Disk Utility: Create image fails with input/output error

Starting to create an image and saving it into an external hard drive (MacOS extended Journaled).
It starts after less than 60 secs it comes out with an error : Failed to create the image (input/output error)

If you don't mind I'd like to discourage you from backing up a drive onto a disc image file no matter where you plan to save it. Disc image files can be very problematical when it comes to trying to restore the backup. Furthermore, you cannot boot from a disc image. If the disc image file becomes corrupted then you have no backup.
I would like to propose that you think about a better way to backup your drive. You can clone the drive to your backup drive. It's easy to do using Disk Utility's Restore feature. A clone backup is not only bootable but you have direct access to all the files on the backup.
In order to make a bootable clone open Disk Utility. Select Disk Utility Help from the Help menu. Search for +duplicating a disk+. Click on "Duplicating a disk" at the top of the list of articles. Follow the directions.

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I had a problem with the hard disk on a 2010 macbook pro. Replaced the hard disk with an Hitachi 1TB and when I tried to erase and format It fails with input/output error. Any help much appreciated!

I had a problem with the hard disk on a 13" 2010 macbook pro. Replaced the hard disk with an Hitachi 1TB disk but when I tried to erase and format, it fails with input/output error and at other times saying unable to allocate memory. Any help much appreciated!

Zap the PRAM and Reset the SMC, then try again.

Disk Utility - Create Image Fails

Hello all -
I'm trying to make an image of one of my hard drives as a back up. I've followed the instructions in Disk Utility help, but when I click "Save" to try to create the image I get a failure message "Unable to create <Disk Name>. (Resource Busy)".
I've tried saving to the destination with a new folder, that did not solve the problem. No other applications are running and both the source and destination disks are mounted and appearing on my desktop. The source is a USB connected drive, destination is a firewire drive, and I can read and write to both the source and destination disks.
Anyone have any idea what this failure message means and how to correct the problem? Thanks - Randy

If you don't mind I'd like to discourage you from backing up a drive onto a disc image file no matter where you plan to save it. Disc image files can be very problematical when it comes to trying to restore the backup. Furthermore, you cannot boot from a disc image. If the disc image file becomes corrupted then you have no backup.
I would like to propose that you think about a better way to backup your drive. You can clone the drive to your backup drive. It's easy to do using Disk Utility's Restore feature. A clone backup is not only bootable but you have direct access to all the files on the backup.
In order to make a bootable clone open Disk Utility. Select Disk Utility Help from the Help menu. Search for +duplicating a disk+. Click on "Duplicating a disk" at the top of the list of articles. Follow the directions.

Unable to create "filename.cdr". (Input/output error)

I am trying to create an ISO from a CD. I've tried using Disk Utility, with all different settings, and Terminal. Additionally, I attempted to make the ISO using an array of third party CD-rippers on a PC. Every platform and method has yielded this error message:
Unable to create "filename.cdr". (Input/output error) after several seconds of processing.
I am stuck. The only thing I can think of is that the CD is read-only, though I don't know how to modify my approach in response to this. Can it still be done with a read-only disk? If so, any help in this would be appreciated.
Beyond that, the disk's format is ISO 9660 (Rockridge). I don't know of any other details to provide, but gladly will if anyone can come up with any.

Use Toast:
http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/toast/titanium/overview.html
or this (dd and/or compile cdrtools):
http://www.slashdotdash.net/2006/08/14/create-iso-cd-dvd-image-with-mac-os-x-tig er-10-4/
http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/cdrecord.html
(easiest to compile using mac ports)

Partition of hard drive fails permanently, "Input/output error" on format

Hello!
I have a serious problem on my flat-panel G4 15" 700 MHz (it’s a used machine, bought it on eBay): After the pre-installed system was running nicely for about a month, today I turned it on and got the infamous "broken folder"/prohibitory sign... Alright, I thought, I may have to repair permissions or fix my OS X installation using the system CDs (10.3). But I was wrong, it is impossible to repair the permissions, I couldn't even format the hard drive! Then I get the error "Input/output error", consecutively. I reset everything, PRAM, PMU, formatted the drives in Target Mode, tried to install Mac OS X on an external drive (Can’t be installed on my Firewire-connected drive). No chance.
Is there a possibility this may be due to a hard drive controller error (ATA)? I can’t think of anything else... Any help would be appreciated!

That was my second guess, however, I swapped the hard drives (with an almost identical model) et voilà - same error as before. Now I examined the internals of the machine and found a single wire of the IDE cable seems to be broken, I’ll exchange the cable and let you know if that solves the problem.

Disk Utility: Create Image from Volume Without Unused Space

I'm trying to create a disk image from a mounted volume (flash memory in a video camera) but I don't want to write to it later, it's just for archiving. The problem is that the size of the original volume is 16 GB, so every image I create is huge, even if there is less than a 1 GB used.
For example, I only have two short clips on there, about 1.1 GB used. When I create a new .dmg from the volume, the file is 5.28 GB and when I mount it it tells me the size of the volume is 15.3 GB. Clearly I understand why this is happening, it's creating a bit for bit copy of the original volume, but I don't need all that space since I'm never going to write to it.
In disk utility it won't let me resize the image (it's grayed out). What do I do?

I actually don't understand why this is happening (when I do this the created disk image only uses the space it needs) but you can get around it as follows. First create a blank read/write disk image to the size you want and then restore the memory card to that image.

Help with Input Output error

I am learning java and when I got to input output (the sample program is a BMI calculator) in my book i had to stop because i got a weird error.
Error:
BMICalculator.java:17 cannot find symbol
symbol : method create(java.io.InputStream)
location : class java.util.Scanner
Scanner stdin = Scanner.create(System.in);
^
And the line it has a problem with:
Scanner stdin = Scanner.create(System.in);
I would appreciate any help.

impot java.util.*;
public class BMICalculator {
public static void main(String[]args) {
final double KILOGRAMS_PER_POUND = 0.454;
final double METERS_PER_FOOT = 0.3046;
System.out.println("BMI Calculator\n");
//Line it has a problem with
Scanner stdin = Scanner.create(System.in);
System.out.print("Enterweight (lbs): ");
double weight = stdin.nextDouble();
System.out.print("Enter height (feet); );
double height = stdin.nextDouble();
double metricWeight= weight * KILOGRAMS_PER_POUND;
double metricHeight = height * METERS_PER_FOOT;
double bmi = metricWeight / (metricHeight * metricHeight);
System.out.println("A person with");
System.out.println(" weight " + witght + " (lbs) ");
System.out.println(" height " + height + " (feet) ");
System.out.println("has a BMI of " + Math.round(bmi));
}

Disk Utility create image error - "Invalid Argument" - on USB drive.

I wanted to use a USB 2.0 drive that I share with a Windows machine to backup my son's iBook. I divided the drive into two partitions and formatted the iBook backup partition as FAT32. I attempted to create a read-only disk image on the USB drive in order to backup the iBook, but it does not complete successfully - it terminates with an "Invalid Argument" error. I also tried creating a read/write disk image and that terminates with an error "File or Folder not found." Anyone have any tips or clues as to what may be the problem?
iBook Mac OS X (10.4.3)

I figured out my problem to some extent. I was not creating an empty image, but was trying to create a disk image without selecting a folder. Once I selected create an empty image from the File menu I did not get the error and was able to create an empty image on the USB drive.

Migration Asssitant w/Disk Image - Fails with a network error?

I'm currently trying to restore an iMac G4 with a disk image that was made before its hard drive was replaced. I've mounted the drive and it successfully copies over the user folders, but when it comes to copying the Library and Applications folders it fails after a long pause with the error indicating "There might be a problem with your network". As a disk image mounted on the desktop, I don't see this being a terribly helpful error, so I checked the console, but I don't see any errors being thrown there. Is there something that I can adjust so that it doesn't "lose contact" with the disk image?

Sorry, I guess I made some poor word choices there. I'm not technically restoring the iMac from an image in the ASR sense. The iMac is already set up with a brand new hard drive and OS install (the old drive was failing and was recovered using Disk Warrior and then imaged before it totally failed). All I'm trying to accomplish now is migrate the user data, apps, and library stuff over to the new drive from the image of the old drive.
The image now lives on the desktop of the new drive. There's no MBP involved (that's my computer and doesn't factor in to this issue). There's no network involved either (hence my confusion with the error message). This is all taking place on just the iMac, nothing more.
So I mount the image on the desktop. I fire up Migration Assistant, do the admin login, select "From a Time Machine backup or other disk", select the volume mounted from the image, in this case I turn off migration of the user folders as that has already completed successfully, Then turn on all the rest (Apps, Files & Folders, Library, Network Settings, etc.) Once it hit transfer it will sit and wait for a long period of time, then produces the error "There might be a problem with your network", but as there is no network involved here, that error only suggests to me that it's having trouble reading from the image.
However, referring to the console, there are apparently no errors reading the image (I've verified the image twice and even rebuilt it as a writable image in case it wanted to write the migration cash to the source volume), in fact I can see it cataloging all of the files that it wants to transfer. If I try to manually drag and drop any of the stuff in the Applications folder on the image of the old drive, it copies without a hitch.
For some reason, it just appears to lose the ablility to communicate with the image even though there are no apparent problems with it.
Any suggestions?

Input/output error when copying a DVD

I created A DVD some time ago using Roxio. It plays in DVD Player on my Mac Pro, but I can't create a .dmg using Disk Utility. I always get "Input/Output error". I got the same result on my wife's newer Apple. I tried to Restore it but can't, and Verification shows no problems that I can see. I am able to copy DVDs created on Final Cut Express just fine. Any suggestions to help me create copies of an old DVD I love?

I just figured out how to get around the problem. Download Burn and use it to burn the VIDEO_TS file to a new disk. It must be something that Apple adds to make it hard to copy DVDs made from non-Apple software.

I'm trying to backup a my harddrive with disk utility but I'm getting an error Unable to create Backup.dmg" (input/output error). Is there any other way to save my data? I believe my hard drive is failing or corrupt file. I can't boot up. Grey screen

I'm trying to backup a my hard drive with disk utility but I'm getting an error Unable to create Backup.dmg" (input/output error). Is there any other way to save my data? I believe my hard drive is failing or corrupt file. I can't boot up. Grey screen and spinning wheel. I've tried everything https://discussions.apple.com/message/20580424#20580424
any help will be greatly appreciated.

Check here. Also have you done a TimeMachine back up?
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570

Disk Utility - Input/Output error when creating disk image

Hello!
A few days ago I was unable to turn on my Macbook Pro, and was stuck on the white screen. I've been searching around quite a lot on this forum, and before I try fixing anything, I REALLY need to back-up my files! I just bought a 2TB hard-drive, which I have partitioned to GUID and Mac OS Extended (Journaled), (it perfectly works on another Mac).
I now want to attempt to create an image of my harddrive (Macintosh HD) onto my external drive (which is empty). I've tried doing this both in 'read-only' and in 'compressed', but about halfway through, I receive a message saying "Unable to create 04/2014 backup.dmg (Input/Output) error".
I saw on another similar post that I might want to install DiskDrill or DataRescue. I'm fairly sure this is impossible for me to do, since my screen is completely white, and I'm unable to access my desktop.
I can only access Disk Utility through pressing command+R when starting my computer. Hence, I need to successfully back up my files through Disk Utility...
I'm aware that my HD may be corrupted since this is happening, but there must be a way for me to put an image on my external HD?? A few days ago, when I clicked on Repair Disk it said "Impossible to repair: invalid node structure". But now, it says that "Macintosh HD appears to be OK". I have no idea what's changed... And I can still not start my computer past the white screen...
I'm very bad with IT and computers, and have extensively tried to fix this on my own, but I'm now stuck here, with this "input/output error"...!
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!
PS: I do not have Applecare, this is an old computer from 2009.

Thanks for your answer.
Yes, I thought that might be the case - but I'd taken my Mac and Logic disks to a Genius bar, and the 'Genius' had said he'd fixed the issue. I just wish he'd explained what he did and why he didn't replace the faulty disk(s)!
But is there any way around having the claim a disk, now I'm living abroad and my 'warrantee' has run out? It's going to be a pain in the fundament trying to claim a replacement set.

Input/Output Error in Disk Utility w/ Failing HD

Hey Apple Community,
I know others probably have asked this question, but I didn't want to spend an hour looking for the correct solution (if one even exists)...thanks for understanding.
Last night my Mid-2009 Macbook Pro failed to boot after a shutdown. I've had a couple things replaced in the past, but upon restarting in Recovery HD mode, it became obvious that the hard drive was failing (I'm assuming, the S.M.A.R.T. designation in Disk Utility said "failing" in red font). I tried to create an image to an external 1 TB Hard Drive after verifying and a repair attempt, in an attempt to back up my original Hard Drive, but I received the following error message: "Input/Output Error...," and quit the image creation attempt.
I don't have a lot on my computer, about 95% of the original HD was unused. What is important though are prior Graduate School documents, and a few work-related projects. Is there any way to get the information off the HD before it shuts down completely? I am technologically proficient enough to do things on my own, but the local Mac specialists (nearest Apple store is 2 hours away) wanted $150-300 for the work. I can replace the HD myself, so the issue is just getting at least part of the information off the original hard drive onto my external one.
Thank you in advance for any advice/solution/etc you may have! -Matt

Rudiger314 wrote:
Partition Map Scheme: Unformatted
Repair/Verify options are unavailable—buttons grayed out. Erase and Partition options appear to work fine until I press Apply/Erase
1. When Disk Utility starts, select the drive in the sidebar (the line with the size and make/ID).
2. Select the Partition tab, then set the number of partitions from the drop down menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.)
3. Click Options, then choose either GUID (for Intel Macs), or +Apple Partition Map+ (for PPC Macs)
4. For each partition, click on it (it will then be outlined in blue), then supply a name (this is the name that will appear on your desktop and/or Finder sidebar) and size (either by typing in the box or dragging the dividers), and be sure the format type is +Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)+ Don't use any of the other options unless you're sure you need to.
5. When you've got everything the way you want it, click Apply and wait until the process has completed.

Help -- backup data with disk utility, input/output error.

My problem started when my MacBook Pro computer (with OsX) froze. When I restarted, the startup screen stayed on for a long time. Now, the startup screen stays on for a few seconds and then shuts off. I do NOT have a recent backup of my data. I have tried the following:
Went onto the recovery partition, used Disk Utility. When I verified the disk, it said it needed repair. When I tried to repair the disk, it said it could not be repaired.
I then tried to copy a disk image of the hard drive onto my external hard drive, but it says there is an "input/output error" and won't allow it. How else can I backup files on my computer at this point?

Had issue partitioning 2TB my passport drive, got input/output error while using disk utility.
Here is what I did to get my external disk back
In Disk Utility
1) Try to use erase option first, it failed
2) Try to partition the disk, failed as well.
3) Then try erase option again, then ... it worked !!

Restoring .dmg image from external to Mac HD in Disk Utility: "Unable to scan image (Input/output error)"

Hi guys,
So I've got a problem with restoring the image backup I did (using Disk Utility) of my 500GB HD on my MBP which was acting weird or maybe even crashed a few months ago. After creating the backup image and putting it on my external device, I installed Mavericks back to see if everything was alright (mainly the HD) and everything seems okay.
I did try restoring the backup image through disk utility before installing mavericks (thus erasing everything again on the HD) AND after. But nothing..
The whole process starts fine and then it starts scanning the image when after maybe a good 10-15min in I get a message that says that it was unable to scan the image. I tried verifying the disk(s), everything came out "OK". Also tried scanning it through Images > Scan image for Restore... with the same results.
While searching I've seen people getting messages like "Unable to scan filename.dmg (Invalid argument)" and "Unable to scan filename.dmg
(Internal error)" but none have (Input/output error)
The screen grab is below.
I also came across something about using terminal/commands but I'm not that savvy with it, especially considering that those there had issues with either mounting or trouble finding the image.
I've also tried moving the backup image to a different external device 2TB and also the desktop because I read it may have to do with the format of the externals or maybe free space. But THEN I would get a message saying
"The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "Mac HD Backup.dmg" can't be read or written. Error code -36"
Fyi ALL my externals are HFS+/Journaled and the backup image format was compressed.
I REALLY don't know what to do next. Was it the wrong move to create a dmg image? Have I lost everything? Is there still a way out?
If anyone can help, THANKS!
2012 MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.9.3)

Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store, or go to another authorized service provider. You may have to leave the machine there for several days.
Back up all data on the internal drive(s) before you hand over your computer to anyone. There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional—ask if you need guidance.
If privacy is a concern, erase the data partition(s) with the option to write zeros* (do this only if you have at least two complete, independent backups, and you know how to restore to an empty drive from any of them.) Don’t erase the recovery partition, if present.
Keeping your confidential data secure during hardware repair
Apple also recommends that you deauthorize a device in the iTunes Store before having it serviced.
*An SSD doesn't need to be zeroed.

Disk Utility: Create image fails with input/output error

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