Disk Utility and Bad External Drive

I have a drive that has just suddenly started to not be recognised by the system. It's a pain but no big deal as I didn't have much on it. However, I don't want to just give up on 200GBs of space and tried to erase/partition it. Nothing happens though, the progress bar fills up by about 2mm and then hangs, left it overnight, everything. The thing is the drive is still seen by DU, so does anyone have any other suggestions or recommendations for recovery software? Any help would be mucho appreciated....

TechTool Pro 4.6.2 is what I use now after 8 yrs of Disk Warrior.
Data Rescue II is one option if you don't have files backed up.
SuperDuper is great for cloning and backup, once you are able to.
A couple of backups (don't put all your eggs in one basket), too.
http://www.macsales.com/firewire/
With a new drive, it sometimes makes sense to zero the drive first. Formatting just tests the first and last 100 sectors for bad blocks. TechTool can test media for bad blocks but not map them out, zero all 'might' or there is Intech Speedtools.
http://www.speedtools.com
Sorry TimeMachine isn't current.
The first time you have a hard crash is when you want to do Safe Boot or FSCK, or boot from an alternate drive immediately and trash the most recent temp and cache files (web browers etc).
Leopard Cache Cleaner can 'clean' caches even while booted from another drive. Having that emergency boot drive/partition is therefore essential for running DW and other programs.

Similar Messages

Bootable backups - disk utility and which external drives

hi all
(maybe) a simple question
i have been using time machine for my back ups but i am now planning to have a second backup program. i'm looking at using a bootable clone in this regard.
i started looking at super duper and ccc however a few stumbling blokes have just popped up (well at least warning signs that may be of no issue at all - hence this question)
* can ALL external drives be used for bootable backup purposes?
I have a couple of western digital ones - my book essential and my passport.
On the western digital website, it does not have my model numbers listed - does it matter?
Is it a case of any usb connected external drive can be used for intel macs? - i am getting conflicting views on various postings i have seen re this question
second part/question is:
i also understand disk utility can be used for cloning (no updates, just full clones) and as a bootable back up.
if, just for the purposes for having a back up bootable drive, can i set up a clone without too much regard for recloning it (say every 2 months) and if i need to use it, then boot the mac back up with it and then do a full restore using my up to date time machine backups? am i missing something with that method? is that too simple?
feedback much appreciated on these 2 areas
cheers
peter t

Crows2012 wrote:
1) there is no way to make a BOOTABLE clone using disk utility or time machine whatsoever, right? DU will only allow me to make clones and Recovery HD essentially allows me to restore the system (ie software) AFTER booting up?
Correct with respect to TM; all you get is a copy of the Recovery HD.
Disk Utility will make a bootable clone, but there are downsides. First, it can only do a whole copy; unlike a specialized cloning app, it won't copy just what's new or changed, so takes a long time. Second, as I understand it, it won't copy to a smaller volume, even if there's plenty of free space on the internal. For example, if you have a 1 TB internal with only 400 GB on it, DU won't copy it to a 500 GB drive. I may be wrong, but I've seen that posted here by folks who seem to know.
does file b here mean aliases of file b in each backup?
It acts sorta like that, but no.
There's one copy of the actual file, but two hard links to it, one in each folder. The file actually "belongs" to both folders at the same time! The good part of that is, if you delete either backup folder, the other one remains intact. The downside is, how the heck do you count the size of each folder accurately?
that was a great read to understand TM workings and attain some level of piece of mind re my question of incremental v differential backups
It is a bit hard to get your head around! I've been revising and editing that for several years trying to make it clear.
And remember, this only applies to TM as far as I know, at least for consumer-level backup apps.
While it may be possible to boot your computer to an external hard drive, Western Digital does not provide technical support for booting your computer using an external hard drive. If you intend to make a copy of your boot drive, or install your operating system, please use a second internal drive (EIDE or Serial ATA), rather than an external drive.
Yup. WD doesn't exactly have a good reputation for support.
i guess i'll trial CCC or SD and see what happens with the drives that i have re BOOTABILITY
I use CCC myself -- it's a great product with great support.
I downloaded SD a couple of times, but never got around to experimenting with it. Lots of folks swear by it, and say it also has excellent support. To a large degree, it just seems to be a matter of which approach and GUI you prefer, but CCC does allow "archiving" of changed and deleted stuff (differently from TM), and can copy Recovery HDs. I don't think SD does either, but it may have other advantages.
4) and, i think one final question, and a simple/naive one at that.....if my internal hard drive physically collapses then what are the benefits of that bootable clone v not having one?
You can start up from the clone and run normally (but likely a bit more slowly), although you probably won't be as up-to-date as you would after restoring to a new or repaired internal, or an external, from TM. The reason is, running a clone backup, even an incremental one, takes much longer and far more CPU than one of TM's quick incrementals, which it will do hourly if you let it. Few folks using a clone for an OSX drive do it more than once per day, many only once a week.
The downside is, if you run from the clone, you no longer have a backup -- the clone has the only copy of your stuff. That's one reason many folks who use only a cloning app have two (or more) externals with them.
Apart from (obviously) being able to start up immediately to do whatever i wanted to do at the time, after i replace the hard drive (if that was to be the case) are there further expenses or much inconvenience suffered due to not having a bootable drive in getting things all sorted internally on the mac? what is the process in that regard, generally speaking
Just clone the external to the new internal, and you're back in business.
thanks heaps for your time to answer these and previous questions and to build up my understanding of these topics
You're quite welcome.

How did Disk Utility make my external drive undetectable?

Greetings all,
It all started when I dropped a running external hard drive (WD My Book Essential) onto the floor.
I immediately plugged the disconnected USB back into the drive and waited..
The first pop-up said the drive could not be read so I re-plugged it.
It worked and I could read files but it took a long time just to show those files in finder.
There was obviously a problem with the drive so I opened up Disk Utility and clicked Verify Disk.
When it was finished verifying I noticed it changed my disk name from "My Book" to "disk1s1."
I also got a message saying "This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk."
I proceed to click Repair Disk only to end with a message saying "Disk Utility stopped repairing “disk1s1”: 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."
At this point I followed the instructions on screen and proceeded to copy files from the external drive to my internal drive.
After pasting some files, the usual popup indicating transfer information was stuck at zero.
After a long time of waiting it still remained at zero so I had to force close finder and restart.
Once I restarted the Macbook Pro, my external hard drive no longer showed up on my desktop nor Disk Utility.
It still spins but stops after a minute.
Below is the log from Disk Utility.
Any help regarding this issue will be appreciated.
2012-11-14 16:47:00 +0800: Disk Utility started.
2012-11-14 16:49:29 +0800: Verifying volume “My Book”
2012-11-14 16:49:29 +0800: Starting verification tool:
2012-11-14 16:53:40 +0800: Checking file system2012-11-14 16:53:40 +0800: Checking Volume /dev/disk1s1...
2012-11-14 16:53:58 +0800: This is not an NTFS volume.
2012-11-14 16:54:39 +0800: Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.2012-11-14 16:54:39 +0800:
2012-11-14 16:54:39 +0800: Disk Utility stopped verifying “disk1s1”: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.
2012-11-14 16:55:09 +0800:
2012-11-14 16:55:22 +0800: Verify and Repair volume “disk1s1”
2012-11-14 16:55:22 +0800: Starting repair tool:
2012-11-14 16:55:22 +0800: Checking file system2012-11-14 16:55:22 +0800: Checking volume.
2012-11-14 16:55:22 +0800: Checking main boot region.
2012-11-14 16:55:35 +0800: Volume repair complete.2012-11-14 16:55:35 +0800: Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.2012-11-14 16:56:14 +0800: Error: 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.2012-11-14 16:56:14 +0800:
2012-11-14 16:56:14 +0800: Disk Utility stopped repairing “disk1s1”: 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.
2012-11-14 16:56:44 +0800:
2012-11-14 16:58:08 +0800: Disk Utility started.
2012-11-14 16:58:14 +0800: Eject of “WD My Book 1140 Media” succeeded
2012-11-14 17:04:21 +0800: Eject of “WD My Book 1140 Media” failed

In a word, it appears that the "dropped" external drive is physically damaged internally, and so can't run "Repair Disk" properly. Time for a new external hard drive.
Hope this helps

Disk utility wont format external drive

Hi all
I have a friends 1 TB toshiba external drive, purchased at office works. I am trying to format it for NTFS so he can use it to watch the movies he is copying on any machine, xbox etc..
using disk utility I am erasing the 1tb drive with the NTFS format option, then I am creating the partition with NTFS but after formatting, it is only allowing me to read. I have tried formating the hard drive with Mac OSX journaled and then creating the partition at 1tb with NTFS, but getting the same issue.
I am a little confused as I just did the same thing with my 2TB drive I purchased from Office works as well.
any ideas?
bret

Hi Bret. I am not sure I fully understand the details of your problem - the mention of another drive (the 2TB one) confused me a little. I'll try to help though because it doesn't look like anyone has had a chance to reply to your question yet.
As far as I can see, OS X doesn't write to NTFS formatted drives by default. It appears you can enable it by altering the mount options, e.g. http://learnaholic.me/2013/11/11/enable-ntfs-write-on-mac-os-x-mavericks/
Alternatively, perhaps just formatting it as FAT32 would achieve your aim - although now that I check, it doesn't really look suitable as it has a 4GB file size limit and some of the movies could be over that.
Hope that helps.
Ivan

Using Disk Utility to format external drive as Apple extended?

Hello - I just bought a 750G Lacie USB hard drive, am attempting to reformat it from FAT32 to Mac Extended. However, when I attempt to 'erase' the drive and replace it with Mac Extended, I get the following error message:
+2009-04-28 22:12:24 +0100: Preparing to erase : “ReadyNAS”+
+2009-04-28 22:12:24 +0100: Partition Scheme: Master Boot Record+
+2009-04-28 22:12:24 +0100: 1 volume will be created+
+2009-04-28 22:12:24 +0100: Name : “ReadyNAS”+
+2009-04-28 22:12:24 +0100: Size : 698.6 GB+
+2009-04-28 22:12:24 +0100: Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)+
+2009-04-28 22:12:24 +0100: Creating partition map.+
+2009-04-28 22:12:26 +0100: Formatting disk1s1 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name ReadyNAS.+
+2009-04-28 22:12:27 +0100: Disk Erase failed with the error:+
+File system formatter failed.+
+2009-04-28 22:12:28 +0100: Erase complete.+
+2009-04-28 22:12:28 0100:
+2009-04-28 22:12:28 +0100: Disk Utility failed during an unspecified action with the error:+
I can reformat it as FAT32, no problem.
Any clues? Thanks!

Use the "partition" tab in Disk Utility, set it to "1 Partition" click the "Options" button, and choose "GUID".

Disk Utility and 320GB hard drive

I just installed a WD Scorpio 320GB hard drive in my first-generation MacBook. Everything works fine in normal use.
When I go to Disk Utility, however -- using the new internal HD as my startup disk -- the "Repair Disk" button is grayed out. The other three buttons are ok. "Verify Disk" shows no errors, and I can successfully run "Repair Disk" when I start up from a Leopard DVD. The "S.M.A.R.T." status check for the disk is OK.
My question: Is the grayed out button a matter of Disk Utility not being designed (yet) for 320GB disks on a MacBook? -- and I shouldn't worry? Or is the grayed out button a sign that something is wrong that I should be alert to?

You cannot repair the drive that booted the computer so assuming you didn't boot your computer with the installation DVD, this is normal.

Tried to reformat Time Capsule with Disk Utility and now no Drive

So, not reading manuals finally bit me in the behind. I was too impatient waiting for all my back up files to erase so I could free up space, so I got the great idea.......I'll just reformat the disk with Mac Disk Utility, NOT the Airport Utility. Now my Airport says drive needs repair, however, there is no option in the airport utility for disks anymore.
Is there anything I can do to get the hard drive back? or am I stuck with a very expensive wifi device now?
Please help if you can.

Which model TC do you have??
What OS are you running? You might find running the older 5.6 utility gives you a bit more control but that is not possible if you have Mavericks.. it can be still installed on lion and Mountain Lion.
Do a factory reset of the TC if you haven't already tried.
The Factory Reset Gen1-4.
Unplug your TC. Hold in reset. and power the TC back on.. without releasing reset for about 10sec. When the status light flashes rapidly; release it.
Be Gentle! Feel the switch click on. It has a positive feel.. add no more pressure after that.
TC will reboot after a couple of minutes with default factory settings and will wipe out previous configurations.
No files are deleted on the hard disk.. No reset of the TC deletes files.. to do that you use erase from the airport utility.
Factory reset Gen 5
Hold in reset for about 5sec until the status light flashes quickly.
If your AirPort Time Capsule still doesn’t respond, do a similar reset to the Gen1-4.
Unplug your AirPort Time Capsule .. hold in reset and power the TC back on.. without releasing the reset.. wait until status led flashes rapidly.

Disk utility software for external drive

i upgraded my macbook's hard drive so i utilized the original apple HDD into an external drive.
am using ONYX regularly to check on my internal hard drive.
however, i do not know how to check my external hard drive for errors, is there a software capable of doing such a task?

Glad I could help. Thanks for the s.

HT201250 Can I make my iMac think it has more (HDD) memory (not RAM) by using disk utility and an external 500GB drive?

I have a Macbook Pro and iMac which are both great. But my 500gb hard drive isn't big enough to backup my 320GB MB PRO
I thought maybe I can attach my HDD to my iMac to give it more memory. Then backup to the iMac
If this isn't possible, could I login as an iMac user on my macbook pro and just have a mini server using my iMac and MB PRO? (My sister and parents use the iMac as their primary computer, i use my MB Pro as mine, so they would have to be able to use the computer at the same time as me using my macbook)
In otherwords, I just want to be able to back up wireleslly but still acces all my files on both computers offline.

If you're talking about TIme Machine backup, it should be dleting as it goes but I agree you need more to run that effectively.
One solution, instead of TM would be to make a bootable clone with either SuperDuper or CarbonCopy Cloner
and use that as your backup solution until you get a disk large enough for TM.

"Repair Disk" option in Disk Utility need to repair drive.

I have a Seagate GoFlex Desk 2TB external hard drive. I use it as a backup drive for Time Machine. When I plug it into my iMac it dosen't open, I opened Disk Utility and clicked "Verify Drive" and then I got this...
I have backups on this drive. If I click "Repair Drive" will I lose the data on the drive?

After I Repair the drive this is what I get...
What should I do now? Is my drive bad?

Help needed. I have a 3TB external hard drive partitioned into 1TB's. I used one partition as backup for the main computer hard drive. But now it is greyed out as shown in the disk utility and its name changed, i dont know how that happened, i tried verif

Help needed. I have a 3TB external hard drive partitioned into 1TB's. I used one partition as backup for the main computer hard drive. But now it is greyed out as shown in the disk utility and its name changed, i dont know how that happened, i tried verifying and repairing it but had no luck. I also tried mounting and unmounting it but still no solution. Anyone to help please?

Looks bad. I would strongly advise backing up the stuff on the other two partitions as soon as possible in case the rest of the drive goes wrong.
Beyond that, Disk Utility has limited abilities to repair disks, DiskWarrior uses a different approach and might, emphasis might be more successful. It has certainly done the job for me in the past when Disk Utility could not.
See http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/

Disk Utility and DiskWarrior trouble with external hard-drive.

I got an external hard-drive that doesn't show up on finder. On both Disk Utility and DiskWarrior it keeps mounting and unmounting. Disk Utility when trying to repair, spits this out when it unmounts...
2011-07-28 22:43:43 -0700: Problems were encountered during repair of the partition map
2011-07-28 22:43:43 -0700: Error: Some information was unavailable during an internal lookup.
2011-07-28 22:43:43 -0700: : Some information was unavailable during an internal lookup.
2011-07-28 22:43:43 -0700: [DUDiskController mountDisk] expecting DUDisk, but got nil
On DiskWarrior it simply says 'Directory cannot be rebuilt due to disk hardware failure (-36,2747)
Earlier today it would stay mounted and Disk Utility would spit out...
Verify and Repair volume “Back-up Hard Drive”
Checking file systemChecking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Invalid sibling link
Rebuilding catalog B-tree.
Invalid node structure
The volume Back-up Hard Drive could not be repaired.
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
Error: 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.
while DiskWarrior would try to fix it, but on
Step 5: Locating directory date...
Speed reduced by disk malfunction: 339,474, er make that 340,239, er make that 341,327
and I finally gave up there.
I try to fix the Invalid sibling link error via Terminal and I get this...
imac-2:~ Migrated$ fsck_hfs -r /dev/disk2s2
** /dev/rdisk2s2 (NO WRITE)
Can't open /dev/rdisk2s2: Resource busy
Is there ANY THING I can do to get it to stay mounted and possibly fix this? This is my back-up hard-drive!!

It's the cord that's being used that decides if it shows up, or if it shows up and then goes away over and over. Using a cord where it stays on in the programs, when I run Disk Utility of the darked out part of the hard-drive, it spits out...
Verifying and repairing partition map for “MICRONET”
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition’s size
Checking the EFI system partition’s file system
Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces
Reviewing boot support loaders
Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions
Updating Windows boot.ini files as required
The partition map appears to be OK
while the part of the disk just below it that's light spits out
Verifying volume “Back-up Hard Drive”
Checking file system
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.
Verify and Repair volume “Back-up Hard Drive”
Starting repair tool:
Checking file system
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
Error: 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.
Disk Utility stopped repairing “Back-up Hard Drive”: 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.
while DiskWarrior tries to rebuild it and spits out a memory error.

I have all of my iTunes music on an external hard drive (Glyph 3TB), all of a sudden iTunes will not play any of my music. i ran disk utility and i'm good. What else can i do??

Greetings,
I have a macbook pro purchased in 2009. I run the current Yosemite OS X on it, and have over 12, 000 iTunes music tunes stored on an external hard drive (Glyph 3TB). Recently iTunes does not load up on my computer. I've ran disk utility and repair, etc and it says everything is fine, however i can't seem to get iTunes to come up and play music. My questions:
what can i do to fix this?? Is my macbook pro too old that i need to seriously consider purchasing a new one?? If i purchase a new macbook pro, can i hook up the Glyph 3TB to the new one and have it play my music without problems/?
Thanks,
Rich

Click here and follow the instructions.
(37765)

I have an external hard drive from my time capsule that stopped working on me. I am attempting to access the data with a hard drive reader on my MAC. I am able to see the drive in disk utility and under system info USB. But I am unable to access the data.

I have an external hard drive from my time capsule that stopped working on me. I am attempting to access the data with a hard drive reader on my MAC. I am able to see the drive in disk utility and under system info USB. But I am unable to access the data and it does not show on the desktop when connected.

Ok if disk utility was able to verify the drive I doubt there is any problem.. are you trying to open a TM backup??
You need to mount the sparsebundle then check the actual info inside the bundle.
Don't use disk warrior.. if the disk has verified then unless you deliberately deleted files there is nothing that is going to do.
Pondini has a lot of stuff about getting access to the sparsebundle.
http://pondini.org/TM/17.html
But if you have copied info to the TC that is now gone.. and the disk is ok.. I am not sure.. the TC will not have deleted the files itself.

How to recover after performing an 'Erase' and then 'Partition' within Disk Utility of an External USB drive?

Hi - I accidently ran an 'Erase' and then 'Partition' within Disk Utility of an External USB drive (meant to run it against another drive that was plugged in). Does anyone have any suggestions on if it is possible to recover from this? It has all my family photos on it and my backup is a few months old :-(
I tried running Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery but it found what looks like basic mac folder structure (probably from the first erase). I think what messed me up was that I rain the repartition which formats the drive a 2nd time! Any help is truly appreciated!
thank you,
-Steve

Hello RalphR_MI,
Take a look at this page, which lists several articles. Please let me know if any of these help you restore your backup.
Also, take a look at this article, as well as this one.
I hope this helps. I'm not sure of a few things, so I'm sorry for sending you so much, but I'm confident it will give you something new to try.
Please let me know if this helps. Good luck!
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Disk Utility and Bad External Drive

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