Disk utility can't repair my 2011 Macbook. It says "disk and restore your backed-up files". Now what?

My Macbook crashed so I tried everything to restart it. what finally worked is opening it from the install disk. I performed a "repair disk", and after saying "invalid node structure" and "invalid record count", it says it cannot repair the disk. I don't know what step to take next. How do I see if time machine has backed my files up? Do I need to erase the HD and reinstall?
Thanks!

It seems your hard disk is dead, but you must check further. The easiest way to check is to connect your mac to another mac via firewire cable, then restart in Target Mode. this will turn you mac into an external drive, just the right place to test if your disk is still good.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.7/en/mchlp1443.html
See also
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.7/en/mh26785.html

Similar Messages

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

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.

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…

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.

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.

Disk Utility says "drive can't be repaired, disk and restore your backed up files."

My Mac Book Pro froze yesterday and I had to force restart it. It had been showing me messages that my hard drive disk was full for a while and I was in the middle of transferring files to my external hard drive and I accidentally put a huge large file from my external hard drive into the trash on my laptop which makes me wonder if that means I added more GB to a computer that was already very full. Anyway, after freezing I restarted it and the desktop wouldn't load properly. The desktop picture was there, but folders on desktop did not appear, finder bar was missing and the dock was acting super slow and nothing worked when clicked on. Then the next few attempts were around the same result and eventually became stuck on the apple logo, spinning gear and a progress bar that was not loading at all.
Here's what I've tried so far:
Safe mode- nothing happens
Command + R - I am unsure how to work this since I can't seem to find an internet connection when it prompts for one. None of the internet connections have much signal and my own information doesn't seem to load since the gear spins to find the internet connection name and password I typed to load it but can't seem to find it. Perhaps I have the wrong internet information, but I don't think so.
I tried Command + S to use in single user mode and type in a command to help fix the drive, BUT, even though the black screen and white lettering mode did show up, it remained in a place where I was not allowed to type anything and the last thing written at the bottom of the screen was something about set up for bluetooth, I think. I tried this twice and both times it stopped in the same place and I could not type a command.
Disk Utility using installation dvd to verify and repair disk. Verify says disk needs repair and then repair has some red colored phrases: Invalid volume file count. (It should be 786374 instead of 786274) Incorrect number of thread records. And there was another problem listed but I do not remember it. Then, near the end of repairing it says: "Disk Utility stopped repairing Macintosh HD." It tells me it couldn't repair the disk and that I should back up as many of my files as possible, reformat the disk and restore backed up files.
That would be fine and dandy, but I have no idea how to back up my files and do all this. I have no idea how to exactly get the data off my hard drive. If someone does, please list a step by step guide for me on how to do so.
I have an external hard drive and I tried plugging in and selecting the hard drive and making a "New Image" to copy to the external hard drive destination, but it just stops a few seconds into it and tells me there is an input/output error. I tried read only, read/write only, compressed options for making a copy and all yield the same result.
In Disk Utility, I believe I have a partition -the Macintosh HD. I have listed on the left hand side: 320.07 GB Hitachi HTSS45.....etc. and below it in non-bolded, grey lettering it says "Macintosh HD."
The Hitachi, when clicked upon, shows the S.M.A.R.T. status as Verified and the Macintosh HD doesn't show much in details except for "Not mounted."
At one point, the Macintosh HD was in bold lettering and seemed to be mounted for a few minutes. When that happened, I was able to see the details reading: Mount Point: /Volumes/Macintosh HD, Capacity: 319.73 GB, Available: 11.92 GB, Used: 307.81 GB, etc.
I'm getting nervous to keep turning on and off the computer on force start and shut downs, especially since I have been reading up that the longer the computer is on, the more the hard drive is in use and the more chance for it to start deleting or overwriting my files. Is this true?
It's not mounted anymore since it was momentarily mounted. I just want to get my files off the disk and save them to my external hard drive. That is my main goal right now. What can I do?
Thank you in advance for your help!

If you want to preserve the data on the boot drive, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to fully boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
1. Boot into Recovery (command-R at startup) or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in the support article linked below, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
How to back up and restore your files
2. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode by holding down the key combination command-T at the startup chime. Connect the two Macs with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable. The internal drive of the machine running in target mode will mount as an external drive on the other machine. Copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode
3. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

HT2711 I used the "repair disk utility" to see why my computer is running slow but it gives me an error message saying, "disk utility can't repair this disk, and restore your backed up files. My computer was running slow and taking some time to load page

I haven't used my computer in a month, so when I turned it on, I saw it was running slow. The circle that is used to load the page kept coming up and it took sometime for things to load up. I tried to go Into safe mode, and it worked, but I know your limited on what you can do in that world. I also tried to repair the disk but it kept giving me an error message. How can I resolve this problem?

Time Machine is a back up you have to set up to back up before there is a problem like a hard drive failure.
It is possible to recover files from a failed drive, but it is an expensive proposition.
There is a faint hope that an app like Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro might repair the drive. You could try making an appointment at an Apple store and ask a technician there to take a look... the diagnosis will not cost you.
http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/

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.

Hi, my Western Digital HDD crashed few days ago.
I had approximatly 450GB on it.
It doesn't want to be repaired or verified.
Does someone know a way to save all my files before restoring the Western Digital drive ?
Thanks you by advance.
Hope you will find a way.
Nico

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

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 (mid 2012) Disk Utility can't repair HD

I have a friend's MacBook Pro in my possession that is not working and has not been used for about two months. After startup, seeing the loading bar, and getting stuck on the spinning wheel of death, I have taken some steps to try to get a boot into Mac OS X. I've reset the PRAM, tried booting in safe mode, and lastly tried to repair Macintosh HD via Disk Utility in the recovery partition. No luck. I get this message after an attempted repair.. "Disk Utility can't repair this disk...disk, and restore your backed up file".
This is a similar problem to this discussion thread here:
Disk Utility cannot repair Macintosh HD
However, in this scenario, my friend does not have any Time Machine backups and would like to recover his files.
I know that I can re-format and do a fresh install of OS X...but where does that leave me with file recovery?
Is it possible to retrieve the files at all?
Any help from the community would be GREATLY appreciated!
Thanks

I have a friend's MacBook Pro in my possession that is not working and has not been used for about two months. After startup, seeing the loading bar, and getting stuck on the spinning wheel of death, I have taken some steps to try to get a boot into Mac OS X. I've reset the PRAM, tried booting in safe mode, and lastly tried to repair Macintosh HD via Disk Utility in the recovery partition. No luck. I get this message after an attempted repair.. "Disk Utility can't repair this disk...disk, and restore your backed up file".
This is a similar problem to this discussion thread here:
Disk Utility cannot repair Macintosh HD
However, in this scenario, my friend does not have any Time Machine backups and would like to recover his files.
I know that I can re-format and do a fresh install of OS X...but where does that leave me with file recovery?
Is it possible to retrieve the files at all?
Any help from the community would be GREATLY appreciated!
Thanks

Macbook Pro not booting after update. ''Disk Utility can't repair disk''. Help needed!

I have recently updated my macbook pro as I had some pending software updates. I left it to do the job over night and the next day I noticed it was not letting me sign in to my account session as usual.
I restarted the computer and ever since then when I boot it, it just shows the apple grey screen with a bar that loads to about a 3rd and then it turns off again. I have contacted apple but they were unable to help me with this.
So far I have tried to:
1. Re-install OS X 10.8 - but it says the disk is locked or OS X cannot be installed on Recovery HD.
2. Verify and Repair the disk and I errors but it cannot fix them. Some are:
               'invalid leaf count''
               ''missing thread record''
               ''incorrect number of file hard links''
               ''overlapped extent allocation''
          and it finally says ''the volume Macintosh HD cannot be repaired'' Error: ''Disk Utility can't repair this disk.. disk, and restore your backed up files.
I would like to know a way to back up my files so that i can completely restore the disk without any data loss as I havent backed up for a while!
If anyone has any solution to this issue it would be much appreciated!

I just ran the Disk Utility, and cannot very disk. It gives me an error message;
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
and when I run the repair, this is the message:
The volume GERRARD could not be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
Repair attempted on 1 volume
1 volume could not be repaired
Prior to running Disk Utility, I have already tried DiskWarrior, and could not repair my disk. Anyway I can fix this problem??? Formatting the disk would be my last option (though I am unsure if it will fix the problem). Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Meanwhile, I will continue to back up my file, and delete unused data and try to run it again.
Thank you all very much for any input.
Cheers,
Matt

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 TM backup disk

Hello all
Recently, my external backup disk (a 750 GB WD My Passport) that I use with Time Machine has been acting up. At first, it wouldn't show up on the desktop, but was being recognized in Disk Utility (with the "Time Machine Backup" partition greyed out). After multiple restarts and unplugging/replugging the hard drive, I finally got to be properly recognized, i.e. it showed up on the desktop with the proper Time Machine hard drive icon. So I thought the problem was gone and started a routine backup. However, Time Machine returned an error:
"Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder."
I search the forums, and followed the advice here: http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/C10.html
I tried repairing the disk, but DU couldn't repair it:
Verify and Repair volume “Time Machine Backups”
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Detected a case-sensitive volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Incorrect number of thread records
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
Checking multi-linked directories.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Invalid volume file count
(It should be 3991498 instead of 3904049)
Invalid volume directory count
(It should be 678218 instead of 673790)
Invalid volume free block count
(It should be 9588404 instead of 11784378)
Volume header needs minor repair
The volume Time Machine Backups was found corrupt and needs to 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.
So now I'm still following the advice on the above mentioned page by posting on here. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. I am using a 2010 15in 2.66 i7 MBP, if that makes a difference, although my guess is the problem's with the harddrive itself. I think there may have been one time about a month ago when Time Machine stopped responding (or something like that) which forced me to pull out the harddrive, possibly corrupting the data. But I'm not sure, and I do recall making at least one successful backup after that. Well, actually TM confirms this: "Latest successful backup: 5/27/11 at 11:51 PM". So I have no idea what's going on. Again, any help would be appreciated.

You can't tell what's corrupted or where. Time Machine backups have a very complex structure, all linked together. So, you can often do new backups, or restore individual items, or even entire backups, as long as you don't stumble over the damage.
There's a chance a heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair app, such as Disk Warrior, can repair them. It's about $100, and probably a good investment for the future, but there's no guarantee it can fix them.
If not, or if you don't want to spend the money, your only option is to erase the disk and let Time Machine start fresh.
It sounds like you may have other data on it; if that's in the same partition, that's not a good idea. This is a good time to copy the data off, erase the disk, and make 2 (or more) partitions on it, so Time Machine has its own, exclusive space. See #3 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for details and instructions.

Disk utility can't repair a partition on external hard drive

I have a 1TB Western Digital external FW drive that's only a couple years old (2 or 3, probably). I have it split into partitions, one of which I'm using for Time Machine. The non-Time Machine partition checked out fine with DIsk Utility, but when I ran Disk Utility on the Time Machine partition, I received this message:
Disk Utility stopped reparing "Time Machine." 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.
Does this mean the drive itself is failing? I erased the Time Machine partition and recreated it through Disk Utility, and then I verified it. Everything checked out okay, but I want to make sure, especially since I'm hosting my iTunes music in the other partition (it's backed up to a 2nd external drive, so if the drive does die, at least I don't lose everything).
Before this problem happened, both partitions dropped off the Finder and the light on the drive went off. I unplugged the drive and plugged it back in again a couple times, but nothing happened. Finally, the light went back on after plugging it back in for the 3rd or 4th time, but I'm wondering if the drive could be going bad, which would surprise me since it isn't very old.

Brad Cook wrote:
Disk Utility stopped reparing "Time Machine." 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.
Does this mean the drive itself is failing?
Possibly, but not necessarily. The File System on the disk was so badly corrupted that Disk Utility couldn't fix it. That might indicate a problem with the drive. It's not unusual for consumer-quality (ie, inexpensive) drives to fail after 2-3 years, although many will run for several years. It's a bit of a crapshoot.
Before this problem happened, both partitions dropped off the Finder and the light on the drive went off.
Whatever caused that is another good possibility -- if a drive is improperly disconnected, OSX can't "close it out" properly, and that can cause damage to the file system. Sometimes Disk Utility can fix it, sometimes it can't. And sometimes heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair apps like DiskWarrior can fix things Disk Utility can't.
A power dip or spike could have caused it, or an overheated electronic component, etc. If it has it's own power supply, be sure it's on a good (ie, not cheap) surge protector or U.P.S. system.
Otherwise, keep an eye on it. If you don't have "secondary" backups, this would be an excellent time to get another drive for that purpose. See #27 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for some suggestions.
Bottom line: personally, I'd not trust my only backups to that drive.
(But then, I'd never trust my backups to any single drive, no matter how new or high-quality.)

Disk utility can't repair my 2011 Macbook. It says "disk and restore your backed-up files". Now what?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for