Disk Utility Fails When Partitioning FireWire Drive

I am getting this error when attempting to partition my FireWire drive.
"Disk utility has lost its connection with the Disk Management Tool and cannot continue. Please quit and relaunch Disk Utility."
I know that Panther users have been having this same error pop up when they attempt to repair permissions. Something about the iTunes 6.0.2 update. I attempted to remove the package files, which was the fix for that issue, and then partition the drive, but it didn't help. This is a different issue. I can repair permissions fine, as well.
Booting from the Mac OS X Tiger install DVD, and using Disk Utility from there, works just fine. I want Disk Utility to work from the startup volume, however.
Has anyone else experienced this issue?
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can correct it?
Thanks!

10.4.6 Combo Update has fixed the issue.
Thanks so much! I'm glad you happened to be awake and reading this board. I think something strange happened with the 10.4.6 update in the first place, because my Dock is always restored to the default look (I customize it with TransparentDock) every time Apple updates the OS. Also (maybe I shouldn't say this on an Apple board), my iBook is running Front Row, and it wasn't broken after the update, but it is now, which is fine, as long as Disk Utility works.
Thanks again for your help!

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Disk Utility fails when formatting a drive

Hi, I have been having problem with Disk Utility when formatting a drive. Every time I format a drive, regarding of what volume format I choose, it will start the format and then fail shortly after.
The drives are then no longer mountable and Disk Utility will not be able to see the drive any more.
Can some one tell me why this is failing? I have only ever experienced this problem on my Mac Pro.
Thanks

Thanks, The Hatter. Sorry I didn't include the internal drive information because so far, I have been using disk utility to format external drives and every time I tried to use it to format, it will fail (have not tried to format an internal drive as I only have one internal).
This is the detail of my internal drive.
Capacity: 298.09 GB
Model: WDC WD3200AAJS-41VWA0
Revision: 58.01D01
Serial Number: WD-WCARW3484394
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Bay Name: "Bay 1"
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
I have tried connecting external drives via, USB and Firewire. Have tried formatting drive to MS-DOS (Fat 32) or MacOS Extended and nothing works.
Please let me know if you need any more info.

Disk utility fails to resize portable drive partitions with error message "requested change in size is too small".

I am using a 1TB WD studio passport portable drive with my 2011 MacBook Pro. I have the portable drive partitioned into 4 volumes: 355 GB, 320 GB, 320 GB, & 4 GB. But Disk Utility won't allow me to split the third of those into 160 GB /160 GB. All volumes verify as seeming "to be okay". Seems if Disk Utility could create me a 4GB partition that 160 GB is plenty big enough, right? Something's not right; Can you help me with this please?

What is on those partitions and or the partition you want to split in two?
If you don't have any data on partitions or if you can save it someplace else for the time being then why not just Re-Partition the whole drive into the sizes you now want.

Disk utility fails to partition - restarting the compuyter is required

I would appreciate your help-I have tried to find a topic with the same problem but could not.
I want to partition my hard drive in order to have a second partition for time machine. I get an error message, saying that I have to press the power button for three seconds etc to restart the machine. And of course when I come back there is no partition.
So, now I try with the installation disk, and use the disk utility, I repair and verify the hard drive, and I try to partition it. After about 10 minutes, I get the same error message, having again to restart the MacBook. So, what´s wrong?
Any suggestions would be highly appreciated.
Thanks

Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

Disk Utility error when restoring a drive to another drive: Error 6

"Device not configured."
I have a 24" iMac with a 250gig hard drive, and a firewire enclosure with a 160 gig hard drive. The iMac has a windows partition that I am trying to back up on the firewire drive, so that I can repartition and make the windows section bigger, but I keep getting errors when trying to restore.
If I uncheck erase destination, and then click restore, it starts to copy for a few minutes, but after 2-3 gigs of copying I get another error:
"Restore Failure An error (2) occurred while copying. No such file or directory"
This happens again and again and again and again. Any ideas?

Thanks for the different responses. Just a few more details. My internal hd is only using 63 of 100g.
So I don't think the disk space issue for disk utility would be the answer to my particular problem. I have also tried using superduper to back up this same drive; however, it would not complete the task either. Would it be better to just back up the user folders separately and maybe the applications folder and then just use the mac os dvd's to install on my new drive? ( I don't guess backing up the applications folder would do any good; they would have to all be reinstalled. ) Just trying to find a way to get this done without having to do to much reinstall work. Any other ideas?

Disk Utility won't partition my drive.

I have a LaCie external hard drive with a capacity of 298 GB and 247 GB used leaving 51 GB free. I am trying to create a 30 GB partition of just free space, but when I tell Disk Utility to start, it will start working for a while saying "Modifying partition map" and have the blue and white barber-shop pole for the loading bar. After a couple of minutes, Disk Utility will popup with and error saying there isn't enough room on the drive. Can someone explain this to me?

Kappy wrote:
There are no free utilities for defragmenting a drive. Only the cloning I described is free.
Here's what you should do:
To resize the drive do the following:
1. Open Disk Utility and select the drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list.
2. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired new volume's size. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed. +(Note: You can only make a partition smaller in order to create new free space.)+
4. Click on the [+] button below the sizing window to add a new partition in the gray space you freed up. Give the new volume a name, if you wish, then click on the Apply button. Wait until the process has completed.
You should now have a new volume on the drive.
That's what I did and it didn't work.

Disk Utility fails to partition

This is what it says:
Partition failed with the error:
Could not modify partition map because filesystem verification failed

Run disk utility on your hard drive to repair it also repair permissions, then give it a try.

Disk Utility won't partition ext. drive

Hi everyone,
I would like to split my external MyBook Pro drive in two so I can keep Time machine B/ups separate, but Disk utility keeps informing me that there is not enough space! I only want approx 80gb of the remaining 105gb. Where am I going wrong. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Are you willing to erase the contents on the external hard drive? Disk utility won't subdivide existing space, you have to do the entire drive at once. However, there are utilities (I believe they are purchase/commercial only) that will sub partition an existing disk partition.

Disk utility freezes when partitioning HD

I cleared off some space on my hard drive to create a 20 GB partition to install Mountain Lion (I'm running Snow Leopard). This leaves about 15 GB free space on the old partition. Every time I do this, the system freezes after 10-20 minutes and I have to reboot. I repaired the disk and disk permissions, but nothing seems to help. Any suggestions?

the system freezes after 10-20 minutes
Repartioning a drive takes under a minute, because it clears out at most 1000 blocks in each new partition, not the whole drive.
That drive has probably failed. Buy yourself a new drive, they are cheap, and do not delay your project waiting for this (likely bad) drive.
Once you have your changes in place on a new drive, you can test the old drive by re-writing all blocks with Zeroes to test whether the drive can be salvaged. And this can be done in the background on a working System.

Starting up from external partitioned firewire drive

Hi all,
I have a lacie external firewire drive. I have it partitioned. One partition has a copy of OSX. If i start up on my main drive and set the "start up disk" preferences to the OSX partition on the external drive my G5 will start up on the OSX partition.
However, if i don't set the "start up disk" preferences to the partitioned firewire drive and i try holding down the "option" key during a cold start the G5 won't recognize the partitioned OSX as an option.
I want to have this external copy of OSX as an emergency start up using the "option" key during a cold start.
For the last two years i've used a non-partitioned external firewire drive with OSX installed as an emergency start up disk and the G5 has always recognized the drive while holding down the "option" key from a cold start.
Now that i have OSX on a partitioned external drive, a cold start holding down the "option" key won't recognize the external OSX.
Any ideas?
Also, if i'm not able to start up from this partitioned firewire drive, are there any special instructions for creating a DVD copy of OSX to use as an emergenct start up disk?
Paul

Allan,
I can boot fine from the external, partitioned firewire drive if i first set my "start up disk" preferences to the external drive.
But i if have my "system startup disk" preferences set to the internal drive (as it is normally), shut the machine down, then try a cold start holding down the "option" key, the G5 won't recognize the external drive (partitioned) as an optional system from which to start up from.
In the past, i've dedicated an entire external firewire drive (NOT partitioned) as my emergency start up disk and when i did a cold start of the G5 holding down the "option" key, the G5 had no problems recognizing the external (not partitioned) drive as an optional system for start up.
I'm wondering if by partitioning the external firewire drive i have some how rendered the external drive useless as an alternate start up device.
Questions, questions ...
Paul

My Macintosh HD partition is damaged and the disk utility failed to repair it

I cannot boot anymore after I tried to repair the disk with Disk Utility after my Mac became very slow.
This is the second time it happened to me in a week with the same symptoms. When I try to boot, I see a gray screen and the computer just stops
When I use the recovery partition, the disk utility fails to repair the disk, stopping after failing to fix the catalog file.
I started to use TM to backup my data after erasing the disk and reinstalling Mountain Lion but I wonder if my hard drive is damaged because the same problem happened twice. (Thanks TM for keeping my data safe this time)
Any advice or ways to fix that once and for all ?
PS : The worst is that i can still boot with Bootcamp to Windows, not very useful though

rpignard wrote:
Any advice or ways to fix that once and for all ?
Since your Recovery HD and Windows partition work fine, the problem is located in your Macintosh HD partition and I very highly suspect it's bad/failing sectors that's to blame for your troubles.
This can sometimes occur if the computer was moved while the hard drive was in operation, else sectors fail all by themselves, or if the drive is having mechanical issues, which you problem will continue no matter what you do.
This time when you use Recovery > Disk Utility to erase the Macintosh HD partition, use the middle secure erase option, not the far left or right options (the right will work also just take a really long time)
What your doing is with the middle secure erase option is called a "Zero" write, which Disk Utility will write 0's over all the bits in that partition. When it's done it will read it back for confirmation and when it does so, any bits that are failing will be mapped off by the drive. Hopefully this will resolve the issue without needing a drive replacement.
Once that is completed, reinstall OS X from Recovery, any programs from original sources, files only from backup and your problems hopefully should disappear.
What happens is if your data gets corrupted on the boot drive by failing sectors, it gets transfered to TimeMachine (or to bootable clones) and when you restore your right back to square one. So it's important to rule out that possibility with original installs of OS X and third party programs.
If your problems continue, then it's possibly a problem with third party at boot kernel extension files, (and the catalog problem was yet another one) so to solve this you need to make sure all your third party software is updated and works with your current OS X version.
A trick is, if you get gray screen at boot time, is to hold the Shift Key while booting the computer, this will disable a lot of things and allow you to fix the third party software issue.
What I suggest you do is have multiple backup systems, including hold option key bootable clones, this way if your TM drive gets corrupted you can go back in time to a saved state on the clone, restore that and then your files from the TM drive.
Most commonly used backup methods

Disk Utility: Backup to partition on external drive?

Hi people. Would be glad of an answer and any comments on this.
I have 3 Macs at home, a new G5 dual core and 2 G4 imacs, networked wirelessly. At this point I only backup my G5 to a second internal HD, by using Disk Utility's 'Restore' function.
My preferred plan is to get an external Firewire 400 drive, make 3 partitions on it, and do the Disk Utility 'Restore' for the 3 respective Macs. That way it's not only a backup, but a bootable solution if one of the machines dies.
My second choice is to add one of those generic network hard drives to the router and try to back up to that(essentially as an FTP/Samba disk), but it would be slow and not bootable at all.
Question: Will disk utility allow a partition, either on a firewire drive or network drive, to be the destination for a 'restore'? Or will it only recognise whole volumes?

Hi, Daniel.
You wrote: "Question: Will disk utility allow a partition, either on a firewire drive or network drive, to be the destination for a 'restore'? Or will it only recognise whole volumes? "Disk Utility will recognize a volume (partition) on a FireWire drive as the destination for a Restore.
Using the Restore function for backup is quite time-consuming as it has to backup everything every time you perform a backup. You will get much faster results by using a proper Backup and Recovery solution that supports incremental backups, i.e. backing up just the changes from the source to the destination (backup) so that the two are synchronized. For advice on the backup and recovery solution I employ, see my "Backup and Recovery" FAQ.
People have had mixed results using NAS (Network-attached Storage) for backups. I frankly think that it's still a bit early to try that route. Using an external FireWire drive has always given be good results.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

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

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

Hello RalphR_MI,
Take a look at this page, which lists several articles. Please let me know if any of these help you restore your backup.
Also, take a look at this article, as well as this one.
I hope this helps. I'm not sure of a few things, so I'm sorry for sending you so much, but I'm confident it will give you something new to try.
Please let me know if this helps. Good luck!
↙-----------How do I give Kudos?| How do I mark a post as Solved? ----------------↓

Iomega external HD no longer mounting, disk utility fails to resolve issue.

I have an Iomega external HD (1TB) that's been working faithfully for two years as my time machine backup. I have Mac OS X 10.6.8. This morning, the HD was no longer showing up on my desktop. I have tried to mount the HD through disk utility and it states it is unable to mount the drive. A screenshot of what I see on disk utility is below. The drive still lights up, sounds like it is running and the drive is active. I have also done the following:
1. verfied drive; states it needs repairs. When repairs attempted, utility goes on, and on, and on with no progress and I have to force quit.
2. Have reset the PRAM and nothing changes.
3. Have started mac in safe mode, still not recognized and same error messages given in disk utility.
4. Other external HD works fine on mac, have not had any software changes/updates since yesterday that I know of that would affect anything.
5. USB and Firewire ports all functioning correctly and the drive is recognized on those under system profiler.
5. I have attached the problem HD to my Windows XP laptop (an old one but still works) and the drive is recognized under device manager but does not show on the desktop (formatted for mac though, so not too surprising).
Would appreciate anyone's advice on this one, have hit a wall.

Turn off Time Machine, select the 1TB ST310005 Media Drive instead of the Time Machine partition and see if it will Repair.
If that doesn't work, you might Erase / Repair / Format and start over providing that there is nothing critical on the Time Machine backup that you can't live without.

Disk Utility 13 problem with USB drives

There appears to be a problem with Disk Utility 13 (part of OS X 10.9). At least, so far as I can tell, everything traces back to this app, or possibly OS X 10.9 itself.
I recently upgraded my MacBook Air to OS X 10.9 (reformatted hard drive, installed system from scratch, updated with all the latest Apple updates). I pre-checked all my third party software to make sure it was 10.9 compatible before installing it after the system cleanup, so everything I’m running supposedly has been approved as safe for 10.9. But I’m seeing a problem formatting USB drives that I do not encounter when running under 10.8.
I have a Seagate STAA500101 (“FreeAgent GoFlex”) drive connected via Seagate’s USB3 adapter that I’ve used for some time as a Time Machine backup. Post-overhaul, I decided to erase the backup and start fresh. When I attempt to format it (single GUID partition) with Disk Utility, I see the following messages go by:
Formatting disk1s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name Untitled 1
Could not mount disk1s2 with name (null) after erase
Then there’s a pause, and the format appears to conclude fine. But if I run a “Verify Disk” immediately, I get this:
Verifying partition map for “Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Media”
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition’s size
Checking the EFI system partition’s file system
Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces
Volume on disk1s2 has 0 bytes of trailing loader space and it needs 134217728 bytes
Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting
Error: Partition map needs repair because a data partition needs loader space.
As the drive has just been formatted, that seemed odd. I took it over to another Mac still running 10.8.5 and formatted it there — it worked just fine. Verified just fine. Took the drive back to my MacBook Air and tried to verify the disk — same failure.
I wanted to rule out bad media, so I took a Lexar 16GB USB flash drive and tried to format it with Disk Utility 13 — got the same problem.
The only success I’ve had formatting USB drives under 10.9 is to boot up into OS X Recovery. Disk Utility there formatted my Seagate drive without an error. But once I booted back into normal 10.9 operating mode, the drive once again fails to verify; it makes me leery about using it as a Time Machine backup.
I suppose it’s possible there could be some background component like Sophos causing problems when formatting drives, but if I format a drive via OS X Recovery or another Mac under 10.8, that wouldn’t explain why the drives fail to verify.
Anyone got any other observations on this issue?

Problem resolved. I'm posting this note for anyone else who might run into this situation and come across this discussion.
It actually did turn out to be Sophos -- Cloud, that is. I'd been using Sophos' free Mac antivirus software on a variety of systems but forgot that I was now testing out Sophos Cloud on my own MacBook, which is their new endpoint solution, and supposed to be compatible with OS X 10.9 (although the Mac version is listed as "beta") Sophos Cloud includes a new feature called Device Control which allows you to create a company-wide policy to control access to hardware such as USB drives, optical drives, etc. But apparently it's still pretty buggy. I had my Device Control configured with the default setting of "monitor but do not block" but it was most definitely gumming up the system. With Sophos Cloud installed, here's what happens if I try to run "Verify Disk" on any attached drive. Note on the left side how "disk2s2" shows as a sub-volume for each hard drive.
So if I uninstall Sophos Cloud, reboot and rescan, here's what I get:
Works fine. Note that the "disk2s2" subvolumes are also gone. This is the way Disk Utility also appears on a 10.8 or 10.9 system, even if you have the standard free Sophos for Mac software installed. It's only Sophos Cloud that's not playing nice. It also appears to have stopped me from being able to play DVDs from an attached Apple USB SuperDrive -- that problem was likewise solved by removing Sophos Cloud.

Disk Utility Fails When Partitioning FireWire Drive

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