Disk Utility doesn't repair problem

A friend of mine brought me in his sister's iBook and asked if I could fix it. The computer would not start up at all, got to the white screen and just spun forever. So I started up using Panther Install Disk 1, dropped into Disk Utility. Verified Permissions, then Repaired Permissions. After that Verified Disk, and it found a bunch of volume problems, I told it to repair them and the first time it fixed 2 out of 3 and said that it had fixed 1 volume and failed to fix the other. I repaired again and it said all problems fixed, just to be safe I tried a third time, again all problems fixed. Ran the verify to check it and it stated that the volume needs to be repaired. Have gone through the repair and then verify cycle twice now. Other than taking it to a Genius Bar, what else can I do?
Thanks,
Ted

Hello Jan:
I doubt if preferences have anything to do with the problem.
Try running repair disk from the software install DVD (fixes directory problems).
I would also run the hardware checker that came with the system.
Barry

Similar Messages

Macbook w/ whole slew of problems...Won't Start Up, Disk Utility Can't Repair Disk, Horizontal Lines on Screen, Etc.

I purchased my Macbook in the summer of 2011 and before it went berserk it was running Mavericks. 3 years later, it's finally seemed to have run its course.
It won't start up normally and it won't start up on safe boot. Attempting to use disk utility to repair the disk only gives me the message: "Disk utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible." There are also horizontal lines across the start screen (before it inevitably shuts down) and the screen looks very faintly purple-ish/off-colored.
This actually didn't come out of the blue. On Monday, my macbook suddenly froze, went white, and beeped three beeps repeatedly. I restarted it and backed up all my important work files and set up an appointment at the genius bar for Friday once work ended. It remained buggy during this process with the beeps returning an occasionally a blue screen popping up.
Unfortunately, there wasn't enough space to back up my important photos and by the time I returned on the next day with an external hard drive to store them on, my macbook would no longer turn on.
Is there anything I can do to bring my macbook back to life? Ideally I'd like for it to last one more year before I graduate college. Is it still salvageable, and if so, is it worth salvaging?

I hate to spread gloom, but that computer has serious problems. The only people who can diagnose the problem(s) are technicians. I would take it back to the Apple store for further testing.
Barry

Disk Utility doesn't recognize HD. Installed new one, same problem.

Hello,
I have a MBP. It suddenly wouldn't boot up, and had the flashing question mark folder upon starting up, so I figured that the HD needed to be replaced. I ordered a brand new drive, and when I try to install Leopard, it doesn't see the new hard drive. I open Disk Utility to partition the drive to GUID, but Disk Utility doesn't even see the new drive. Just my optical drive is listed.
I hooked up the old hard drive externally to another mac, and it appears to be working just fine. So it isn't a bad drive as I had originally thought.
What else could be wrong? The laptop fails to see any internal hard drives. Is there anything else that I can do to fix this problem? Thanks.

Purely conjecture, your serial ATA controller may be bad (or the cable). I assume nothing shows in System Profiler/Hardware/Serial-ATA either. Maybe try the SMC reset?
-If the computer is on, turn it off.
-Disconnect the AC Adapter and remove the computer's battery.
-Press and hold down the power button for 5 seconds and then release the button.
-Reconnect the battery and AC Adapter.
-Press the Power button to restart the computer.

Disk utility won't repair permissions (related to error -8003)

I have an odd, recurring problem I can't diagnose. Recently my seven-month-old MacBook Pro has begun showing an error code (-8003) when I try to do common, system-related things like empty the Trash. At the same time, Time Machine stops backing up and Disk Utility can't repair permissions. If I go into System Preferences I can't open the lock to make changes, even though my account is still clearly marked as the Admin account. All third-party applications run fine, so I can't quite figure out what's going on.
I've tried repairing the disk via TechTool to see if there was directory damage and it checks out fine. I've reformatted my TM backup disk with Disk Utiity according to Apple's instructions, used the Terminal to ensure my Trash and old TM files were properly deleted, etc. Nothing seems to have made a difference.
When I restart the problem goes away for a couple of hours and then – at some point that I haven't been able to identify – the problem starts up again. This is the case whether I'm working on the MacBook or if it's just sitting there idle.
Before I reinstall I wondered if anyone had run into a similar problem and had figured out what caused it.

error code (-8003) when I try to do common, system-related things like empty the Trash
That's a common symptom of throwing stuff from a Time Machine backup into the trash in the Finder, which is a big no-no and can irreversibly corrupt your backup. In the Terminal, type the following command:
sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*
Copy and paste that! Don't try to re-type it, I've seen people put a space in the wrong place and wipe their whole user folder. Type your password when prompted, and expect that nothing will show until you hit return.
Next, repair your Time Machine backup according to:
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/A5.html
At the same time, Time Machine stops backing up
If the above troubleshooting doesn't fix your backup, you may have damaged it beyond repair. In that case, you'll have to erase it and start your backups over from scratch.
Disk Utility can't repair permissions
Where are you trying to repair permissions? Note that repairing permissions is only meaningful on a drive with a system installed on it, and only repairs permissions on a specific subset of the stuff on the drive. Also, note that there are permissions messages you can safely ignore... if you think it is failing because you're seeing them over and over, it's not failing.
If I go into System Preferences I can't open the lock to make changes, even though my account is still clearly marked as the Admin account.
I've never seen that before, and it may indicate you have much more serious problems with your computer. First, try repairing your hard drive with Disk Utility. Then trash the System Preferences preference file, located at:
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist
...where '~' means "your home folder".

Lion Disk Utility doesn't finish erase

Since installing Lion (clean install) disk utility doesn’t finish erasing or partitioning external disks. I used the disk utility from the install drive to erase the internal drive before installing Lion, this worked fine, but ever since it failed to erase any of my external drives. It starts of as normal but the progress bar stops half way and just never finish. Disk Utility does respond.
I tried different format options, repair and verify but none of the processes finish.
I went back to the install drive that I used to erase the internal drive before Lion install and it also didn’t want to finish.
I copied the old disk utility from Snow Leopard to my desktop, it opens with a warning, but gives the same outcome.
Any advice?

I'm having the same problem on my late 2010 Air with Lion installed over Snow Leopard.
I've tried several usb memory drives and several external harddrives...all the same problem with the progress bar getting stuck halfway. wether I select 'partition' or 'erase'.
the 'genius' at the mac store told me that he advises a clean install of Lion. I did...or I thought I did but all my files were still in place and the problem was still there. Guess I will have to wipe the drive first.
Also, unable to repair permissions on the MAC drive.
But it is remarkable how few people seem to experience this problem thus far. A google search hardly returns any results.

Disk Utility - Won't Repair Flash/Thumb Drive

So my Mac froze for some reason, while my Kingston thumb/flash drive was in. I tried to eject it, but I could only force eject (which it said may cause issues). After that, whenever I put the thumb drive in, it said something like the drive won't work and I had to copy the files to my desktop. When I go into disk utility and click repair disk, it says this: "Disk Utility stopped repairing “UNTITLED 1”: 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 can't erase the thumbdrive, because it says I need a source, which I don't know what that means.
Can anybody help? The files are useless now as I have transferred them to a CD, so I'm fine with erasing the whole thing. And yes, I know I can get a new on at any store for cheap, but I'd like to know if this can be repaired. Thanks.

You haven't mentioned how the thumb drive was formatted to begin with; is it GUID partition map and Mac OS Extended (Journalled), or is it FAT 32 with MBR partition map?
If it's the latter, DU can't repair it, but should be able to format it. However, the forced ejection may have damaged the file system to prevent that.
If it's FAT32, re-format it on a PC and try again on the Mac.
If it's Mac formatted, you could try erasing and reformatting on another Mac (or as Hackintosh says, from the DVD), but if that doesn't work, try the PC route; reformat to FAT32 on a PC (if the PC will recognise it - thay don't always), then go back to the Mac, repartition and format.
If that fails, it's recycling fodder.

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...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.

Disk Utility reports minor repair required - how risky is this?

I was verifying permissions the other day and thought I'd check the hard drive as well. When running the verify hard drive it stopped with an error report as follows:
Volume Header needs minor repair
The Volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired
Error the underliying task reported failure on exit. 1HFS volume checked. Volume needs repair.
The Macbook seem to be running fine. Should I run the repair or leave it. Someone once told me that if the Disk Utility fails to repair the problem it can leave the disk unusable. Any truth in that?
Thanks
Michael
iMac G4 15" flat screen : MacBook 1.83 (Tiger) Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Directory structure issues can lead to freezing, general slowness, startup issues (computer may not startup all the way), Applications or files may not open.
It is usually suggested to repair the disk with Disk Utility that came with the computer or a disk utility that is compatible with the operating system that you are using.
Here are some articles from Apple's knowledge base. Some are technical:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302411
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=13628
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=7565
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=19516
Directory structure issues usually are not HW issues, but is the way the computer or OS, stores/sorts information on the Hard drive.

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 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

HD corrupt, disk utility can't repair it. can't boot.

I have a early 2009 iMac with the latest Mountain Lion update (did the last update two days ago). My HD has two partitions: one for os x and one for windows with bootcamp. I'm curently writing using the windows partition where everything works fine.
Yesterday I started my mac on X. Same gray loading screen but it had a small bar on the bottom. When the bar reached nearly half, the mac shut down. This happens now every time I try to start the mac on X and if I keep pressed ALT to choose which partition to use, the one for X is called "EFI Boot".
I booted in recovery and later using a snow leopard dvd, and I used disk utility. It said "invalid index key" and that the volume needed to be repaired, but disk utility couldn't repair it.
I tried rEFIt to check if there were problems with the partitions: all ok.
I tried the fsck console command: all ok.
Now I'm in the windows partiton and if I navigate through the X partition (I have MacDrive installed) I see that some files are missing. I'm sure they should be there, but they're nowhere to be found.
Of course MacDrive tells me that the volume is damaged, etc...
What can I do?

What files are missing?
Might try this...
Just recently I ran into a problem when I tried to Verify my hard disk and when it tried to verify the catalog, it responded "Invalid sibling link." Repair Disk didn't work. I searched the web and Apple's site, and couldn't find anything useful except to buy DiskWarrior or reformat the drive. Knowing that OS X is built on Unix gave me a few clues on how to proceed. The solution is pretty simple:
    1.    Boot off the OS X CD (reboot, hold C while booting).
    2.    The installer will load up, go to Utilities in the menu and run Terminal.
    3.    Type df and look for the drive that has your Mac system mounted---you'll have to unmount this. On my MacBook Pro, it was /dev/disk0s2.
    4.    Type umount /dev/disk0s2, replacing disk0s2 with whatever disk your OS lives on.
    5.    Type fsck_hfs -r /dev/disk0s2. If you umounted the wrong thing, it will complain that you can't repair a mounted drive. Go back and umount the right thing and repeat this step.
Just for fun, you might want to run another fsck_hfs on your disk (use the -f option because your drive is probably journaled). Hope this helps someone so they don't buy a program that's going to do pretty much what we did with fsck_hfs, and so they don't waste time searching for an answer to no avail. By the way, TechTool Deluxe (3.1.1) didn't find the Catalog problem for some reason (you'll have this on a CD if you have AppleCare), which is why I resorted to fsck.
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070204093925888

Disk Utility can't repair Macintosh HD. What should I do?

Here is a "quick" synopsis of what has happened thus far:
About one month ago, my computer started getting very sluggish (ie, it would take forever to startup, would always freeze after sleep, etc.) I lived with it for about two weeks, since it would always run quickly after waiting ~30 minutes after starting/waking up. Eventually, this grew old. I browsed the internet and did multiple suggested fixes (reset PRAM, run Disk Utility, ran in Safe Boot Mode, etc.). Nothing seemed to work. I opted to zero out the harddrive and reinstall Mountain Lion after making a backup. That was about two weeks ago.
Everything worked fine, up until yesterday. Once again, things started getting slow. I decided to shut down my computer for the night and would check it in the morning. When I turned it on this morning, it wouldn't startup correctly. I could login, etc., but it was frozen and I couldn't open any applications without getting the spinning beach ball. I waited about an hour, but it was still slow/loading. I shut the computer down and booted it in Verbose Mode. I ran the various commands to check the conditions of my disk, but when I ran the "fsck -fy" command, I got an "I/O Error." I then tried rebooting my Mac, but it would get to the gray screen with the apple logo and the spinning wheel, and then the progress bar would appear. Before the progress bar did anything, it would shut itself down.
I then started the computer up and directly went to OS X Utilities. I went into Disk Utility and tried to check permissions and repair the disk. Only this time, Macintosh HD was grayed out and seemed to be unmounted. I couldn't get it to mount. I went into the Apple Store to have them run their own diagnostics. However, the apple store employee was unable to get the test working, so that was basically a bust. At this point, the computer still didn't turn on.
I got home and, just for kicks, held the "N" key while booting up my computer. For whatever reason, my computer started up (though it took a long time and there was a progress bar). Now, I made another backup of my disk and am wondering what to do. I ran Disk Utility again to repair my disk, but it says that Macintosh HD is not able to be repaired. When I checked permissions, there were tons of Input/Output Errors. Based on my research, it would appear that I have two solutions.
I can either purchase DiskWarrior and use that to try and solve my problem, or I could just get a new hard drive (and I would upgrade to a SSD or SSHD). DW is about $50 if I just download it, and the hard drive would cost me $150 or so. Since I don't know exactly what is wrong with the disk, I don't know if DW would be able to fix it. That being said, if the hard drive isn't the problem, there would be no reason for me to purchase a new one. I guess I would just like some advice, as to what you would do. I apologize for the long post.
TL;DR: Disk Utility can't repair Macintosh HD. Should I get DiskWarrior or a new harddrive?
Thanks in advanced!

Most importantly, youve already backed up all the data. All else is cake.
A new HD would cost you only $20 more than disk warrior,....theres no reason to repair a worthless crippled HD, .....new HD 1TB is $70.
Once you back up all the data on a failing HD, further diagnosis has no meaning,....not anymore.
Grab a 1TB or 750GB Toshiba/Hitachi (both used by Apple inside their Macbook Pro nonRetina,...both are made by Hitachi) 5400RPM SATA HD.
Forget the repair,.......repair only serves to bring a HD to a point of BACKUP.....since youve already done that, its now just wall art or trashbin fodder.
These are the same HD used by Apple in their Macbooks
http://www.amazon.com/MQ01ABD-2-5-Internal-Hard-Drive/dp/B0077CV2RO/ref=sr_1_1?i e=UTF8&qid=1376281905&sr=8-1&keywords=toshiba+1tb+2.5%22
In the future ALWAYS remember to have 2 backups for everything. 2 backups is 1, and 1 is none.
That way when something crashes (and they all do).....its no worries.

Disk Utility doesn't repair problem

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