Disk First aid failing

I had a printer app die on me and take the dock and the top right part of the menu bar with it (they were still visible, just wouldn't respond to any mouse clicks). I shut down every app I could (some were minimized, and alt-tab wasn't working either), then shut down the machine by holding the power button for 10 seconds (it couldn't shutdown because of the hung app).
On reboot, it seemed to take extra long to get past the initial apple-logo spinner. Once it finally got to the login screen (the login screen shows available accounts, but requires a password), I clicked on my account, and got a beachball for an indeterminate amount of time (I walked away after 5 minutes, and came back a few hours later and the beach ball had stopped).
Once I logged in, it slowly started, but the dock seemed to freeze again before I could get any apps started. The icons in the upper right part of the menu bar also took forever to come in (~10 minutes).
I held the power to shut it down again, and this time booted off the osx cd. I started disk utility, and ran verify, which failed and told me to run repair, which I did. I got a ton of inode errors, and eventually, the repair failed. I tried to run the repair again, because I wasn't sure what else to do. This time, I got a ton of 'Missing thread record (id = ??????)' where ??? is a six digit number, followed by a large number of 'invalid directory item count' errors, a few other errors (incorrect number or extended attribs, incorrect number of ACLs), and another fail.
I decided to try to mount the disk and rsync whatever I could to a usb drive, but after switching to terminal from the osx boot cd, I found the drive wasn't mounted. I went back to Disk Utility and tried to mount it, but it gave an error about the drive needing 'repair'.
So, my question at this point is, is there any way to mount the drive so I can try to recover something?
Also, what else should I have tried after the first 'repair disk' failed?
Thanks

Before I posted this, I did run through 'repair disk' three times, at which point DU gave me the amusing error message 'repair failed three times' (or something similar, don't remember the exact wording).
That was 24 hours ago. I booted up with the osx install cd again, and this time DU doesn't even see a partition on that drive. The hard disk is listed in the left nav, followed by the optical drive, then the 'osx install dvd' partition on the optical drive, but the partition on the hard disk isn't listed. When highlighting the hard disk, all four first aid buttons (verify/repair disk/disk permissions) are grey'd out.
Thanks
The SMART status does say 'verified' for that disk, so I assumed it wasn't a physical failure, and I should be ok to reinstall.
I'd love to know what happened, but I'm sensing at this point I'm severely screwed and need to reinstall. I'll wait another 24 hours before I do so, in the event anyone has another suggestion as to what I could do to find out what happened, or attempt to recover some files.

Similar Messages

Help First Aid Fails From Install Disk

My I-Mac G-5 crashed and on restart is displaying the grey screen with the question mark instead of finding the os / hard drive. I rebooted again from the install disk holding down C and when I went to verify and repair the disk... the repair option wasn't selectable and when I select verify i get this message
"First Aid failed
"Disk Utility stopped repairing permissions on '(volume name)' because the following error was encountered: No valid packages"
The Apple support on this topic here
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25704
only covers when the application disk utility fails from your OS... But its failing for me from my INSTALL Disk.
Thanks in advance!

That error occurs because either the /Library/Receipts/ folder has been deleted or its contents were deleted. Without that DU will not function. This is because when you repair permissions Disk Utility uses the Receipts folder on the OS X volume being repaired.
However, it cannot fix your problem. Your problem results from damaged or corrupted system files required during startup. The only solution is to reinstall OS X. You may be able to do this without erasing the drive by doing an Archive and Install:
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.

First Aid Failed while trying to re-start mac, help??

My Mac has been forzen to the loading page and I have put in the grey disk to try and re-boot it and I was told to repair the disk once the CD was in. After having gone through part of the repair process I get a message of First Aid Failed because "The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)" Any help on how to get my mac fixed?? And wil it involve losing all of my files on my Mac? Thanks!!

The error you are getting means that Disk Utility cannot repair your hard drive. Apple has a note on this at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302411 . Net, most people buy Disk Warrior to repair the drive, although TechTool Pro can also be bought to do that, and in most cases, Disk Warrior is able to fix the drive. There are situations, however, when they can't repair the drive. At that point, you can try and erase and install, and if that fails, you need to buy a new hard drive.
If you can hook another mac up in target mode you may be able to back up your data, if you haven't done that recently.

FIRST AID FAILED

Was verifying and then repairing disk permissions then got this message:
First Aid Failed
Disk Utility stopped verifying Mac HD because...:
Filesystem verify or repair failed.
Should I be concerned?

Start up in Safe mode - Hold Shift key at startup until halfway through the rotating gear. You will have to login. Then reboot the Mac to see if that fixed it.
Safe boot will take 2-3 times as long as normal, so be patient.

Freeze-ups, problems, and "First Aid Failed"

I've been experiencing some freeze-ups lately on my Macbook Pro. I verified and repaired disk permissions on Disk Utility, but when I went to verify the disk itself, it said "First Aid Failed". It did say "Volume Bit Map needs minor repair" and "Invalid volume free block count (It should be 815187 instead of 814946)" and "The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired."
"Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit"
"1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair"
What should I do to fix this problem? Thanks.

Jaworski
If you can't find anyone with the right install disks but (depending on the size of your startup volume) you can get your hands on an external drive of some kind you might want to try using CarbonCopyCloner to clone your basic system to it, selecting it as your boot volume in system preferences, booting from it, and then repairing your internal drive using Disk Utility from the cloned install.
It's definitely not the most elegant solution, especially since you would essentially be attempting to fix a corrupted volume with a corrupted volume, but it might be worth a shot in your case due to the limited availability of your install disk.
Just a thought.
Max-

Powerbook G4 stopped working it cuts on but no spinning disc symbol..won't run I installed the start up disk and it starts up but disk first aid says there is something wrong can't repair it..what do I do now? Do I erase everything and start over?

The G4 comes on but that is as far as it goes...I installed the startup disc it started and I tried disk first aid but it says it can't be repaired????If I erase everything will this fix the problem as well as make me lose everything?
The firsat aid box says:
" REPAIRING DISK FOR "HARD DRIVE"
checking HFS Plus volume
Checking events Overflowfile
Checking catalog file
Invalid node structure ( this is in RED )
rebuilding catalog B-tree
The volume Hard drive can not be repaired ( in red)
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972_) (in red)
REPAIR ATTEMPTED ON 1 VOLUME
0HFS volume repaired ( in green)
1 volume could not be repaired (in red)
[email protected] feel free to send email thanks

Bryan,
Do you have a second hard drive? If you can get the install disk to boot the computer then all is not lost. Install a clean system on a second hard drive to get back in business. If you have any backup copies of your software and files, use them to restore your computer to good working condition.
Then, install some form of data recovery software on your second drive. The recovery software can look at a bit mapped version of your drive and extract data that may be scrambled but usable. Think of the drive as a book. If someone tore out a few pages from the table of contents or index from a book, the main volume would be there but the book would not be repairable. Or, if the table of contents is OK but someone tore out a chapter or two, the other chapters would be there. The book is not complete but all is not lost.
Here is a review to get you up to speed:
http://data-recovery-software-review.toptenreviews.com/mac-recovery-software/
Start by getting your computer working off a clean install on a second drive so the data recovery process will work faster and have a destination for the recovered data.
Jim~
btw, it is better to list your email as follows: sssail3 at aol dot com. That format protects agains trolling for email addresses.

Disk first aid

I am new to OSX and have a question.
I used to be able to use disk first aid to check and or repair my hard disk. I don't seem to be able to find it in OSX
Is it called something else? and how do you use it too repair your disk? Where Is it Is it Disk utilities in the utility folder. I don't want to mess the HD up.How do you use it? What do you click on?
Any assistance would be appreciated
Thanks
John

Hi John!
Here are instructions.
THESE ARE THE STEPS FOR USING DISK UTILITY TO REPAIR YOUR HD
1.Insert your Mac OS X CD-ROM disc or Restore DVD disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key. This would be Disk 1 of the 3 CD Panther set.
2.Once started up from CD or DVD, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu.
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from disc to access Disk Utility.
3.Click the First Aid tab.
4.Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5.Select your Mac OS X volume, if necessary.
6.Click Repair. If DU reports errors it has fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported.
7.When finished, select Quit Disk Utility from the Installer menu.
8.Select Quit Installer from the Installer menu.
9.In the resulting pop-up window, choose restart.
10.After the computer has restarted, you can eject the CD.
TO REPAIR PERMISSIONS ON THE STARTUP DISK
1.Open Disk Utility, located in Applications/Utilities, and select the startup disk in the left column.
2.Click First Aid.
3.Click Verify Disk Permissions to test permissions or Repair Disk Permissions to test and repair permissions. (I never "Verify". Just run "Repair".)
Rerun RP until the only messages reported are listed in this article Spurious Permissions Errors Using: 10.3.x, authored by Michael Conniff.
When "Repair Permissions" is complete. Quit "Disk Utility".
ali b

Disk First Aid Not Repairing Drive

I need to fix an issue with my external firewire drive and I need to know why Disk First aid won't repair the problem.
I have an IMac CoreDuo 20" 2GB RAM, 250GB Internal drive and 250GB External firewire drive (this one has the issue)
I executed a restart on my Mac tonight and when it came back up I recieved an Invalid B-tree node size on both partitions on the external firewire drive. Can your software fix this problem? The volumes won't mount, but Disk First Aid will see them.
Disk First Aid reports:
Verifying volume “disk2s3”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Invalid B-tree node size
The volume needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
Verifying volume “disk2s4”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Invalid B-tree node size
The volume needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
Ran disk first aid. Results above. TechTool Deluxe won' t look at the external drive. The Pro version of the software repairs external drives, but their site doesn't state whether you can fix Invalid B-tree node size errors. Formatting and starting over is not an option. I have data on their in which I captured last week on a business trip and was going to back it up tonight and ironically, this happened before I could.
I can't figure it out though. The drive didn't go through any crash or serious outage. I simply told my Mac to restart and this error appeared on reboot. I just switched to Mac as my main system about 8 months back. I have been using PC's for 20 years and never ran into a problem like this. It really concerns me that Mac file systems aren't reliable and if can't repair this, I will need to rethink whether I want to keep a Mac as my main system.
Can someone help me with this? I sure like using Mac and hope there is a simple solution to this.
I have tried booting from the Mac OS X cd as per Apples recomendations, but with no luck. I did use a trial copy of Data Rescue II just to see if it could see my data and it can, so I do have hope that this should be resolvable.

You won't believe what I had to do to get back some of my files, but here goes the explanation.
As I mentioned earlier, I used TechTool Pro 4.5.1 with no succes. I also used a tool called Drive Genius from Prosoft Engineering and it was not successful either. I did get some more error information when trying to repair the partitions with Drive Genius. Here are the messages I received:
Error : Invalid HFS+ signature found in the volume header (0000 - (n).
Error : Invalid HFS+ version number in the volume header (0).
Error : Invalid HFS+ total block count found in the volume header (0).
Error : Invalid HFS+ resource fork clump size found in the volume header (0).
Error : Invalid HFS+ data fork clump size found in the volume header (0).
Error : Unable to get the HFS+ volume header.
My only other option was to purchase Data Rescue II from ProSoft Engineering and attempt to recover the files I needed. I had a bunch of recordings I had made with ProTools that I had not had a chance to backup to another location yet.
It took a couple hours for the scanning processes and then the files were listed to recover. I selected the session folders and told it to recover. The file s were copied to my local hard drive and I was getting excited, until I tried to open one of the files. The wave files would not play and the PorTools session files wouldn't open. I was very frustrated since the file sizes seemed to be in line with the files were on the original drive.
What I ended up doing was, using Text Edit, I opened a known good .wav file that was created with ProTools and one of the recovered files that wouldn't play and compared the headers. It appeared that the recovered file had the data portion, but not the header. I copied the header from the good file and pasted it into the recovered file and saved it.
Was I surprised when the file played. Now, most of the .wav files I have done this with work with no problems at all. A few of the files have bad spots (bits) that added distortion to the clip, but I was able to import the files into ProTools and edit them out. It appears that the bad spots were additions to the file and did not overwrite any thing. So I just cut them bad spots out and I am going about my business again.
The bad new is I will be spending most of this weekend manually restoring these files. The good new is that I will get them all back. There has to be an easier way to do this though.
In Summary, the problem is not with the physical drive as a thourough drive scan says that the hardware and drive is okay. The problem lies in the Apple file system (HFS+) itself.
I sure hope this information helps someone out there. If anyone finds an easier way to fix this, please post it here and let everyone know.

Disk First Aid - Problem: Custom icon missing

Hi
Wonder if anyone can help me - my mac kept quitting out of printing photos to my Epson R300 and then froze. I didn't let it self repair once restarted but left it to do it today manually. I set Disk First Aid going and it came up with about 30 "Custom icon missing" alerts and when I asked it to repair it couldn't repair them.
Anyone know what's happened there and how to fix it?
I've noticed that the mac has been quitting out of programmes a lot lately but without the 'this spllication has unexpectedly quit' alert. I haven't added any new software or hardware lately either.
Many thanks!
iMac Flat Screen Mac OS 9.2.x Mac OS 9/Mac OS X Panther Dual Boot

Vicky,
Welcome to Discussions.
Fortunately, the Custom Icon issue will have no impact on the general reliability of your mac.
As a bit of background, one of the special attributes that can be applied to a file or folder (like modification date, or label, or comments, or the FileType and Creator - so a document knows which app it is associated with when you double click it) is this "Custom Icon" setting.
So you have 30 files / folders that have been marked as having a custom icon. But when it goes to get the custom icon to display the file / folder in the Finder, it can't find it. You usually just end up with a generic icon for the file / folder. It offers no extra functionality other than displaying a pretty icon in the Finder. Similarly, when it doesn't work, you lose no functionality, other than that.
The applications quiting unexpectedly could be an issue, but issues with printing colour photos to a printer may be memory issues. Colour photos, perhaps .jpg, are compressed. As your printer doesn't have built-in decompression software, the pictures must be decompressed on the Mac before sending to the printer. And there is the issue, if this requires too much memory, your mac can do strange things.
Is printing from OSX any better ? I would have thought a G4 iMac with Panther would be a dream to work on.

Keychain First Aid Fails

Not remembering a web site login, I opened Keychain Access to look it up and noted that it wasn't storing ANY web site passwords. I ran Keychain First aid which found a problem, but failed to repair my Keychain with the message:
"User differs on ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.plist, should be 501, owner is 0
Owner not corrected on ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.plist, reason: No such file or directory"
Yet, I can see the "~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.plist" file, and have opened it in Omnioutliner. I've already repaired permissions and run Disk Warrior 3.0.3 to no avail; same erroneous error message. Help?

A couple of things to try. Move the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.plist to the trash, but don't delete it. Restart and try Keychain First Aid. If it works, quit the app, and empty the trash. If you have a backup of your system, move the ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain to the desktop, copy over the backup, restart, and try it again. Report back.

Installed the latest Java update today on my older iMac and now it won't boot up at all. 2007 model worked fine this morning, now disk first aid say boot blocks f'ed.

I am using an older mid 2007 imac 24 inch running snow leopard 10.6.8
I normally accept software update recs, and today when installing the security update to java, all went fine till restart, when I got the universal "NO" sign, the circle with the line through it and just spinning gray bars underneath.
Booted from system disks, ran first aid, said the boot block partitions or something like that needed updating but disk appears to be ok. Still not working.
Do you think Alsoft Disk Warrior will fix? I am running off external back up drive now.
Thanks for any help or advice. Apple as usual is as useless as tits on a bull, or a screen door on a submarine, pick your simile...

If your backup's up to date it might be less hassle to erase the internal and clone back from the backup. Don't allow the update next time it appears - you're not the only one having problems it would seem.
Note; the message "updating boot partitions" is a standard message that appears after a repair run. It won't go away and should be ignored.
Provided the message "The volume Macintosh HD Seems to be OK" in green has appeared, your disc fle system is fine.
Message was edited by: noondaywitch

Disk First Aid is stuck on Verifying volume "Macintosh HD"

Using MacBook Pro with 10.7.4 installed.
I am running Disk Utility. I Chose First Aid, selected the volume Macintosh HD, and verify...
It says:
Verifying volume "Macintosh HD"
Checking file system
The swirly bar is running in the lower right hand corner... it's been doing this for many, many hours.
What else can I do?

Perform the #4 Repair Disk function here and others as need be
Step by Step to fix your Mac

First Aid failed! Error Was encountered.

I ran the First Aid disk utility on my Mac today and got the above message. In the discussion forum I posted this question and found a reply to "click the disclosure triangle on the left of the hard disk drive icon to display...select your language first. Do not click Continue in the first screen..."
Problem: I can't find a disclosure triangle at the left of the hard disk icon. Please help! My computer runs A+. I don't want to lose it/

Yes,
If Disk Utility can't fix it, you'll need a more robust utility for the repair.
First check your drives health with S.M.A.R.T. in Disk Utility. Because if your drive is physically defective, utilities won't help.
I also recommend DiskWarrior. It is the best at directory repairs. It rebuilds then actually replaces your old directory. I feel every Mac owner should have a copy. Make sure you get the disk so you can boot up on it to run repairs. You can also install it on another drive and run it from there to repair this one. DW works faster that way.
I use DW once a month to try and catch errors in my system from getting too far out of hand. It has repaired every little and big issue I have ever had with my three Macs.
If you have a good backup, hopefully a clone of your system before you had issues, an Erase and Install will also rid you of this issue. But, beware! You will lose everything on the drive with this procedure. Let us know if you need help with that!
Good Luck! DALE
p.s. Here's a rewiew of DiskWarrior 4.

First Aid failed - now what?

While running First Aid in Disk Utility, I get a an Error message, "Disk Utility stopped verifying because the following error was encountered: The underlying task reported failure on exit". Before this, disk utility clearly says that various volumes need to be repaired (including my hard-drive) but because of this error I never get that far. Any ideas of what I can do to remedy this problem?

I had no intention of giving you that impression and nor do I think that. If my wording made you think that I apologize.
The hard disk inside your Mac is your start-up disk, the one you start your Mac from. It cannot repair itself, so you need instead to start up from the install disk that came with your Mac - this why it is so important to have it.
Place that DVD in your superdrive and go to the Apple menu and click on Restart. Hold down the c key on your keyboard until your Mac has started up. This will take a bit longer than when you start from your hard disk.
You are NOT going to install anything, but just select English as your language (assuming that it is!), and ignore the next (install) window that appears. Go to Utilities in the menu at the top of the screen, and go to Disk Utility. Select your Hard Disk and click on repair.
This will take a little while and you will see all kinds of messages in the window, all of which you can ignore. Finally it will say Disk Repaired, and you then restart again without holding down the c key, in order to start up again from your built-in hard disk.

Install disk First Aid Problem

::: The Good News ---> my entire system is 100% and current backed up via Qrecall on external hard drive
::: The Bad News ---> Applecare expired 3 months ago
::: THE ISSUE ---> My computer completely froze up while in use.
All manual attempts to restart showed only grey screen + logo + spinning wheel.
Successfully used Install disk to boot
Disk Utililty...
FIRST AID: All 4 verify / repair buttons are grayed out.
PARTITIONS: "Current" Nothing is showing.
1. Is a new hard drive in my future??
2. If so, is it ok to just reinstall system and everything from qrecall or will it be better to start over from 10.5 Install Disks?

1. Is a new hard drive in my future??
Probably.
2. If so, is it ok to just reinstall system and everything from qrecall or will it be better to start over from 10.5 Install Disks?
You need your system discs to install the OS. However, that process includes options for importing data and settings that will vary depending on how the backup was made.

Disk First aid failing

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