently the MBP failed to to start and I tried to follow some articles online, including some from this community, to repair my disk, and more importantly, to backup data on the startup disk. But it does not work quite well so I try to seek some help here.
What I have done is to bootup with the installation DVD, try to verify and repair the disk using disk utility, which tells me it can't repair and recommend to backup, erase and reinstall. Am fine with this recommendation but now the problem is on the backup part. There are two partitons on this 500GB hitachi SATA disk. One is 300G which is for OSX itself, and the other 200G was partitioned for Time Machine. The repair failure is on the OSX partition which contains most of the recent data that I want to backup/restore. And unfortunately the Time Machine backup was stopped about two month ago, for some stupid decision I have made , while I am hoping to recover some data for the past month.
Currently the SMART status of the whole disk is verified, the OSX partition is unmounted with no details in the Available, Used, Number of Files, etc. From what I have researched (correct me if I am wrong), I highlight the OSX partition from the list on the left, click 'New Image' button on top, and select the destination to try to create an image of the current partition. But regardless of my desintation (Time Machine partition, or external USB drive), the imaging process always failed with Resource Busy error. Some online search suggest that the partition must be in unmount status but seems it does not apply to this case.
Would be really appreciated if anyone can give me some advice on what's the 'resource busy' error mean, how to backup the OSX partition, or what are the other possible alternatives.

Very poor idea to keep the Time Machine backup file on the internal hard drive. They should always be put on an external drive. As when the internal fails you lose everything. Which is what I suspect has happened.
More then likely your internal drive is failing. the only options to get a new internal drive and a SATA to USB adapter. Install the new drive inside the system abd install OS X on it. Then once that is finished and you are booting from it connect the old drive to the system with the SATA to USB adapter and copy your files off the old drive. That is if you can.

The difference between a .dmg file & a .cdr file (using Disk Utility) ?

Hi,
In particular, I created both from a DVD using Disk Utility.
When I chose "read only" a .dmg was created.
When I chose "DVD/CD Master" a .cdr was created.
They are exactly the same size.
Is there any difference ?
Thanks in advance.
Pat De Marco

HI Pat,
From Wikipedia: A file with the extension .dmg (an abbreviation for disk image) uses a disk image format commonly found on Mac OS X. The format allows secure password protection as well as file compression and hence serves both security and file distribution functions. Its most common function is the distribution of software over the Internet. When opened, DMG files are "mounted" as a drive within the Finder.
From: Wikipedia .cdr and ISO
ISO image
Filename extension .iso
Uniform Type Identifier public.iso-image
Type of format Disk image
Standard(s) ISO 9660
An ISO image is an archive file (a.k.a. disk image) of an optical disc using a conventional ISO (International Organization for Standardization) format that is supported by many software vendors. ISO image files typically have a file extension of .ISO but Mac OS X ISO images often have the extension .CDR. The name "ISO" is taken from the ISO 9660 file system used with CD-ROM media, but an ISO image can also contain UDF file system because UDF is backward-compatible to ISO 9660.
Carolyn
Message was edited by: Carolyn Samit

Copy of a CD (created by Disk Utility) not recognized by Windows or Linux

I created a copy of AutoCAD 2005 (not pirating it... just wanted a backup copy of the install CD).
I used Disk Utility (File > New > Disk Image From Folder) to successfully create a DMG file on my MacBook. I could mount the DMG and browse all the files on it.
I then burned a CD (Disk Utility > select DMG > click burn), which mounts fine on OSX. However, my Windows and Linux boxes will not recognize it (while they recognize the original CD just fine).
I tried again, this time setting the file format to DVD/CD master. It made a CDR file, which I burned to CD. Got the same result: Windows and Linux don't recognize it while OSX does.
So instead I burned the files to a CD ala drag and drop using Finder. This time the CD was recognized by Windows and I used it to install AutoCAD.
However, my understanding is that doing it this way won't work for a bootable CD, so I'd like to figure out why Disk Utility wasn't able to make an exact copy.
Any thoughts? Problem with copy protection? Problem with the CD's file system?
Details about the optical drive in my MacBook (1st gen 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM):
MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857:
Firmware Revision: HBE4
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media: No
MacBook 1st gen CoreDuo 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Yeah OS X's Disk Utility doesn't burn using the ISO 9660 file system while Finder does (I could swear I made a copy of an MS Office CD with Disk Utility, but maybe I'm remembering wrong). Anyway, Disco (a program I got in a MacHeist bundle) will make an exact copy of CDs. Anyone looking for a free solution, check out LiquidCD and burn, which may have the ability to copy Windows CDs (appears to be on their lists of features, but I haven't tried them myself).

Getting medium write error on burning a disc image using Disk utility

Have a MacBrook Pro 15 inch, circa Summer 2007, using OX 10.4.11. up until recently (as in before February) have been able to burn DVD's using Toast (message Medium Writer Error). Started getting problems where the burn failed. Thought maybe it was Toast, so I tried creating an iDVD project and tried to burn the DVD using that, and it stopped in the middle as well and then spit the disk out with no error message.
, this time I tried creating a disc image, and used disk utility to burn. The process looked like it was going to work but then failed with a message that I have a medium write error.
I have no problems burning a regular data disk on my superdrive so I am thinking it's maybe a software glitch rather than hardware. . Any thoughts, as to what could be causing this problem all of a sudden. By the way, there are other users out there, who seems to be having DVD burning problems all of a sudden, but most people suggest other media. I am using the same stack of DVD-R's from before when I had no problem.

Well, I had assumed my media was ok, since I had a spindle of DVD-R's and had used many of them successfully (until now!, ha ha).
I went out this afternoon and bought another brand (Memorex) and it successfully recorded.
So hopefully this solves my problem, I had no idea it was the media since I had used several of them before.
Thanks for your help.

Array created using Disk Utility keeps disappearing.

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for