Disk Partition Won't Mount

My hard drive is partitioned. [I'm sure that this isn't a physical problem with my hard drive, because my hard drive has been replaced.]
I have a partition that won't show up on the desktop. When I run Disk Utilities, it shows the drive, but says it is unmounted. I repair the partition and try to 'mount' it. I press the Mount button and nothing happens.
[I had this problem on the old drive, too. The only suggestion I got was not to partition into six partitions, although my previous machines had no problem with six partitions.]
Does anybody know what's going on?
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9)
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Hi ottertree;
If you are using Norton Disk Doctor on a disk with OS X on it, you are living dangerous. NDD has been know to repair disk so that are no longer usable. Norton corrupted my disk for me so I remove everything from Symantec from my system to prevent that from happening again.
Personally, I look at using Norton as a false economy.
My recommendation is to trash it and save up for a real utilty instead.
Allan

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Security Update - Disk Utlity crashes, disk partitions won't mount

After I installed the original security update (2006-002) released the week of 3/13/06 I encountered the following problems:
- Firewire startup disk did not show firewire icon.
- Firewire startup disk did not mount with all partitions. Only the system partition mounts.
- Cannot mount any drives or disk images.
- Disk Utility crashes every time.
- Spotlight returns results for a search but when choosing Show All nothing happens.
I really need to mount the second partition of my firewire startup disk as all my data is on it.
If I boot from my Mac mini's internal drive everything works fine. I should note that the internal drive of my mini has 10.4.2 installed. My firewire startup drive has 10.4.5 with the security update.
I installed security update 2006-002 using Software update and things went wrong.
I tried re-applying the 10.4.5 combo update to no avail. I installed the latest security update (2006-002 v 1.1) to no avail. I repaired disk permissions from the install DVD to no avail.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Jaime
1.25G4 Mac mini| 512MB RAM | 80GB HDD | Superdrive | 512 Mb Shufle Mac OS X (10.4.5) security update 2006-002

I really need to mount the second partition of my firewire startup disk as all my data is on it.
To me that sounds like your data is not backed up there. Never install anything without first backing up. You may still be able to salvage information there using Prosoft Data Rescue:
http://www.prosofteng.com/
and another external hard disk.
As for the data on the other drive where you are having crashes, are you running any third party utilities like Norton Personal Firewall or others which may be impacted by a security update?

After Lion upgrade Windows partition won't mount

I have been running a partition for Windows, originally set up with Bootcamp and Windows SP using Parallels, for several years and generations of OS - Leopard and Snow Leopard without trouble. I just upgraded to Lion and now my Windows partition won't mount. I can see it in Disk Utility, but it is greyed out.
I have done several searches without finding a solution. There seems to be all sorts of advice. If I need to upgrade to Windows 7, fine. But how can I get the partition to mount? Does it have to do with Lion writing a recovery partition that breaks the partitioning I had? Is it an NTFS issue, whatever that is?
I would appreciate someone giving me some simple detailed steps to get my partition to mount, since I know nothing about Windows.
If I have to wipe the partition, buy Windows 7 and install it, OK. But I don't want to wipe the whole drive and my Mac side. Does Lion even need Bootcamp anymore? You can see I'm totally confused. I just need to get my Windows partition back and running through Parallels.
Thanks.

Never a good idea to go for years with the same drive and new OS generations and not reformat to implement new changes in partitioning.
ALWAYS clone your system(s) before an upgrade.
Installing Lion on an external hard drive would have saved you.
Windows is now +1 partition ID.
Windows 8 RC will be out in a couple weeks for public for free.
Asked on Parallels community....
Do you have latest Lion version of Parallels?
Try editing BCD with Windows DVD/CD.
No it is not an NTFS issue.
Lion added a new recovery partition that bumped Windows from #N to N + 1 is all.
Apple's GPT changed a number of times since 10.5.x too.
Bad sectors that occur on a drive can't be mapped out if they are part of the hidden partitions or without losing data (usually) and Lion uses and insures that features that were 'optional' or "for future use" were implemented and changed.
Windows SP sounds like Windows 7 SP1 or in your case I guess XP SP3 but isn't clear until you get to "upgrade to Wiindows 7" and yes I would upgrade to Windows 8 RC (free) or 7 64-bit System Builder ($99).

Disk Image Won't Mount - Reason: Device Not Recognized

As I've searched the discussion forums, I've seen plenty of postings for "Disk Image Won't Mount" and for "Device Not Recognized" but not the way I'm seeing it on my laptop.
After a backup and restore, my mac will no longer mount any... and I mean any images. I have downloaded several security or software updates from different vendors and each .dmg file will not mount. I still have the .dmg files in hopes that after I get this problem solved, I'll be able to install them, but...
It always gives the same reason for not mounting and I'm at a loss on what to do next. I've run Software Update hoping it will be a quick fix, but have had no success.
Any suggestions?

I have a similar problem. Using FireWire disk mode, I put a disk image of my entire iBook onto my iMac as a back-up. (For an unrelated problem, Apple told me I needed to erase my iBook completely and do a clean install of the system.) Well, I screwed something up. I don't know what exactly--maybe I didn't "put away" the device correctly, but the next day when I flipped on my iMac, the disk image of my iBook was just gone, and not to be found anywhere. I finally succeeded in restoring the image using TechTool, which scanned the entire volume of the iMac for directory information. And it's all there, because the img file is more than 10GB. But when I double-click on it, I get the following error msg: "The following disk images failed to mount...reason--not recognized." I've checked the app it's supposed to open with, permissions, and run Disk Utility volume repair. No dice. Any ideas??? Did I mention that this is EVERYTHING I had on my iBook???

External Backup Disk Suddenly Won't Mount...

Tried to shut down, restart and repair the disk with Disk Utility...but it won't mount. Any suggestions? It's a WD 500GB external backup disk...I use it for Time Machine.
Thanks!

The only other thing that I can suggest at this point is to turn Time Machine off and try reseting the partition map scheme +(GUID Partition Table)+ and the format +(Mac OS Extended)+ again to see if it repairs the drive. Unfortunately that will erase all of your previous TM backups, but might get the drive working correctly again. Then if and when you get the drive working correctly go to the Time Machine Preference and reselect the drive to Use for Backup.

External Iomega Drive Partition won't mount

Hi:
I have a partition on my Iomega external drive that won't mount. The drive has 2 partitions. One I use for back up works fine. This other one is visiable but won't mount. I have run disk utitility and it says everything is fine but says it isn't journaled. It won't let me turn on journaling and won't let me get it mounted, what can I do?

Hi Dennis:
Thank you for your attempt at helping me. I opened Disk Utility and saw the greyed out "video Editing" partition, clicked on it and tried to mount it. It says it cannot mount the volume. I then clicked on the greyed out drive partition and clicked on disk first aid. It gives me the following screen.
Verify and Repair volume “Video Editing”
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Video Editing appears to be OK.
It just plain won't mount but I have in the past been able to see the contents inside and the other partition for which I use as back up for my iMac works just fine so I know the drive is working fine. I just cannot get this partition to mount.
Any other ideas?
Thank you,
Reid

Windows Partition Won't Mount in OS X

Hi,
I just used Boot Camp to install Windows. I had Windows XP installed on my MacBook Pro awhile ago, but after I got it back from a hard drive repair I didn't put Windows back on. I recently downloaded the Windows 7 RC from Microsoft's site and used boot camp to install it. The install seemed to go fine, and I was in Windows setting up stuff for awhile. When I booted back into OS X, my Windows partition would not show up on the desktop, and would not appear in the Startup Disk preference. In Disk Utility, it shows up as grayed out with the generic name "disk0s3". When you try to mount it from there, it gives the error "The disk "disk0s3" could not be mounted. Try running First Aid on the disk and then retry mounting." Since I formatted it as NTFS (no other choice for Windows 7), I can't do a verify or repair on the disk.
Going into Terminal and doing a "diskutil list", I see the 50 GB windows partition labeled as "Microsoft Basic Data." I've been looking around for a fix but can't find anything. Many people were complaining about this issue on these discussion boards back in 2007 but there was no real solution found.
While I can still boot into Windows by restarting and holding option, it's very frustrating to not see the disk in OS X. Does anyone have a permanent fix for this? I know it can't just be something with Windows 7 because people were having this issue years ago. Could really use some help with this. Although I don't really have anything installed beyond Safari, Firefox, iTunes etc it would just be a hassle to have to reinstall, and it may end up doing the same thing.
Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Adam

Alright, well I finally made progress! I had heard from other people who had this issue that installing NTFS-3G and MacFUSE didn't help, so I didn't bother before. However, I tried it just for the **** of it, and it definitely improved things. When I first restarted after installing both NTFS-3G and MacFUSE, I got a message saying that the Windows partition was unmounted "uncleanly" or something to that effect. I was given two options: to Ignore, or to Force the partition to mount. When I chose Force, it actually mounted successfully. The name on the partition was for some reason "Untitled", even though when I boot while holding option it shows the partition as "Windows". But it mounted fine, and I could write to it. I booted back into Windows, and found that under Windows the drive was also unnamed. So I named it Windows, went back into OS X and the name stuck.
The only remaining issue is that OS X still doesn't recognize it as a startup volume in the Startup Disk system preference. So in order to boot into Windows, I still need to restart with option held down; however, that's not a major issue. I was mainly concerned with being able to see files on the Windows 7 partition and transfer files from OS X to Windows and vice versa. So I'm basically happy, although I'd still be a bit happier if Startup Disk would see it as a bootable volume.
I'd still be interested to hear any other thoughts about this issue. It must be a known issue by now, since there was a very similar thread about this back in 2007, and still not fixed in Leopard seemingly. If anyone knows what may have caused this issue, or how one would have gone about fixing it without installing ntfs-3g/MacFUSE, I'd be interested. Still hoping the issue will be fixed under Snow Leopard.
Adam

External firewire disk partition will not mount

I have two external hard drives connected by a firewire to my 2002 G4 iMac running OSX 10.3.9. One is a 160GB and the second a 360GB drive.
I was out of the room when the area experienced a minor power drop in voltage and when I came back the iMac had the message to shut down and restart. When I restarted everything appeared normal until I realised that one partition did not mount on the 360GB drive. I ran Disk Utility to check the disk and it found some issues (I failed to write them down..) but Disk Utility appeared to fix them.
The disk has 2 partitions and only one of the two partitions will not mount (the second partition works fine!). Disk Utility says that both partitions check OK.
I have rebooted several times. I have removed all other external attachments and rebooted but still the partition will not mount.
I cannot see the partition in Finder. The second partition on the disk is available to see and use in Finder.
I have selected the partition in Disk Utility (grayed out) and tried the "mount" button but nothing happens. For some 18 months up until now the drive has worked fine although I did notice a couple of times it took a while for the drive to open up in Finder and other applications. I use that particular partition daily, it has approx 100GB used of the 150GB total space.
When I ran Disk Utility it comes up with a variation in the results compared with the partition that has mounted OK. The result of running "Verify Disk" is listed below. The only diffeerence between the two partitions is the first line of each volume. Does the ",0" following "Checking HFS Plus volume." for the first partition called "Genesys1" indicate anything?
DISK UTILITY REPORT
Verifying volume “Genesys1”
Mounting Disk(S,"Checking HFS Plus volume.",0)
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Genesys1 appears to be OK.
Verifying volume “Genesys2”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Genesys2 appears to be OK.
2 volumes checked
2 HFS volumes verified
Any help would be appreciated.
Regards

Hello! Power failures are murder on disk drive directories as you have found out. Your best shot is to get DISKWARRIOR. It is the "gold standard" for these types of problems and can usually resolve the issue when Disk Utility cannot. As with any utility there are times when even it cannot fix things but it's the best there is at resolving such issues. Tom

Another OS 10.4.11 update problem - disk images won't mount?

Hi people,
Have never had to post on these boards as i've never suffered serious problems with my mac, until today.
Whilst installing/updating my powerbook to version 10.4.11 my mac seemed to crash so i rebooted my system. Probably not the best thing to do (i have little patience so was annoyed).
I'm guessing the update installed as my mac says it is now version 10.4.11 but when i go to mount any disk images it will not mount at all, but instead comes up with this message -
"The following disk image failed to mount
Reason - error 0xe00002c9"
I've verified and repaired the permissions on the startup drive in disk utility, and also verified the volumed and it says everything is ok in those departments. Although the option to repair the disk is not available for selection.
I've downloaded applejack, but obviously can't mount the image file.
Please help as this is a big problem with regards to my work and play!
Thanks for reading.

Hmm thank you for your time and effort on this problem BDAqua but unfortunately it still doesn't want to work! The 'DMG utility' program comes back with an error when trying to mount any of the disk images i have tried. I have been able to get up the script of what its doing in the 'console' application but that is ridiculously long, and i'd be lying if i said i have a single clue about what any of the script in it means!
So i'm guessing i'm gunna be archiving and re-installing. But this boads another question as i haven't a slightest clue about how to archive my files as i really don't want to lose any of it.
sorry BDAqua

Download of 10.3.9 dmg disk image won't mount error 199

have 10.3.7 downloaded MacOSXUpdateCombo10.3.9dmg (to run lego star wars xmas present for kid) over 12 hours on slow, country dial-up, downloaded direct from apple web site, near completion power failed but download restarted from previous interruption point. when I try to open file get message "the following disk image failed to mount - reason error-199"
so can't use it - any solution?

have 10.3.7 downloaded MacOSXUpdateCombo10.3.9dmg (to
run lego star wars xmas present for kid) over 12
hours on slow, country dial-up, downloaded direct
from apple web site, near completion power failed
but download restarted from previous interruption
point. when I try to open file get message "the
following disk image failed to mount - reason
error-199"
so can't use it - any solution?
I have a suggestion -- call someone you know who has access to high speed internet and ask him/her to download the combo dmg file, put it on a CD, and mail it to you in an envelope. If you are not too far from an Apple Store, they might let you bring a CD in to do the same.
Otherwise, you'll need to re-do the download again because it no doubt was corrupted by the power failure. The starting over might have worked except for the reason for the interruption being a power failure, which is hard to recover from.

Boot Camp partition won't mount in Disk Utility all of a sudden

I used to have a Windows 7 Boot Camp partition set-up and working perfectly.
Turned on my 2009 Mac Mini today and couldn't see it in the Finder. Opened Disk Utility, it was there, but grayed out. Right clicked and selected "Mount BOOTCAMP", got "mount failed"
Tried verifying and repairing disk, but no joy. So I removed the boot camp partition using Boot Camp Assistant and started again. Went fine, installed Windows 7 fine.
Booted back into Snow Leopard so I could unpair my bluetooth keyboard (I've found that I can only set-up the bluetooth keyboard in Windows 7 if I unpair it in OSX first). Again, Boot Camp partition doesn't show in the finder, and is grayed out in Disk Utility.
I googled this problem, and found a few people mentioning that NTFS drivers in OSX (e.g. MacFUSE, paragon etc) can cause issues because they conflict with Snow Leopard's own NTFS driver. I did have MacFUSE installed, so I removed it, but it didn't seem to change anything.
Any suggestions?

solution!
install NTFS-3G (http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/)
open disk utility and mount your greyed out partition (NTFS-3G will mount it)
unmount it
open system preferences, go to tuxera NTFS pref, second tab (Volumes)
make sure your windows 7 partition is selected from drop down menu then click "disable tuxera NTFS"
at this point i rebooted into windows, then rebooted back into snow leopard. my windows partition was once again mounted and visible in Finder
hope this works for you guys!
Message was edited by: colmiak

Problem with Startup; Macintosh Hard Disk (internal) won't mount

Hi. I hope you can help me.
I was getting ready to install Leopard on my computer but was stupid enough not to make a backup first. During the installation process, Leopard warned me that for it to upgrade to Leopard from Tiger, it will have to completely erase my hard disk and reformat it. I don't know why that is. Perhaps because at that time, I only had 6GB left in my drive. So, I cancelled out of the installation process. Something happened however and now my PowerPC G5 won't restart. It completely blanks out and shuts down in the middle of the restart. So I restarted using my Tiger install DVD. I then started Disk Utility. From there, I can see that while it can see my Macintosh hard disk, it is greyed out and shown as not mounted. I clicked on the Mount button, but that didn't work. I repaired disk, and that encountered errors and didn't go all the way through. I realize my only option might be to competely erase the drive and install Leopard or Tiger again. Before doing that though, I'd really like to rescue some of the files in the hard disk. What can I do? I have the use of a macbook and an iomega external drive at my discretion.
Thanks so much!

Diskwarrior has been known to find disks. Or try Techtool Pro.

Disk images won't mount

Hi,
I have installed Tiger 4.11 on my g4 dual and now .dmg files (driver updates and Camino) downloaded from Safari will mount.
Disk imager mounter does not work at all.
Disk utility gives following error: "Operation timed out"
Any idea whats going on? I need o update my drivers especially as audio quality is horrible.
The .dmgs will mount on my MacBook Pro 4.11 but I can't install over the network alas, these were downloaded by Camino - is the problem a Safari bug?
Help appreciated !
DS

Hi Andrew,
I think it means part of you OS is messed up, I seen it a few times, almost always requires the last A&I step.
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again 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.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot.
The usual reason why updates fail or mess things up, is if Permissions are not fixed before & after every update, with a reboot... you may get a partial update when the installer finds it doesn't have Permissions to change one obscure little part of the OS, leaving you with a mix of OS versions.
Some people get away without Repairing Permissions for years, some for only days.
If Permissions are wrong before applying an update, you could get mixed OS versions, if Directory is the slightest messed up, who knows!
If many Permission are repaired, or any Directory errors are found, you may need to re-apply some the latest/biggest updates again, or even do an A&I if you have enough free disk space.
Appears to be time for An Archive & Install, which gives you a new OS, but can preserve all your files, pics, music, settings, etc., as long as you have plenty of free disk space...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120

IMac in Target Disk mode won't mount on Mac Pro via Firewire

My iMac (intel Core 2 Duo) won't start up - it has the question mark in a folder icon.
I can't find the Apple Snow Leopard disk, so I've started it in Target Disk mode, connected it to my Mac Pro, but it doesn't mount on the Mac Pro even though it appears in System Profiler on the Mac Pro.
Both running 10.6.8
Can I force it to mount? I have tried front & back firewire ports and restarted several times to no avail.
I'm hoping to repair the iMac disk using Disk Utility or Diskwarrior on the Mac Pro, but need it to mount first.
Any ideas? Thanks.

I want to copy everything off the iMac before re-installing Snow Leopard & starting again.
I do not have a backup of the computer (I've had a backup hard drive on order for 7 weeks that has been delayed due to the shortages...) I am aware that this is very stupid of me.
The disk is obviously in very bad shape as Disk Utility can't do anything with it.
Diskwarrior v4.2 on a DVD will make a 'Preview' of a directory of it, but will not 'Replace' the directory as the disk is damaged.
1. Does anyone know how to make a startup DVD of Diskwarrior v4.4 (I have the v4.4 update but can't find out how to make a new startup DVD using the old v4.2 DVD and the software v4.4 update) and I think Alsoft must now be on holiday as they're not answering... (I would like to use v4.4 as it should be more capable).
2. Assuming I can get Diskwarrior (hopefully on a new v4.4 DVD) to make a 'Preview' again of the iMac directory, how do I copy everying off the computer? My only guess is to connect my Mac Pro in target mode to the iMac. Will the Mac Pro disk show up in the 'Preview' directory & therefore allow me to copy all of it's contents across to the target mode disk?
3. Assuming all the above works, is there a best way to copy all of the iMac contents to a folder in the Mac Pro? i.e. is there a way of Carbon Copying it so that after wiping the disk I can simply copy it all back? Or is it all too late for that
THANK YOU very much for any help.

Ack! Disk Images Won't Mount!

As of a month ago, I have been totally unsuccessful with mounting disk images. No disk image I download will mount. As you can imagine, this is a frustrating issue! I am far from computer savvy, so any help is appreciated. One suggestion I received was to reinstall the mounting utility, what are the implications of that?
Either way I would really like to know what is going on and how I can fix this! Anybody?

Thing to do is either try to repair what you have, or replace part/all of the OS, let us know which waty you want to go, but first...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, *you must select your language first.)*
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again 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.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then boot from your HD and Repair Permissions, then reboot again.

Disk Partition Won't Mount

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