Could not unmount disk

I am trying to do a clean install from Snow Leopard DVD disk to Macbook Pro. The computer stopped responding and after a restart I got a gray screen with a folder and ?. I have tried 3 different hard drives that have all been used in this MacBook Pro and all installed with Mountain Lion.I have zeroed out one hard drive using Disk Utility and I continue to get failed install. I cannot repair, partition, or erase any drive: Could Not Unmount Disk error on the computer using Disk Utility. I did all repairs using a separate iMac's Disk Utility. The computer is late 2009 Intel MacBook Pro. Please help

pkj0192 wrote:
The computer stopped responding and after a restart I got a gray screen with a folder and ?.
All that says is the firmware can't find the bootable OS it was assigned to. Which you obviously erased.
Hold the option/alt key at boot gives Startup Manager, which you then can select a new/other OS to boot from and set it as the startup disk in System Preferences.
I have tried 3 different hard drives that have all been used in this MacBook Pro and all installed with Mountain Lion. I have zeroed out one hard drive using Disk Utility and I continue to get failed install.
I assume you have used the 10.6 Disk Utiltiy and selected the ENTIRE drive, format Option: MBR and MSDOS, then click Erase and Security Option Zero All Data, and then go back to Partition 1: Option GUID and Format: OS X Extended J?
This rebuilds the GUID and EFI so it's for 10.6 version and removes all partitions on the drive, including the hidden RecoveryHD partition.
I cannot repair, partition, or erase any drive: Could Not Unmount Disk error on the computer using Disk Utility. I did all repairs using a separate iMac's Disk Utility. The computer is late 2009 Intel MacBook Pro.
If you have the drives hooked up to the iMac, Spotlight might be trying to index them thus they can't be unmounted. So have Spotlight ignore everything, turn it off basically.
You can force unmount a drive in Terminal.
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
Are you using the 10.6 white retail disk? Because that's what you need to boot/use on the 2009 MBP, not the iMac's 10.6 disk as those contain machine specific drivers for the iMac only. Don't format the drives on the iMac unless it's also 10.6.
Since your issue appears on three drives, either there is a problem with the machine/cable or perhaps a bad 10.6 disk or wrong methods being used each time.
How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6

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External hard drive reformatting error: 'could not unmount disk'

I've bought a TrekStor DataStation maxi light 2TB external harddrive and I am trying to reformat it so I can use it with my Mac.
Unfortunately when I try to either 'Erase' or create a partition as detailed here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2701878?start=0&tstart=0 I get the 'could not unmount disk' error.
Is anybody able to offer a solution?
Kind regards,
Rhyno

Sounds like something is using (or trying to use) the disk.
Eject it if you can. Then unplug and reconnect, and try again.
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I tried running Disk Utility on the firewire. The first time this is what I got:
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Your firewire disk is damaged. Try that: restart in safe mode (pressing SHIFT after the chime). Wait for complete boot. Plug the external HDD. Try again with Disk Utilities. Wait the report. My advise is to check its integrity. Try repair. If nothing works, try with DiskWarrior (the best utility).
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Please Help, After Kernel panic restart failed- apple swirl(6 hrs), SafeMode-failed, SUMode-sucess. Could not unmount disk to erase. Repair permissions-multiple fail errors:unable to set permissions on... unable to set owner and group...

Please Help, I deleted an account that was the same name as the administrator but was not the administrator. Also a samsung galaxy s phone was charging through the usb port.
I closed out a program and got a message that the temp file could not be stored/saved.
Then a Kernel panic message occurred and restart was necessary.
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Attempted Safe Mode start up, unsuccessful,
Single User Mode-sucess.
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No change in start up attempts
Started with install CD matching current OS 10.6
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One line/error
Warning: SUID file /////Ardagent has been modified and will not be repaired
144 lines/errors of this type of series of lines
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permissions differ on...should be drwxr-xr-x, they are -rw-r--r-- .
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Ran Repair Disk, result:
Error: Could not unmount disk (in red)
Ran Verify Disk, result:
The volume HD appears to be ok (in green)
Next I attempted to erase the dist to start from scratch since I have data backed up on time machine.
Error message box
Volume Erase failed
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I am looking to solve without buying DiskWarrior unless only resort.

So it looks like solved it for now I will update later. What I did was after starting from the install cd for the 10.6 system I ran from terminal ran:
diskutil disablejournaling /dev/disk0s2
diskutil disableownership /dev/disk0s2
diskutil repairPermissions /dev/disk0s2
then i closed terminal and then when to disk utility and chose to repair disk with results all was fine. Then ran repair permissions and got similar results from terminal function next I erased disk and then chose to restore from time machine and it is now restoring! yea!

Error: Could not unmount disk

Hi: I am having a problem with an external HD (WD 750 GB Caviar Black) housed in an OWC enclosure and attached to my PowerPC G5 running OS X 10.4.11. The only use the drive has seen is trying to create a clone of my primary HD onto a partition on the external using a highly respected application dedicated to this purpose. For some reason yet uncovered, every cloning attempt has stalled the application and hung up my system. That aside, what is happening now is that I cannot even leave the ext. HD powered on and attached to my G5 as within minutes of booting up, my system slows down and becomes unresponsive. Detaching the ext. HD frees my system up instantly.
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Here's an update. Received the new enclosure. Before I transferred the drive into it, I unplugged the internal cables from the old enclosure that were connected to the drive and then reattached them. Also, I noticed that one of the cable plugs was not perfectly seated on the circuit board, so I pushed that in a bit. Heard a tiny click.
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I'm thinking maybe it's the drive that's malfunctioning. It is still under warranty. Even though I'm not able to boot from the backup partition Disk Utility created, I'm wondering why it was able to transfer 190GB of data when the other two, well respected cloning applications stalled.

Erase and Reinstall - Could not unmount disk?

Hi there....
I'm running an iBook G4 with Tiger 10.4.11
After a freeze and manual power off, I powered up and got stuck at the grey Apple. Tried to start in safe mode - no luck. Started up off the install disk and ran Disk Utility - tells me Disk Could Not Unmount.
Spoke with Apple rep. - ran fsck in Single User Mode - got "Invalid Node STructure"
I've accepted that my files are lost - I have a good backup so that's that.
STarted up and got to Disk Utility again - want to do an Erase and Reinstall. Go to erase HD and am told "Could Not Unmount Disk"
....do I have any options??

Well, take into account I'm at a distance here & just guessing it's the HD, but yes, if it is that & you get it replaced, you should be able to install OSX just fine... and likely be much faster with a new HD in it.
Here's some hard drives...
http://tinyurl.com/aa4ae4
http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Powerbook-iBook-Macbook-Hard-Drive-Upgrades-Pro-Po werbook--iBook-Hard-Drives-p-1-c-517.html
Ultimately - should I be purchasing a new HD and putting it into this G4 - or look in to buying a new one altogether? ...I'd really rather not right now.
Depends what you do with it & such, but if it meets your needs it may pay to have it fixed, but checkout the prices at the Apple Store on refurb MacBooks & MacBook Pros to better gauge for yourself.

Could not unmount disk (-10000)

Hello all.
Just a quick one...
Just tried to verify/repair my External LACIE using Disk Utility, and found that I get this error...
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Repair attempted on 1 volume
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Volume erase failed could not unmount disk

I have a Mac book Pro running 10.5.8 OSX. I'm trying to use Time Machine (need to replace the hard drive), and I bought a 1TB Toshiba portable hard drive. I read the instructions on the drive, which say that to use Time Machine, I'll need to reformat the drive as an HFS+. I found instructions to do that through Disk Utility --> Erase, with selecting Mac OS Extended from the Volume Format option. However, I keep getting the following message: "Volume erase failed. Could not unmount disk." I'm new to most of this, and have no idea what unmounting the disk is, much less how to resolve this. I found a thread that said to check my computer's name, which I did, but that didn't seem to help.

Likely where that second "Drive" came from, but may be gone now...
In Finder's Menu, select Go menu>Go to Folder, and go to "/volumes". (no quotes)
Volumes is where an alias to your hard drive ("/" at boot) is placed at startup, and where all the "mount points" for auxiliary drives are created for you to access them. This folder is normally hidden from view.
Drives with an extra 1 on the end have a side-effect of mounting a drive with the same name as the system already think exists. Try trashing the duplicates with a 1 or 2 if there are no real files in them, and reboot.
If it does contain data...
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2474

Disk Utility, 'Could not unmount disk'

In what state - if any - does Disk Utility leave a Disk or Volume when I get the 'popup' error, "Could not unmount disk"?
I've had this on a variety of SATA and Firewire 400 disks under Tiger; typically, repeating the process in question (a Repair, Erase or Partition) seems usually to be successful, eg:
Creating Partition Map
Partition failed for disk Maxtor 7L250S0 Could not unmount disk
Partition complete.
(That's from DU's log; to me it's contradictory.)
But it looks as though something is set somewhere as a result of the apparent failure and as though there is a knock-on effect for such cloning s/w as the excellent SuperDuper!
I have ruled out hardware and experienced this 'error' with three different drives from two different manufacturers.
Is some bit or similar set somewhere which marks the drive as unmountable to the OS and third party apps, even though it is always subsequently usable in the Finder?
TIA!
G5 DP 2 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3) clean machine; no haxies, perms repaired; lots of space etc!

Turned out to be a corrupt loginwindow.plist preference. Solved

Partition Failed -- Could not unmount disk

I partitioned my external hard drive into two parts. Now I want to change it back to one partition (500 gb).
I backed up all the data.
When I use disk utility and try to re-partition to create one partition from the two existing partitions, I get the error message:
Partition failed
Could not unmount disk.
What am I doing wrong??
THANKS.

Sean M wrote:
I partitioned my external hard drive into two parts. Now I want to change it back to one partition (500 gb).
I backed up all the data.
When I use disk utility and try to re-partition to create one partition from the two existing partitions, I get the error message:
Partition failed
Could not unmount disk.
What are you booting from Sean ?
You could always startup with the external Off, runn DU then turn external ON.. and try.

Disk Utility: "Repairing disk failed with error Could not unmount disk"

Disk Utility: “Repairing disk failed with error Could not unmount disk”
Hi. I’ve been experiencing some mildly squirrelly behaviour with my system (vide infra) so decided to repair the two internal hard drives on my computer. The primary hard drive is a 74.53 GB ST380013AS that came with the system; its S.M.A.R.T. Status is “verified” and Disk Utility repairs permissions just fine. However, the second internal drive (Maxtor 6L250S0, 233.76 GB, lower Bay, Journaled HFS+), despite being verified by S.M.A.R.T. status and apparently running OK, fails to unmount when I ask Disk Utility to repair it- I get the above error message in red. I have repaired this disk with DiskWarrior (v3.03) and all appears to run AOK. Can anyone tell me why I cannot get Disk Utility to run on this secondary (eg, non-startup) disk? I have tried many times and the error is reproducible. Thank you!
G5 1.6GHz PPC, 1 GB RAM, running OS 10.4.6

Thank you for these useful links!
For others who have this issue, I also found very helpful advice given to this question on the MacFixIt forums by MicroMat Tech3 at
http://www.macfixitforums.com/php/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=tiger&Number=76265 1
He said: "Use the lsof command to find the open files on a volume that does not unmount or eject. Open Terminal, located in /Applications/Utilities. Type: sudo lsof | grep Leave a space after the p in grep, then drag the icon of the problem volume to the Terminal window. The pathname for the volume is pasted in for you; press Return. Then enter your administrative password at the prompt, and press Return."
At this point, one now has a list of the open files/processes on the volume that will not unmount. You can use Activity Monitor to terminate these processes if you wish, and then the volume will unmount as it should.

Verify volume failed with error Could not unmount disk!!

Im having weird things with my fw lacie 200gb. I come across these weird white cubes which pop up in the search mode in finder. So i tried to repair permissions of the Lacie disc and i get this sign
Verify volume failed with error Could not unmount disk
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Hi gizeh12!
Are you able to verify the volume of the disc (not permissions)? It could possibly be some bad/corrupt sectors on the drive. Is it a white box with a dashed line outline? Does the file size show the accurate value in "Get Info" when you click on the file?
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Error during Tiger install, disk utility (DVD) says could not unmount disk

OK, I'll start at the beginning. I was running 10.3.9 on my iMac G4. I hooked up a new firewire external HD. Transferred my iTunes music over, everything worked fine. Ran software update to make some updates (iTunes, Quicktime, Security Update, maybe another one) that I had been putting off because I had been out of space. That's when the problems began. It said I could not install updates, so I restarted. Then it hung up at Login Window starting. I did a few hard shutdowns (holding down power button) to try again, but was unsuccessful.
Read all the forums. Decided that I should have repaired permissions, etc. before installing the updates. So I started in single-user mode, ran FSCK, all that stuff, following the instructions very closely. Still kept hanging up at Login Window. So I started up from the Panther install disk, repaired permissions (made a bunch of repairs) and checked hard drive (said no repairs necessary). Restarted, still hung up at Login Window starting.
So I did an archive and install. There were errors near the end of the Panther install, and it said it could not finish. But the computer started up OK, and I was able to back up all my personal data onto the external HD.
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So now I am stuck. I have a wiped hard drive. Can't repair it, and can't get Tiger to install properly. Help!
(i do have an Apple store in town, but I haven't gone to the Genius Bar. Wasn't sure how that worked.)
iMac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Hmmm. And you're sure that when you select the main
hard drive entry in Disk Utility it shows a SMART
status report that says "Not supported"? That's
really odd because your model isn't too old to have a
drive that doesn't support SMART.
Yep, looking at it right now. I've got the drive that says "38.2 GB ST3408..." selected, and it says "Not Supported."
By any chance would you have another external
Firewire drive on which you could install Tiger? If
you do, then you could try installing Tiger on that
drive. If you can then boot the iMac from the
external drive you could then try cloning the system
from the external drive to the internal drive.
I have the one external HD firewire drive. It has my backed up files on it. Could I still install Tiger on it without erasing those files?
You could do the same thing from another Mac if both
support Firewire. You could boot the iMac into Target Disk Mode while it's connected to
another Mac's Firewire port. You could then clone
from the other Mac to the iMac's hard drive that will
appear on the Desktop of the other Mac.
And I do have another Mac, which I am typing on right now. It's sitting right next to my "sick" iMac. If I recall correctly, it's an iMac DV special edition. It does have a firewire port and I think it has a DVD drive. It's running 9.0 currently.
You can use the Restore option of Disk Utility to do
the cloning. The process is as follows:
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the source or startup volume from the left
side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Drag the source or startup volume to the Source
entry field.
5. Select the destination or backup volume from the
leftside list and drag it to the Destination entry
field.
6. Check the box to Erase Destination. Skip this
step if you've already formatted the drive.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the
Restore button.
So should I use the firewire external HD or the old iMac to do this? (Thanks so, so much for all this help, by the way. I really appreciate it. I love my iMac and want to save it! I have to go cook dinner right now, but I'll come back later to check your answer and try your suggestion.)

Unable to create RAID - "could not unmount disk"

I'm trying to create a concatenated RAID set from two drives. I can select the drives and individually unmount them using Disk Utility, and they disappear from the desktop. But when I try and create a RAID using the two drives, it tells me it can't because it is unable to unmount the disk.
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