Disk Utility can't mount internal disk but tells me use First Aid?

I have a Western Digital internal 500 GB hard drive that has failed. At first, Disk Utility did tell me it was damaged but still was able to mount it - giving me partial use. I also ran Disk Warrior and was able to salvage some files.
My good news is that Western Digital is replacing it, no problem. However, I have to send this one back and I want to erase the contents. But now Disk Utility cannot mount it at all and give me this cryptic message: "The Disk, WD500, could not be mounted. Try running First Aid on the disk and then retry mounting."
My question is, how can I run First Aid when Disk Utility cannot mount it. (I tried booting from my Install disk and running it from there.) S.M.A.R.T status says, failing. All the usual options such as erase, partition, repair are not available, though the drive shows up, in bright red.
Any suggestions? Thanks.
Anyone know of a way for me to simply erase this drive before having to return it to WD.

Hello Noodle-head;
Disk Utility cannot mount it at all and give me this cryptic message: ...
So you're having a HD mounting problem, Hmm.
I have tried selecting both. Neither gives me any options.
If the HD shows up in the Disk Utility App then there's a way to toast it.
Whoa! ... Now if I can just find out what a magnetron magnet is...
Don't bother because the only magnets powerful enough to scrub data from a drive platter are laboratory degaussers or those used by government agencies to wipe bits off media. That's the reason why the Disk Utility App has a '35 Zero-Pass Security Erase' option.
So you have two choices ...
Your first choice is to just send it back and don't worry about it. I doubt that WD will try to access your data unless you want them to. It's very expensive to retrieve data on a dead/dying HD. All they will probably do is verify that the HD is dead/dying & send you a replacement.
Your second choice depends upon your knowledge of Unix, if you have more than one Mac, plus if you have a Windows PC.
Let me know if you want to 'toast it' or not.
Later ...
Buzz

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After getting the dreaded gray/blue screen, I tried to run disk repair on the internal disk. I got an error message saying "Disk Utility can't repair this disk and restore your backed-up files. The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely

After getting the dreaded gray/blue screen, I tried to run disk repair on the internal disk. I got an error message saying "Disk Utility can't repair this disk and restore your backed-up files. The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely." What do I do now? This is an iMac and I'm running 10.6.8.

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it. See below for how to clone a drive.
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
You may be able to backup your data if you have an erased external drive you can use. Before you do the above but after you have opened Disk Utility you can try to clone your drive:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag
       it to the Destination entry field.
5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
      the Source entry field.
6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Now this will only work if the drive is accessible and can be cloned by Disk Utility. Otherwise, you would need to access your drive from another Mac that you can connect via Firewire - Target Disk Mode.

Partition errors - "Disk Utility can't repair this disk"

I partitioned my external 1TB WD HD into two drives (950GB + 50GB) using Disk Utility (OS X Mavericks 10.9.1). However the 950GB partition will no longer mount. It is recognised in Disk Utility, but grayed out. "Verify Disk" and "Repair Disk" in Disk Utility lead to the worrying error message "Disk Utility can't repair this disk."
From the Disk Utility logs, the initial partition was successful:
Partition 1:
Name: “Media Centre”
Size: 948.13 GB
File system: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Do not erase contents
Partition 2:
Name: “Media Centre 2”
Size: 50.03 GB
File system: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Do not erase contents
Mounting disk
Partition complete
Afterwards, I changed the name of the second partition “Media Centre 2” to "BOOTCAMP" (I was going to try to install Windows 7), but then changed my mind and tried to remove the second partition. At that point the log gives the error "Mount of “Media Centre” failed".
Partition 1 ("Media Centre") now seems to be in limbo, stuck as 950GB, and "Verify Disk" and "Repair Disk" in Disk Utility lead to the worrying error message "Disk Utility can't repair this disk". Also in Disk Utility, Partition 1 ("Media Centre") now has the format classification "Mac OS Extended" rather than "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".
Any idea how I can get my hard drive to mount and get the data back?

In Disk Utility select the Top most entry on the left, the drive model and or manufacturer name and size entry, then click the Partition tab and Repartition it to your liking. If that fails the drive is bad.

Error disk utility can't repair this disk...disk and restore your backed-up files

I have been working on a project using an external hard disk. I used my Macbook Pro (2010) to create this project and files (about 31 GB). Now I am trying to open the disk on my iMac (2014) and it doesn't show up. I can see the HDD when I use disk utility but get this message when I try to repair/restore the disc:
"error disk utility can't repair this disk...disk and restore your backed-up files"
The funny thing is that the disk works absolutely fine with my Macbook Pro. What am I missing?
Imac :OSX 10.9.4 , 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 Gb Ram.

Nico,
Did you find a way?
This just happened to me too.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5981446
-John

Can I fix a disk with this message?-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.

Can I fix a disk with this message?
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.

Some problems can indeed be fixed this way. But working from Recovery_HD or Disk Warrior DVDs and working in the restricted environment those provide can be difficult. You can literally spend days working on this problem (while your regular work is unavailable) only to discover the old drive is unsalvageable.
There is no way to know up front whether you are facing a major Hardware failure or a minor software glitch, or something in between. Often you are forced to work from the drive you no longer trust. I continue to recommend you do this work from a different, fully functioning Mac OS X booted from a different drive.
If you have had the foresight to (as The hatter often recommends) clone your virgin install onto another drive for use in such situations, you will be able to recover from such problems in record time. If not, my previous recommendations stands:
Buy a new Drive. Or two. Install Mac OS X from scratch on a new drive, and get your Mac running again. Later, you can use the full power of Mac OS X to attempt to rescue your data, if needed. Then Zero the old drive, to see if it can hold data again reliably.
If the old drive eventually provides some needed data, and is salvageable, Merry Christmas.

Disk Utility can't repair this disk...disk, and restore your backuped-up file.

Computer got uber slow.
I started to worry.
Now computer won't start.
VERY worried.
Tried to repair disk. Received error message above.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

sulaver wrote:
Computer got uber slow.
I started to worry.
Now computer won't start.
VERY worried.
Tried to repair disk. Received error message above.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
You can't have received an error message "Disk Utility can't repair this disk...disk, and restore your backuped-up file." since that is pure gobbledegook and isn't even good English.
What may have happened is that
(a) your hard drive has become so full that the operating system can't find any space in which to.... operate.
(b) as macjack says, it has crashed - possibly as a result of (a).
(c) you have been allowing Time Machine to back up to your internal hard drive instead of to a backup disk, which has caused (a) to happen.

External Hard Drive Disk Utility Can't Repair the Disk

Hi,
I have a Seagate 1 TB Backup Plus Drive which was working perfectly fine until I plugged it into a USB hub. It detected it while in the hub and I was able to get files off of it, but when I ejected it from the hub and put it back into the USB slot on the computer it was not detected by finder. It shows up in the disk utility and I clicked verify and repair and it says:
Verify and Repair volume “Seagate Backup Plus Drive”
Checking file system
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
Is there any way to get this to work properly again? Or if not is there a way for me to recover my files on the external hard drive?
Thanks
I have a Macbook PRO late 2011 running OS X Mavericks.

Use a more powerful utility such as DiskWarrior, or a product such as those listed here.
(108710)

Disk Utility can't repair this disk

I have been having trouble booting. It started when I connected a router to it. It seemed to eat up the free disk space and I only have 77 MB left or something around that.
Anyway, I tried deleting files with command-s commands, and it worked one time and it freed up 2 GB of space. I restarted the computer and when I tried to start it up, it still got stuck in the gray screen with the whirly thing at the bottom. I checked the space and it was 77MB now.
I decided to boot from the Install Disk (Snow Leopard 10.6.0).
I checked Disk Utility first and verified the disk. It came up with the message:
"Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk .... disk, and restore your backed-up files."
What should I do now?
I have the Mac HD volume on backup already so I don't have to do the back up stage.
Should I erase the disk while I am in Disk Utility?
And format it to Mac OS Extended Journal?
And then install the operating system again?
Thanks.

To answer your questions, first, some other options...
If you fill your disk up that far, you are going to have problems. Don't ever do this, 10% is a bare minimum, you may need even more, depending on the size of your disc.
I have seen before where a disc repair utility couldn't perform its function simply because there was not enough slack space available on the drive. While I have never seen this with disc utility, it is possible that the disc is repairable as-is, if you could just free up a couple more gigs of space first.
Secondly, you could also try Disk Warrior, or to a lesser extent, Techtool Pro, or even iDefrag. I have personally never had Techtool Pro fix anything that Disk Utility or Disk Warrior couldn't fix, so I hesitate to even mention it, but I have had Disk Warrior and iDefrag clear up problems that Disk Utility either couldn't detect, or couldn't fix.
If you are still in dire straits, you should re-partition the drive using disk utility. This is the safest route, then go from there.
good luck!
-a

Macbook pro won't boot and when I tried to back up the hard drive I got "disk utility can't repair this disk backup as many of your files as possible"

My macbook pro froze and initially would not even recognize the power chord. Now it charges, but will not load up. I opened in in disk utility to try and back it up so that I could take it to apple to have it fixed but I got the message that said "disk utility can't repair this disk backup as many of your files as possible". How do I back up the files???

Nichelle215,
you can try the method described on this Apple page, in the “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility” section. (You can skip step 6, since you already know that your disk is irreparable.) Note, however, that this method is not guaranteed to work. Once you get your disk straightened out, you might consider purchasing an external hard disk for use as a Time Machine backup destination, so that a similar problem in the future won’t wipe out the only copy of your files.

Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk.

My Server's non-boot volume, while using Disk Utility I get the message Volume bitmap needs minor repair for orphaned blocks. Then checking volume information. Invalid volume file count. It should be 472587 instead of 472588; Invalid bolume free block count. It should be 236325120 instead of 236325119. The volume was found corrupt and needs to be repaired. Volume repair complete. Updating boot support partitions for the volume required. Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk.
I received this error a month ago and replaced the drive. It worked fine for a month, but now I receive the same message.

Did you restore from a time machine backup? If so, what i would suggest is doing an erase then reinstalling, do not restore from time machine during intail setup. Setup a fresh account then use migration assistant to restore from your backup.

TS1901 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 can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
*** ??? I need to take out the data from a WD320 that shows this error and then format the WD and put the data into again
THANKS !!!

I'm sorry, is there a question here? You seem to know precisely what you need to do…

"Disk Utility can't repair this disk...and restore the backed up files"

Hello, my macbook crashed a few days a go as well and after going to the recovery drive and OX Utilities tried to verify and repair disk it gives me this error "Disk Utility can't repair this disk...and restore the backed up files" is the second time that occurs after replacing the hard drive for a new SSD, i thought my problem was solved and is not. Any Ideas? the only other thing i can think of is the logic board?

Backup your files and arrange for an appointment at an Apple store genius bar for a free evaluation.
Ciao.

My computer is shutting down before fully booting up. I am running the disk utilities program and have this message: Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk . . . disk, and restore your backed-up files. Can anyone suggest what I should do next?

My computer is shutting down before fully booting up. I am running the disk utilities program and have this message: Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk . . . disk, and restore your backed-up files. Can anyone suggest what I should do next?

So, you can't Install OSX to the external?
Or you can't boot from it when you do?
You're not the only one wondering... I'm reminded of the Goose that laid the Golden Egg story.

Hi, Had boot issue and got the following from DU repair function on Macintosh hd: updating boot support.....Error: Disk utility can't repair this disk.....reformat and restore backed up files. How is that done or do I go to Genius?

In reference to question the computer gave no warning but lost internet connectivity. I shut down for a while and when returned it would only boot to gray logo screen with spinning gear. Ran disk utility and on Mac HD drive it stopped after "Updating boot support partitions as required". Then in red: Error: Disk utility can' repair this disk ....disk, and restore backed up files. I'm running OS X 10.8 and had just updated the iOS about three days ago. Not familiar with reformat process on MacBook Pro and would like some ideas whether I should go to the Genius Bar here in Sydney or try it on my own. I have been using time machine to back up to a 1TB La Cie drive right up to the crash. Thanks for any advice.

Well it turned out the drive was shot. Took it to the genius bar yesterday and they ran a test on the drive before trying the restore routine again. Drive failed.
Replaced the drive and got the MBP back today. Pretty quick and decent service once you get an appointment.
Now having trouble figuring how to do the Time Machine saved files. Have several applications which I'd like to keep but not sure how to trans the apps from my backup to the new. Hunting for answers on that on the web.
Thanks for you help, Eustace.

Disk utility can't repair this disk.... Is it still possible to back up my files?

I was just on Word earlier and the mac crashed, I restarted it and it wouldn't load past the grey screen. I then used my install disc to go into disk utility, where it tried to verify and repair my Macintosh HD but failed to do both. I don't know what's cause this but more importantly I need to know where it's still possible to back up my files without having to purchase Disk Warrior. If I was to take it to the Apple store, what would they suggest?
I don't know what my operating system is, I recently did a system update last week I believe if that means anything?
Thanks for your time
Luke

Okay thanks Thomas Reed, it's a shame this has happened. It was so sudden...one minute I'm typing on word, the next minute it's broke beyond repair?
It's peculiar how it says Disk Ultility can't repair the drive but to try and back up your files...when it's actually impossible to do so without any software. I'm assuming things like creating a new image etc. won't help at all.
I'm hoping the Apple Store people will be able to help me out, I've heard DiskWarrior is good so I may check that out.

Disk Utility can't mount internal disk but tells me use First Aid?

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