Disk Utility Bug

I've noticed the opening animation stalls then pops to the full window. This was not the case with ML.

I specifially unchecked the radio button designating the post as a question. Though, I suppose, a question could be inferred.
To answer your question, I'm not sure of the name of the effect. To describe it, in terms of something like an After Effects movie, the window goes from 0 to 100% opacity and from, I'd estimate, a 60% to 100% scale. That particular animation stalls at roughly 10% of its cycle. It begins, hangs and then snaps to finished.
Confirmed that it does not appear to be related either the integrated or discrete GPU's.

Similar Messages

Disk Utility BUG SOLVED @@ COME AND READ @@.

On some of the older imac and mac books some of your may have problems using the restore tab in disk utility.
You are unable to drag the disk to the last slot.
I figured it out today.You don't have to install any third party software or use any terminal thingy.
Ok
So you launch disk utility and go to restore tab and you drag your dmg file or whatever on the first slot and you can't drag anything into the second one.I want you to drag it from the left hand side, On your desktop for example your usb thumbdrive is call MAC1 but dragging it from desktop to disk utility will not work.I want you to find MAC1 or whatever you use on disk utility on the left and drag it into the box.This will work.You can go on can try restore now@@@@.
If they say error 16 or something i want to you to unmount anything you have mounted and try restore again.it should work now.
If it doesn't work i can't help you
But anyway this works best with usb.So have fun

There is no bug. The instructions specifically say to drag the disk from the list to the left!
Dah•veed

Anyone know Disk Utility, Ignore Ownership, and disk image DL DVD issues?

I am currently having issues with backup DVD's I burned using Disk Utility. I can put the dual layer DVD's in and the system reads them. When I try to pull a file off the Dual Layer DVD a circle with an X appears notifying me that I cannot copy the files to my desk top.
When I check the DVD's permissions it reads Admin (me) read and write with the ignore ownership checkbox checked...which means I should be able to pull files off the DVD. The only way I can currently get information off the DVD is to duplicate the entire disk to a new folder by selecting the DVD while holding down the Cntrl key and selecting duplicate. I have had other issues with DVD's and disk images in Leopard....including having to eject either through disk utility or by selecting the image with the Cntrl key held down. Finder eject, keyboard eject, and the menu eject selections suddenly report that the disk is in use.
The DVD's were burned by creating a dual layer dvd image through disk utility with the read/write option checked.
After duplicating 2-3 disks, the system itself is unable to mount any more disks from the series of backups. When I look at disk utility it reads that the disk is not mountable. I have to restart my computer so the system can continue to read the backups.
My Itunes disk backups are marked the same way (ignore ownership) with admin read/write privlages....I have no problem pulling files off these disks.
I have tried both logging in as root and booting from an external drive...same problem. Is this some nasty Disk Utility bug? Is anyone else having bizarre permission related issues with Disk Utility and Disk Images.

When you create the image in Disk Utility, did you
change the 'Partitions' setting?
If you leave it to read 'CD/DVD', it will create a ISO9660/UDF image.
To be able to maintain permission and extended file attributes, you
need to select 'GUID Partition Map'.
I assume you used iTunes to create your music backup?
It seems it creates the correct image type for you.
Before sending this message, I actually created a single layer image,
copied some files to it and gave additional permissions to other users on my system.
Afterwards I copied the files to my Desktop, verifying that the attributes are still intact.
Best regards
(It took quite a while to burn this 4x DVD-RW Anyways, I hope I could help)

Disk Utility won't add new partition

I have an external 250GB hard drive connected via USB to my Mac Mini (Early 2009) computer. The drive has a GUID partition table that was created using Windows Vista SP 1. The first partition on the disk is a 128MB Microsoft Reserved partition. The second partition is a 120GB NTFS partition. When I try to use Disk Utility to partition the remaining 112GB of space as a Mac OS Extended Journaled partition I keep getting an error message stating "MediaKit reports no such partition". How do I get around this bug in Apple's Disk Utility application?

techguy378,
As they always do, Microsoft has undoubtedly created "their own" proprietary implementation of the GUID partition table. The effect, in this particular case, is that Disk Utility cannot see that unused space. That doesn't mean this is a Disk Utility "bug."
If one were to do the same thing with Disk Utility- create 2 partitions on a drive that do not fill the drive- that empty space would be included in the partition map. Simple. In your case, however, it appears that Vista has just excluded that empty space from the map entirely. Neat trick, huh?
I think your only solution will be to add a partition in Vista, if that is possible without destroying the current volumes. You can then reformat the new partition in Disk Utility.
Scott

When I check my boot SSD drive using Disk Utility under Mavericks, I often get "Incorrect number of extended attributes" errors. But if I boot off an external drive and check the same SSD, no errors are reported. Is this a bug in Mavericks?

When I check my boot SSD drive using Disk Utility under Mavericks, I often get "Incorrect number of extended attributes" errors. But if I boot off an external drive and check the same SSD, no errors are reported.
This happens not just with the SSD in my Mac Mini, but with another SSD in my MacBook (both now running Mavericks). So far as I know, all of the kit I am using is in good order (despite the file corruption reports). So I am beginning to wonder if it could be due to a bug in Mavericks? Both SSD drives have been formatted to MacOS Extended (journaled) format. Should I have used a different format, I wonder?
Has anyone else encountered this issue?
Does anyone have a solution?
Or an explanation that might help my investigation of the issue?
Thanks guys,

I understand that the Corsair Force 3 is not one of the SSD drives that are supported on Apple Macs.
I did try downloading and using Trim Enabler, but the error message came up both when it was off and when it was on.
I understand that not everyone thinks Trim Enabler is a good program, though there is a new version out now, so I may give it another try.

Bug or feature? Disk utility does not repair file ownership

The repair access permissions in "Disk utility" is not aware of the file owner "_unknown" that is shown in the file information. This cannot be changed in any other way than "sudo chown -R (me) file" in terminal.
Can't file this as a bug because I did not pay the 99 bucks yet.

You can send feedback to Apple at http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
While not "officially" filing a bug report, they do read them so if enough people file the same report or Apple deems it important enough to merit allocating resources to it, it could still make a difference.

'Disk Utility has lost connection with Disk Management Tool' w/ RAID 10 set

Using 4 internal drives, I have specified the following setup for each:
2 partitions, 1 'speed' of 5 GB and 1 'data' of whatever remains.
The 4 speed partitions stripe to a single RAID volume correctly.
The 4 data partitions are used to make a RAID 10 volume as follows:
The first 2 data partitions are mirrored to make a 'data-A'
The next 2 data partitions are mirrored to make a 'data-B'
These complete correctly.
Upon attempting to strip data-A and data-B in order to finish the RAID 10 setup, Disk Utility quits with the following message:
"Disk Utility has lost connection with the Disk Management Tool and cannot continue. Please quit and relaunch Disk Utility'.
A search here and on the nets reveals only that this message appeared in 10.3.x when attempting to repair disk permissions and had to do with a rogue iTunes support file. This is occurring on a blank system (no iTunes installed) so I don't think its the same cause.
Note that I was able to complete this setup under Tiger several times without issue, so it seems to be unique to Leopard. Does anyone know what is going on and hopefully suggest a workaround?

To answer my own issue and leave a marker here for others, I was able to successfully set up a RAID 10 partition using diskutil, indicating that the problem is Disk Utility itself and not the RAID implementation.
Disk Utility has proven itself to be bugridden (must restart frequently to get updated view of volumes; drops device names at various times; etc.) and this latest bug would seem to suggest that it should be avoided in favor of diskutil for any serious RAID construction.

Encrypted drive will not accept password when re-mounting via Disk Utility

I have used the 'whole disk encryption' on one of my external HDDs. Sometimes i eject the drive when i don't need it because it's in a 4bay housing along with 3 other drives. I do this because OSX wakes up all my drives even for mundane tasks like safari browsing or even looking for a dictionary definition. But anyway, my problem is if i want to re-mount that encrypted drive from disk utility (left mouse click on greyed out drive and re-mount) it does not accept my password. I get the little shake like i typed it in incorrectly. Anyway, i tried it like a dozen times and received a dozen shakes of negativity.
If i swith off the drive unit and swith back on again the password is accepted just fine..
Can anyone else test this so i can mark it up as a Lion bug? Or is there something else i need to try?
Thanks
Si

Hi MacNewb1022,
Welcome to Apple Support Communities.
The article linked below has some great troubleshooting tips that should help you resolve the slot-loading SuperDrive issue that you described.
Apple Computers: Troubleshooting the slot-loading SuperDrive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2801
Cheers!
-Jason

Disk utility reports "Device could not be opened" - error when trying to format a new drive in a Mac Pro 1,1

MacPro 1,1 Quadcore 3 GHz (2006 "Woodcrest")
32 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5770
OS X 10.7.5 Lion
I have encountered the following behavior when trying to format a new drive with disk utility. This description has also been send via the Mac Pro feedback as a bug report to Apple.
On searching the web and forums with this particular error message and behaviour I could not find any usful results. So maybe the following description may be helpful for some users.
Best regards.
1. Drive Bay 1 contains the original 250 GB Startupdisk. It works without errors.
2. Drive Bays 3 and 4 contain each a WD Caviar Black 2 TB SATA 3 HDD. They work without errors.
3. I have purchased a third WD Caviar Black 2 TB HDD.
4. In Drive Bay 2 there has been a Seagate 750 GB HDD, which worked in conjunction with all the other drives without error.
5. I exchanged the Seagate HDD in Drive Bay 2 with the new WD Caviar Black 2 TB HDD.
6. On starting the system, it will report to initialize the new drive.
7. On trying to initialize the new drive with disk utility it reports the error [translated from German] "Erasing of the volume has failed. The device could not be opened."
8. I thought that the drive is faulty. Thus I created an RMA-Case at WD. They exchanged the drive without problems.
9. On getting the exchanged WD Caviar Black 2 TB drive I put it in Drive Bay 2 as before.
10. On trying to erase and format the exchange drive I got the same error message "Drive could not be opened."
10.1 On selecting the physical drive in the devices list, disk utility reports all information in the bottom area of its window as usual, e. g. hard disk description, connection bus, type and place, capacity, write status, SMART-status, partition scheme.
10.1 On leaving that drive selected in the devices list and clicking the info-button, disk utility will also report additional information as usual, e. g. Name, Type, partition scheme, media-identification, media name, media type, device tree, … , number of relocated sectors, etc.. All this information appears to be valid, as can be compared to the other devices information inside the other Drive Bays. Also the disk numbering scheme appears to be standard - 4 HDDs give the numbering disk0, disk1, disk2, disk3.
10.2 From that information I conclude that the SATA-bus and connectors electrically work properly, the drive has spun up and can be accessed by the system normally.
11. I powered down the computer, took out the HDDs from Drive Bays 3 and 4 and put the caddy with the new exchange drive in Drive Bay 4 [Maybe, I could have also just left it alone in Drive Bay 2, or 3].
12. After powering on the system, disk utility will quick format the exchange drive without any error message. Also, when erasing again by selecting the option to write zeros to the drive, disk utility will finish without error.
13. After disk utility finished formatting, I put back the original drives into Drive Bay 3 and 4 and put the now newly formatted drive back into Drive Bay 2.
14. After switching on the computer the system start and login proceeds without any error message. All drives appear as expected on the desktop.

If anyone is reading this still looking for what caused the issue and how to fix it here is what I discovered.
The antivirus program our company uses, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, was causing some of the PDF files not to open. After troubleshooting the different modules and settings the culprit was..
Scan SSL in Privacy Control Settings. Turning it OFF solved the problem and all the PDF files that previously would not open now open just fine. This issue has been sent to Bitdefender for them to review. If you use a different antivirus program and are having this issue try locating the Scan SSL setting and see if turning it off solves the problem.

HT1553 Does using Disk Utility also backup MSOffice 2008 (Mac) software already installed on my Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard? If not, how would I do that?

Hi,
I'm looking to upgrade from Snow Leapord (10.6.8) to the new Mountain Lion. Have a lot of applications and softwares that I would like to back up when installing the new OS, such as MS Office, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Any ideas on what is the best way to do that.
I'm not too tech savvy, so a simple solution would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Shyam

If your not very tech savvy, I would have someone assist you in the upgrade process as your about to inflict major change on your life and computer.
There are some things to consider before you upgrade.
1: The age of your machine:
My advice has been if your Mac is less than two years old and has a dedicated graphics (not all only Intel HD 3000 or 4000 CPU graphics like the 13" has)) then you stand a very good chance of 10.8 (or 10.7) running fine on your machine.
In either case you need to check the specifications of your machine to see if it meets Apple's requirements, and unfortunately those requirements are a bit low, resulting in a slower machine when you upgrade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mountain_Lion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Lion
(note: 10.7 is no longer being sold via the AppStore, you should upgrade to 10.8, however some machines can't, you can call Apple Sales to upgrade to 10.7)
If your machine originally came with 10.5, I would say forget it. Mac's don't last forever and laptops usually have a life of about 4 years with normal use. Desktops last longer of course and can withstand more OS X upgrades if Apple allows it.
2: The age of your software.
10.7 and 10.8 will not run PPC based software of old like 10.6 does, also upgrading to 10.8/10.7 may require expensive software upgrades that can hit you unexpected. Consult this site and your other needed software and hardware drivers/software (for printers/scanners,custom keyboards/mice etc) BEFORE you upgrade the operating system.
http://roaringapps.com/apps:table
3: Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper "clone" (payware)
Your OS X boot partition to a new/reliable, blank powered external drive and use Disk Utility to Repair Permissions on both afterwards. You can hold the option key down and boot from this clone drive to use the computer like before if your OS X upgrade fails and the machine gets bricked. You can also use Disk Utility to erase the entire internal drive and reverse clone if you find out the OS X upgrade is not to your liking.
Make sure all other drives are disconnected, like TimeMachine when cloning or upgrading OS X, thus when you reboot TimeMachine doesn't self update itself, which can lock you out from going back in time to restore from.
Note: If you have Bootcamp, you can clone that with WinClone (payware) to another drive and recreate Bootcamp later and restore it.
4: Some firmware updates can possibly "BRICK" your hardware
Firmware updates progress in a forward manner and can't be downgraded, so what sometimes occurs is a software error by programmers or a hardware glitch on your machine won't 100% cooperate with the firmware update and thus your machine will fail to function. Sometimes even a interruption in the OS X upgrade or firmware update process will cause the problem. When this occurs, a trip to a Apple Repair is in order and if your machine is out of AppleCare (3 years) or the 1 years standard warranty your looking at a very expensive logicboard replacement. At this time you usually consider the cost not worth it and rather spend the money on the newer machine, especially if it's 2-3 years old. This can come as quite a shock as you expected to pay $20 for a OS X upgrade and now have to buy a whole new machine.
You can't not upgrade the operating system for security and bug fixes, however you make sure you have AppleCare that will protect you for three years if such a hardware bricking occurs. If you don't have AppleCare you might want to reconsider taking the chance upgrading the operating system and thus the firmware.
AppleCare can be purchased within one year of the original machine purchase, it gives one 3 years of care from the date of machine purchase, not from the date of AppleCare purchase.
5: Market share of OS x versions (apx)
10.4 4.5% security updates > no
10.5 15% security updates > no
10.6 52% security updates > yes
10.7 30% security updates > yes
10.8 2 million upgraded so far, just released
6: Your decision to upgrade or not
It depends upon your computer technical ability, the age of your machine, your software investment and your budget.
Can you afford to pay for professional assistance if your upgrade doesn't go as expected? Are you in AppleCare?
Can you afford to pay for upgrades to third party software?
Can you afford the downtime while your machine is being repaired?
Can you live without the "new features" newer OS versions provide?
Does your hardware even support the newer features?
You might decide the upgrade is not worth it for your older machine and decide to ease yourself into a new machine gradually. I took this approach with my 2006 MacBook Pro, buying a Early 2011 model. I then upgrade to 10.7 on the older 2006 machine and glad I did, because it got bricked. Turned out 10.7 was a pretty awful upgrade and I was out of AppleCare, however 10.8 seems to be "normal" far as OS X upgrades go, some problems but not mass bricking of machines.

Time Capsule Disk Doesn't Appear in Finder or Disk Utility

I have a 500G Time Capsule (single band, I think) that I want to partition (just into disk images, not volumes) so that I can maintain separate-sized locations for my family's music library, photos, and Time Machine backups for the non-media files on each of a Mac Mini and 4 laptops. But I will ask more about that later.
My more immediate problem is that the Time Capsule Disk Volume generally just doesn't appear in my Finder or in Disk Utility at all. A couple weeks ago, for some reason, it did appear once and I took the opportunity to create a 215G Disk Image--leaving 250G for the rest of the Disk Volume which was indicated as having 465G rather than 500G actually available. But since then (as before) the Time Capsule volume hasn't appeared in Disk Utility at all, and only rarely in the Finder.
In the Finder the Time Capsule appears under the Shared heading in the left panel, with the Time Capsule disk volume appearing as a folder in the right panel (if it connects, which it usually requires a password for, but sometimes it doesn't...). If I open the folder then the right panel goes blank (indicating, I think, that I have opened the volume but there is nothing inside) and the volume (usually) eventually shows up under my own Mac in the Devices heading. (That is, the Time Capsule disk volume shows up along with Network, Macintosh HD, and Remote Disk in the right Finder panel when I select my Mac under Devices in the left Finder panel.) At that point the TC volume shows up in the Finder as a 220G Volume and the disk image shows up indented under it as a 215G Disk Image; indented under the Disk Volume there is also a 5G Sparsebundle file from a Time Machine backup. If I open the 220G Disk Volume in the right Finder panel then it shows only the 215G Disk Image and the 5G Sparsebundles in the right Finder panel. This seems to suggest that the 215G Disk Image and the 5G Sparsebundles are both treated as 'used' and the 220G size given for the Disk Volume represents what is left (although 215+5+220=440, so where the extra 25G went I don't know).
If I open the 215G Disk Image in the right Finder panel then, after a while, it shows up as a Disk Image in the right Finder panel when my Mac is selected under Devices in the left panel. I can create folders in the Disk Image and copy documents to those folders, at least.
But in any case, regardless of whether I open the 220G Disk Volume or the 215 Disk Image in the Finder, the Disk Volume never appears in Disk Utility so there is no possibility of reformatting it. The 215 Disk Image has sometimes shown up in Disk Utility (and once it apparently allowed me the option of partitioning the Disk Image into further Disk Images), but sometimes it doesn't show up and I haven't been able to figure out why it does or doesn't.
I find this all very confusing and the Finder and Disk Utility behavior seems downright erratic. I'm not sure whether something is broken or if I just don't understand how it works (starting with the difference between the Devices and Shared headings in the left Finder Pane). I would appreciate any advice on how I can reliably access the Time Capsule disk volume in the Finder and Disk Utility. Thanks.

Same problem after 10.8.2 update yesterday,
Time Machine functions but disk does not mount in finder.
The disk also shows up in disk utility when TM is running
as mounted (beneath a sparse image file) but not visible.
Is this a bug, or a feature?
LW
MBPro. OSX Mountain Lion, backing up to Time Capsule

10.4.10 will show external hard drive in Disk Utility (in turn, mount)

Here's the problem in a nutshell. When I'm running 10.4.10 my Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (installed in an external enclosure) will not show up in Disk Utility (in turn also unable to mount). My DVD-RW burner will work, the enclosure is fine. When I boot off of the Mac OS X Install CD and run Disk Utility the drive and its partitions display. I did an archive and install and they were back in Mac OS X (10.4.7). - Rather than using Software Update, I decided to download the 10.4.10 Combo update manually and install (with the drive ejected and unplugged of course). Same issue once booting in Mac OS X 10.4.10...
Before I do an archive and install again, and revert to 10.4.9 indefinitely, is there anything I can try. I did googling, deleted some preference/cache files with no success.

This bug popped up after 10.4.9 was released and many folks (myself included) have experienced the same problem - after the install external hard drives, both FireWire and USB, are no longer accessible or visible.
In fact, I'm searching the discussion boards now to see if the 10.4.10 update fixed this. Apparently it has not.
Here are some other threads about this and 10.4.9 that might be of use to you:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=897541
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=892387
I finally reverted to 10.4.8, which perfectly recognizes my external drives, and will not update until I know this bug has been fixed. As far as I know, reverting is unfortunately the only way to fix this issue.:(

Phantom restarts / crashes with Maverick. Restore Disk Utility, disk can't be repaired says "live system repair is not supported" Is there a fix yet? Or is Maverick "FREE" because Apple no longer offers free phone support?

Phantom restarts / crashes with Maverick. Under restore Disk Utility, disk can't be repaired says "live system repair is not supported" Is there a fix yet? Or is Maverick "FREE" because Apple no longer offers free phone support?

Get onto the integrated iOS + Mac OS and end support for "legacy" Mac 10.8 and earlier.
Force older hardware users like me to upgrade to new hardware which is where $$ are.
Make apps work across tablets, phone, and computer with similar (though not the "same" app, but able to read and use the same file format).
Simplify.
I don't think anyone incl. Microsoft knew Windows 8.1 was going to be a free upgrade, I didn't and read that it would be more like $30.
No OS is ready for everyone on the day it is launched. iOS 7 is now 7.04 and climbing, Mac OS tends to really not be ready until the last patch and version is out, often a year or more after it was first issued. Ship it, then plan to fix the bugs left in or that surface.
www.macperformanceguide.com is saying "No" to Maverick for now. Of course there will be no "No" on new Mac Pro 2013 6,1 when those ship (Late Jan? )

Data loss Lacie 500GB external drive_ disk utility changed partition!

Details of problem. I have a 500GB Lacie mini hub HDD which is used with an iMac angle poise. Recently it has been playing up- unable to access folders/files etc. and since I know the PSU fails on these items (capacitors fail -5V and 12V go haywire- already fixed another one - I have a 320GB with a mac mini setup) I removed unit from the imac and connected in place of the 320GB lacie on the mac mini, using the known good PSU. The iMac is running latest 10.4 and mac mini is running latest snow leopard 10.6.1
The Lacie spun up and mounted OK and I was able to access all files folders with no issue, so since I was keen to make sure it was 'fixed' I ran disk utility. It ran and said it verified and then I realised I hadn't run repair so re-did this. Big mistake!
It did the same run and said no problems found, but it then said something like updating partition! Horrified I waited and it seemed to finish or had finished straight away. Not sure. I looked at folders and yes main 2 items in place, but nothing showing below this. ****. It got worse. I ejected and tried to reconnect and low and behold it says drive needs formatting now. Disk utility even shows this 500GB as having 2.2TB of space, which I see in other posts is another issue.
I have important data backed up elsewhere, but there are a large number of files I do not have copies of and suspect there is a way to recover these. I have since seen all the 'data loss' guest account issues and wonder if this is yet another bug in snow leopard.
Have tried running Techtool Pro 5.0.6 to see if it can see the data but its not seeing anything. Will try Diskwarrior and others, but may well shelve to see if apple gets an os update released for data loss issues.
Any thoughts on how to recover? Anyone with a similar issue? I am pretty certain this is not a failed hard drive as it sounds 100% normal. Thanks for any help or guidance.

Thanks for all the comments recieved. V.K. made me re-evaluate what I had proved or not. I was fairly certain (not 100%) that the drive mech was OK, because the psu had failed, but should have proved drive mech was actually OK. So I removed the mech (as USB abd firewire can't do SMART etc.) and hooked up to an old G4 Powermac. I then found that the SMART verified, but had forgotten the 128GB limitation on older macs. So removed and got a PC to hook it up and run latest IBM_Hitachi drive fitness and other diags. (its a Deskstar HD and I have had almost zero issue with these drives over the years.) It checks out fine, so I was correct in my initial thoughts, only the PSU was faulty.
So back to my initial suspicions that Snow Leopard or disk utility has screwed things up, maybe a bug, maybe not. And I did run verify first and it said it was OK, only when I re-ran the repair did it then do a "partition update" (or whatever it said - should have done a screen capture - searched apple but can't find listing of all mesgs avail. must be in developers site I expect). So I am back at looking at how to recover, if at all possible, but as Alsoft have said this is not something Diskwarrior can do directly. Files must still be there just partiton map is now in a ... needs to be initialised mode. Not that I will do that.
So I guess summary is possible bug/funny in 10.6 and/or disk utility.
sounds like I will be contacting Alsoft now
may read up on partition map damage first, so I get a better picture of whats involved.
Cheers and thanks for all the help/ideas.
BTW - been using macs_pcs for decades now and helping friends & family fix things as and when. This is first time needed to post on forum as always found answers to questions I had previously. Must remember the old adage of not jumping onto new technology until it has bedded down I bet if I had hooked up to the old G4 Powermac I wouldn't be in this position. Thanks again.

MacBook Pro failing to boot up despite disk utility repair and PRAM

Problem: MBP frozen on boot up screen with Apple logo and turning gear (which freezes after a while aswell)
Solutions attempted: disk repair via custom recovery- disk utility, PRAM
Device: MacBook Pro 15" (early 2010) running 10.9
Additional info-
Never had any issue with the device and this seems to have happened all of a sudden. Installed an SSD a few months ago, and just realised the ssd did not have a recovery partition. However I connected my older hardrive via USB to access recovery which seemed to work fine.
NOTE: for the past few weeks, every now and then I was unable to power the device off and whenever this occurred, there seemed to be a few bugs (ie unable to empty thrash-error 50 and enable to increase/decrease volume/screen brightness). However, holding the power button and restarting it seemed to have fixed it.
Had the same issue but this time around MBP failed to boot up.
Any possible suggestions?

Ranban wrote:
Are you suggesting reinstalling the os?
No.
Furthermore, is there a way to keep the data intact using this method? Or retrieve it at the least?
Repairing a disk should have no affect on the data, nor would an OSX installation. However if the data has value, there always should be a backup, preferably two.
In your original post you said "attempted: disk repair via custom recovery- disk utility". The term 'custom recovery' to me is alien and thus confusing.
What I am suggesting is a repair of the HDD using the original installation disk, not an OSX installation.
You insert the disk holding down the C key at startup. Proceed with the process until you see on the top of the display a menu bar. Select UTILITIES and from the drop down menu select Disk Utility. Then select Disk Utility>First Aid and then run Verify and repair. Exit from the installation process.
That way I know that the attempted repair was properly executed. You may have in essence done that, but there is an element of doubt in my mind.
Ciao.

Disk Utility Bug

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