Reformatting External Hard drive: Disk Utility crashes near the end
I recently updated to Leopard and emptied off my external hard drive and then wanted to (zero out data &) reformat it and start fresh so as to use it with the new Time Machine feature.
However, near the end of reformatting it with Disk Utility the progress just stopped and after giving it some time I did a force quit and sure enough it came to light that it had crashed. Since then I've tried again several times to the same result. I even tried doing it of the Disk Utility on the install CD and it crashed with one minute left!!
Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated!
Use a more powerful utility such as DiskWarrior, or a product such as those listed here.
(108710)
Similar Messages
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External Hard Drive Disk Utility Can't Repair the Disk
Hi,
I have a Seagate 1 TB Backup Plus Drive which was working perfectly fine until I plugged it into a USB hub. It detected it while in the hub and I was able to get files off of it, but when I ejected it from the hub and put it back into the USB slot on the computer it was not detected by finder. It shows up in the disk utility and I clicked verify and repair and it says:
Verify and Repair volume “Seagate Backup Plus Drive”
Checking file system
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
Is there any way to get this to work properly again? Or if not is there a way for me to recover my files on the external hard drive?
Thanks
I have a Macbook PRO late 2011 running OS X Mavericks.Use a more powerful utility such as DiskWarrior, or a product such as those listed here.
(108710) -
Unable to write to External Hard Drive, Disk Utility options don't work.
I am a recent new user of Apple Mac from when I bought this Macbook Air 3 months ago.
Nice machine, but difficult to get the hang of.
Specific problem I'd like help with please is to enable me to write to my Samsung S2 Portable Hard Drive (500GB)
I can see it and read files, but can't save to the EHD.
In Disk Utility, all options to verify and repair the EHD are greyed out. So, most of the friendly suggestions on other threads don't help me.
I don't know how big the hard drive is on my Macbook (nor how to find out), or how much remaining space there is, but there is over 400GB of data on the EHD.
The EHD is in NTFS format, all data on it was from Windows computers. There isn't space on my Windows laptop for all this data.
I don't have another EHD, so have nowhere to move the data to if I have to reformat the EHD.
On another thread I saw a suggestion to uninstall something or other before reformatting the EHD, but I don't even know how to uninstall programs on a Macbook.
I don't know why Apple have to spoil such a great machine by making it so difficult for non-afficionados to use (sorry, frustrated).
I say "great" because it's so light it makes work much easier. I can carry it around all day with little effort and don't have to take the charger to work.
Any help anyone could offer with the EHD will be appreciated.
Thanks...........Hi Limnos,
Yes, I'm new to Mac, having bought this Macbook 3 months ago after years of Windows (as stated in my original post).
I still have a Windows laptop and all my work colleagues currently use Windows, so I need compatibility with both.
Paragon sounds like a good option, and I don't mind a bit of cost if it sorts the problem.
Hopefully I'll get feedback from someone who has used Paragon and can report how effective it is and whether or not there are any problems asociated with it.
Good tip thanks about the Disk Utility, I'll look into that.
Thanks........ -
Hi, I have a hard disk failure so to recover my data I am using disk utility to restore the data on an external drive while booting from a second external hard drive. When I perform the operation and after having selected both my destination and source drives, the operation begins but soon fails due to input/output error. If I try to create an image of the drive it gives me the same error message. Any help would be much appreciated.
Disk Utility only creates a image of the drive, so it's no help getting exactly what you want, which is your files. If the file structure is messed up or the drive is failing then it's no help.
If you have a external boot drive and you can't access the internal non-booting drive though the typical Finder and windows to transfer your files via drag and drop methods, then you need to install Data Rescue on the external boot drive and it will do as best as it can to recover your files. (works on non-encrypted/non-Filevaulted drives only)
.Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
Are you sure you have hard drive failure, or that OS X isn't merely not booting?
Because if the drive is working physically, then there is a host of fixes
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents#/ -
Internal Hard Drive Disk Utility Repair Problem
Hello all! I'm really hoping someone can help me out because I'm in a bit of a panic right now about all of this.
For starters, I have a Mid-2007 20" Intel based iMac.
The other day, I turned on my computer and got a flashing question mark and the computer would not boot. Luckily, I have an external hard drive, so I went through the process of using the Install Discs to use the Hard Drive to start up my computer. Everything worked out and once the computer turned on, I was able to access my Hard Drive and had full access to my files. I powered down my computer as I had to run out the door for school and was planning on backing all of my files up on my external hard drive tonight.
Unfortunately, when I turned on my computer, my internal hard drive had disappeared. I can only start the computer with my external drive plugged in.
I accessed the Disk Utility, and it was the first place I was able to locate my Hard Drive. On the left hand side, underneath the external drive, it simply says "Media". I cannot click on ANY of the options under First Aid and the only thing it seems I can do is Erase the drive.
I would REALLY like to avoid this option, as there are nearly 5 years worth of documents on this computer.
My S.M.A.R.T. Status says Not Supported, and it's saying that the Total Capacity is 0 Bytes.
I suppose I should also mention that with the disc I used I am now running OS X 10.4.11, but previously, I was running 10.5. I can't remember the last decimal place. I don't know why there was a difference, as I used the same disk...
I have NO IDEA where to go from this point besides taking it somewhere to see if my files can be recovered.
Can anyone help me out here?
If you need any more details about my computer/the actions I took, just let me know.
Thanks so much!!If you cannot access the internal HD then it may have crashed, I am getting you may not have been backing up either so if it has crashed and you don't have a backup then your data is probably gone. If you can get the internal HD to show up again before you do ANYTHING else back it up using Time Machine (assuming you use 10.5.x or above) or create a clone on an external HD using either SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner.
My recommendation at this point is to take the machine into and an Apple Store or AASP to have it looked at. -
I have an imac 2009 the disk drive is damaged and I have lost the passwords I need to reset passwords I tried booting with a macosx disk from an external hard drive but did not read the drive how else can I reset password ?
I have a 2012 mac book pro can I use that to connect with firewire and load osx that way? and how woudl I do that?
Thanks so much!To what password are you referring? Do you mean your user account's admin password? Or do you mean the master password for File Vault or do you mean a Firmware Password?
For an admin password:
Forgot Your Account Password
For Snow Leopard and earlier
Mac OS X 10.6- If you forget your administrator password
For Lion/Mountain Lion
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
When the menubar appears select Terminal from the Utilities menu.
Enter resetpassword at the prompt and press RETURN. Follow
instructions in the dialog window that will appear.
Or see Reset a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Password and
OS X Lion- Apple ID can be used to reset your user account password.
If you cannot do the above then try this:
1. Boot to Safe Mode by restarting and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-S keys until a black screen with white type appears.
2. At the prompt, type the following commands pressing return after each command line:
/sbin/fsck -yf
If you do not receive a "Filesystem OK" message then repeat this command until
you do. If after seven tries you still do not receive a "Filesystem OK" message,
then the system is corrupted and needs to be reinstalled.
mount -uw /
cd /private/var/db/netinfo
mv local.nidb local.old
rm ../.AppleSetupDone
shutdown -r now
The second-to-last command above will cause OS X to think that the operating system is newly installed, and when the new owner starts up the computer it will send him/her to the startup wizard where he/she can start a new user without reinstalling.
This last method does not actually change a password. It simply removes the user accounts and lets you create an initial admin account as if the computer were new out of the box.
How to reset the OS X password without a startup CD:
Reboot into Single-user Mode. Enter the following and press RETURN after each command line
1. Type fsck -fy
2. Type mount -uw /
3. Type passwd <username>
I have never tried this method myself. -
iTunes cannot locate purchased music. It was stored on an external hard drive that has crashed. How can I recover the songs?
Hello, nwestpha.
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
You may find this article helpful in locating your missing media.
iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408
Cheers,
Jason H. -
Hi,
I have been rebuilding our iTunes library on a external hard drive, no problems to start with. The pc crashed the other day and I lost some of the files.
I can see the music files on the external hard drive, but I haven't been able to get iTunes to pick them up as being the library despite following the instructions to map the drive under 'preferences' in iTunes. I have added new songs, these are being saved in the folder on the external hard drive and are showing in the library pane on iTunes, any suggestions how I can get the other files to show in the library? Would be very grateful for any help! Thank you.The fix for the exclamation marks is: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders
The proper way to use backups is to restore the photos to their original location, but you probably don't want to do that as you said your old hard disk was almost full. Thus, the solution given above will solve the problem. -
i tried transferring my iphoto library from my old macbook onto my new macbook pro (via external hard drive), but when i open the new iphoto, it seems to have transferred ALL images ever used on my old macbook. so i tried to just delete all those images so i could try a different approach to transferring, but the new iphoto won't let me do anything and every time i try to delete anything it crashes (since the image amount is so high). please help!!
MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), iphoto '11, version 9.4.2To move an iPhoto Library to a new machine:
Link the two Macs together: there are several ways to do this: Wireless Network,Firewire Target Disk Mode, Ethernet, or even just copy the Library to an external HD and then on to the new machine...
But however you do choose to link the two machines...
Simply copy the iPhoto Library from the Pictures Folder on the old Machine to the Pictures Folder on the new Machine.
Then launch iPhoto. That's it.
This moves photos, events, albums, books, keywords, slideshows and everything else. -
My external hard drive wont show up in the "Save to:" menu when I try to import videos
My old external broke so I found my old one and plugged it in and went to import some videos on imove from an sd card but my external hard drive wont show up on the "save to:" drop down menu. I've been on utility disk to try and repair disk permission but I can't because the button isn't lit up. I can only click on verify disk or repair disk. I tried both of these but it still wont come on the drop down menu. It is showing up on the left in the event library but it has a little yellow triangle with a black exclamation mark in it.
Hope that all makes sense!
Any help would be very much appreciated!Ok in disk utility it says Format : MS-DOS (FAT32)
Sorry Im not sure what you mean by can it connect via firewire? Sorry I'm a bit useless with technology haha -
Two external hard drive are not appearing on the desktop anymore on my 2008 24" iMac. One is a Lacie d2 Quadra and the other is a G Drive. Both are 1 Tb
Are they daisy chained? Have you tried them one at a time? Have you tried a different FireWire cable? Do they show up in either system profiler or Disk Utility? Have you reset the SMC? http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
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I get the following error when formatting a external hard drive.
Partition failed with the error:
POSIX reports: The operation couldn’t be completed. Cannot allocate memory
I have a Macbook pro 13" A1278. I purchased it around december 2010. I have a HHD 3.5" drive desktop select II 1.5TB. I purchased it around Febuary/March 2011 to use with my Macbook pro. I formatted it and moved all my files to there, I got it so my macbook's hard drive wouldn't brake and I lose everything on my macbook.
Is there any fixes?First, try a system reset. It cures many ills and it's quick, easy and harmless...
Hold down the on/off switch and the Home button simultaneously until the screen blacks out or you see the Apple logo. Ignore the "Slide to power off" text if it appears. You will not lose any apps, data, music, movies, settings, etc.
If the Reset doesn't work, try a Restore. Note that it's nowhere near as quick as a Reset. From iTunes, select the iPad/iPod and then select the Summary tab. Follow directions for Restore and be sure to say "yes" to the backup. You will be warned that all data (apps, music, movies, etc.) will be erased but, as the Restore finishes, you will be asked if you wish the contents of the backup to be copied to the iPad/iPod. Again, say "yes." -
My Time Capsule has been backing up without any problems and all of a sudden it stops reading on my computer. The external hard drive beeps three times and the motter wont run within. The light that usually blinks while in use is no longer blinking and is on constant. What happened?
abailey46 wrote:
My Time Capsule has been backing up without any problems and all of a sudden it stops reading on my computer. The external hard drive beeps three times and the motter wont run within. The light that usually blinks while in use is no longer blinking and is on constant. What happened?
Sorry we are unclear as to the external hard drive and its connection to the TC..
For instance the light that blinks.. is that the TC or external hard disk or what.
Did you try just rebooting / restart the whole network in correct order.. modem.. router / TC.. external drive.. clients with 2min gap between each.
Are you actually running Snow Leopard as the profile states?
How old is the TC? -
I am trying to backup my Itunes onto my external hard drive. I am at the step where I on Itunes, click on File ->Library ->Organize library. I am suppose to check mark both boxes there, the first being "Consolidate Files" & the second being "Reorganize files in the folder 'Itunes Media'. I am able to checkmark the first box but It won't allow me to check mark the second box, why? How can i fix this? Please help!
Well you must have made a mistake somewhere. The last instruction of step four reads:
When you've found your iTunes library folder, drag that folder to your external hard drive. This will begin the iTunes backup. The amount of time the backup will take depends on the size of your library. When the transfer is done, your backup is complete and your external hard drive can be disconnected.
Normally dragging content from to a new location on a different drive will result in a copy action which is what you were supposed to do. At a guess you somehow managed to move the iTunes folder. Then when you started iTunes it created a new blank library for you assuming it had just been installed rather that raising a warning.
Close iTunes. Rename the iTunes folder on the internal drive as iTunes (Empty) then copy the iTunes folder from the external back into the User's Music folder. Start iTunes. All should be well.
When you've made sure it all works please read my User Tip and use that method to backup in future. Since you already have a folder with the backup in place you can skip the "Make New" operation in the fourth step and simply choose the external folder.
tt2 -
And how do I turn off FACES?
I copied the iPhoto library to an external hard drive, then imported it to the new iPhoto. It turned my 2000 photos into 12,000!!
According to you youo did not do what I instructed - you said you imported the old library into th enew library which can easily take a 2000 photo library and turn it into 12,000 including two ro three versions of each photo pus all the face thumbnails
The correct procedure has NO importing involved
drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity from the old Mac to the pictures folder of the new Mac - launch iPhoto on the new mac
That is it
LN
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