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.

Similar Messages

Disk Utility Freeze when using New Image

Has anybody experienced the following?:
my system:
Brand new Mac Pro 8-core 2.66GHz
24GB RAM
Snow Leopard 10.6.3 freshly installed
Apple SuperDrive DVD
I am in the process to install a lot of software and I like to make Disk Image of the software DVD to make things quicker to install.
Now what happens is that as soon as I select New Image from Disk Utility (after selecting the DVD on the left menu), the New Image progress window appears and then Disk Utility freezes. The disk image is being created in the background, but the progress window DOES NOT show the disk image status and eventually I have to OPTION-APPLE ESC from Disk Utility.
What I have tried is:
. delete plist for Disk Utility in Preferences
. repair permissions in SAFE BOOT mode
After that Disk Utility/New Image will work the first time as expected, and then the next time I am getting the same problem.
Any ideas what I could try to diagnose/fix this problem?
Thank you!

Thanks for your feedback.
As far as making a disk image or not, yes it takes some times to create it... longer? I am not sure because when you install a software there is a back and forth reading/writing, whereas when you create your disk image it does the reading and writing in a linear fashion... anyway to me the big benefit is when you have more than one disk part of an install (Apple FCS, Adobe CS, etc...) once you have created all your disk image, it will install everything automatically without having to feed each disc... and usually I have to do a fresh install later on... and finally it gives you a backup of your software...
Thanks again.

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!

Disk Utility Freezes When Verifying HD

Not sure what's gone wrong here--hoping you folks can help me out.
I wanted to make sure my OS X directory was in okay shape, so I tried to "verify disk" using Disk Utility. After a few seconds, the application becomes completely unresponsive. Activity Monitor shows the process as "Not Responding" in red. Attempting to quit the process locks Activity Monitor. Shortly after, the entire system is frozen.
I've deleted the preference files in my home folder, but that didn't change the behavior.
The same issue occurs in my mother's account.
I booted up from my install disc and tried to repair the disk. It failed with the error "The Disk 'Macintosh HD' could not be unmounted. I then clicked the "verify disk" button, and my disk "appears to be OK."
Any ideas what's causing this unusual behavior? I'd like to get things working as they should, if possible.
Oh, and this is my MacBook, running OS X 10.5.6. The Macintosh HD partition is 66.9 GB & 12.36 GB is free.
Just realized I haven't repaired permissions; going to do that now, then try again and see if repairing permissions makes any changes.
~Lyssa

DaddyPaycheck:
I'm running DU from my computer. It came with Leopard installed (I bought this computer last spring). If I'm running it from my computer, I should be running the latest version then, right?
Carolyn:
*Are you referring to the com.apple.DiskUtility.plist?*
Yes, that's the one! I deleted it, then tried running DU to verify the disk again, but the same issue occurred--the application froze.
*"Oh, and this is my MacBook, running OS X 10.5.6. The Macintosh HD partition is 66.9 GB & 12.36 GB is free. 12GB out of 70 is cutting it kind of close. You really need to be in the 10 to 15% free drive space range minimally."*
If I've calculated things right, I should have about 10GB free in order to have 15% of my drive free. I know I'm cutting it a little close, but this is the best I can do, for now.
As mentioned in my initial post, I can't repair the disk. Disk Utility fails with this error: "The Disk 'Macintosh HD' could not be unmounted." The Verify Disk option does work, and comes back with the report of "The Disk appears to be OK."
I used BootCamp to partition my drive for Windows, so I can't repair the entire drive, just the "Macintosh HD" portion. S.M.A.R.T. status is verified.
I'll give the AHT a go after I get home from class later today. I'll also try the steps in the article you linked--thanks!
If you folks have more suggestions, let me know.
~Lyssa

Disk Utility freezes when opened

Hello, I just purchased a new Ipod shuffle and its not cooperating with itunes. I figured I'd reinstall itunes, but the disk image of the latest itunes that I downloaded won't open. It flashes once when I click on it then nothing. So I opened my disk utility and that says "Gathering disk information" but it doesn't continue. Anyone know whats going on?

Hi rnemling, fellow CAian, Welcome to Apple's Users Help Users Forums.
Glad you got it solved. But I am puzzled by your two accounts open comment. You can have many accounts available but only one open at a time. (???) Go y
to System Preferences / Accounts where the active account will show in blue and the others will be listed.
Thanks in Apple Forums is through the Stars system. See the blue box at the top of the thread as well as the Apple emails re new posts to the thread.
With the buttons just to the left of "Reply" for the OP = Original Poster.
1 Green Solved available. 10 pts
2 Gold Helpful available. 5 pts.
Mark the buttons at the appropriate post.
Joyous Computing, JP

Disk utility freezing

While trying to check two Macs, a G4 dual 500 and a G5 dualcore 2.3, with installation disk os 10.4.3, the attempts were unsuccessful because the process froze when disk utility opens. I had to shut down the computers with the main switch. I tried two different installation disks of 10.4.3 on both computers and had freezes every time at the same point, when disk utility opens. The G5 had already been upgraded to 10.4.5. Why doesn't Apple supply a trouble shooting text as they did with previous systems?

First things first, is your data backed up? If not, that's the first thing I'd do:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
Next, disconnect all third party peripherals, and only use disks which are designed to help out your Mac in question:
For the G4/500, a retail 10.4 installer disk (black with white and gray X logo) would work.
For the G5 dual-core, use the G5 dual-core installation disks.
Using the wrong installer disk may not always work, especially because of:
http://www.macmaps.com/upgradefaq.html#SYSTEMSPECIFIC
If you are using the right installer disk to open Disk Utility with, and Disk Utility freezes when opened from the Utilities menu, then it suggests a hardware problem on machines where Disk Utility won't open.
Disclaimer: Reference to links I make to my Macmaps.com website are a for your information only type reference. I do not get any profit from this page, and it is open to the public.

Disk Utility Freezes...

Along with other standard Mac apps, like calculator.... I am getting so annoyed with my Powerbook G4 (running OS X Panther)...
I recently had a problem with what I believe started because of a faulty downloaded font which ended up in me having to re-install OS X using the Back-Up and Restore feature on the Software Install Disc.
After getting my laptop up and running again, I have begun to notice more things acting funny, like my Disc Utility Freezes when I try to select my hard drive from the menu, and the calculator app freezes whenever I try hitting the '=' button, so no more basic math for me, lol........
But seriously, this isn't funny at all, I use my Powerbook for my main (work) computer and I am going to be SOL if this thing goes out on me.... is there anything I can do?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9) 1.25 GHZ / 512 MB DDR SDRAM

Hi there,
I had that message 2weeks ago from my copy of Techtool Pro 4 on my Laptop, it was setup to check my HD every time I login.
The message I got was: "Macintosh HD Allocation Overlap (-694)"
I'm not much of a coder but I assumed it was a directory error or something of the like.
I ran a repair, but it was unable rectify the problem
So I backed-up all my data to a Firewire HD & did a Clean Install from my Retail copy of Panther - worked a treat, though it may have been using a Sledgehammer to crack a Walnut, & yes it took awhile but was the only way I knew how to sort it once-&-for-all (others may know different?).
If you do this, take time to download the Combo update rather than putting update on-top of update etc. - works out a faster update process in the end.
Also these updates you installed, do you repair Disk Permissions (if it'll let you) before & after each update? As this helps your system stay good.
Be careful of iTunes 7.x.x updates - as there are many users posting how it trashed their Macs!
iTunes 7.x.x wouldn't run on my G5 - I had to reinstall iTunes 6.0.5 to get my music back!
Hope that helps.
Rory

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.

Disk Utility Freezes & MS Word & Excel Won't Launch

Yesterday, my Disk Utility froze when it started performing a Verify Disk and I had to force quit. This morning I was using both MS Excel and MS Word, closed them and when I tried to open them 30 minutes later, neither will launch and I get an error message saying that they "closed unexpectedly during launch." I tried to Verify Disk & Disk Utility froze again. Then I repaired permissions using Disk Utility but it didn't help with the Excel and Word issues. I have never had a problem with any of these before. I just used Disk Warrior to "Check All Files and Folders" and "Repair Disk Permissions" and Test the Hardware. I am still not able to open Word or Excel. Any thoughts??

Hard drive has 30.58 GB available. I didn't run disk utility from the OSX install disk -- am in the process of moving and not sure where it is. Might actually be in my home in another country!!!

I have an icon on my MAC desktop called disk utility. When I click it on it a message says it is not compatible with this version of OS X. Can I then delete this set of files?

I have an icon on my MAC desktop called disk utility. When I click it on it a message says it is not compatible with this version of OS X. Can I then delete this set of files?

gjspross wrote:
I did upgrade and here is the current version: OS X 10.8.2 (12C60)
I was able to get to and open disk utility through Application> utilities
I thought the disk utility icon on the desktop may be related to my old software. I was going to move it totrash but it had over 2000 files and so I did know if it was still being used or could be moved to trash.
What kind of files are in there? Sounds like a carry over from your last system. DiskUtility should only be kept in Utilities with a shortcut in the dock or an alias on the desktop, idealy.
Cheers
Pete

If leopard won't boot from dvd, use disk utility mount to partition

wanted to share a way that i successfully installed os 9, tiger, and leopard on 1 hard drive. first of all, leopard was the only installation that i had difficulty with. it would not boot off the original dvd, no matter if i held down the 'c' key or the option key, so this is what i did after a lot of reading on the internet to try and troubleshoot this issue.
First thing i did was partition my internal hard drive in 3 partitions using disk utility. the 3rd partition was around 9gb. I installed os9 first on the 1st partition, i then installed tiger on that same partition. then i put in my leopard dvd, and opened up disk utility. and clicked on "restore", and dragged the dvd image as the "source", and chose the 9gb partition as the destination, and clicked on restore. then, i changed the "startup disk" to start from the 9gb where i just restored the image, and rebooted, and went through the leopard setup and chose the 2nd partition as the place to install. this should work with the dvd, or if you made an image from the dvd. I hope this helps someone else whose dvd won't boot, because it was very frustrating after you purchase a faster processor, and faster video card so that your system meets the requirements, and then the dvd won't boot.

Two ways. Use another computer to restore the install disc to one of those ext HD. Then, use it to boot the other machine. Get an ext CD/DVD reader and use it to read the install disc and boot the machine. However, if both the HD and optical reader are kaput, then a trip to an Apple repair station is in order.

I burned an exercise DVD using disk utility and when I played it in my DVD player it was choppy and skipped. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

I burned an exercise DVD using disk utility and when I played it in my DVD player it was choppy and skipped. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Commercial
Roxio Toast
<http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/toast/titanium/>
NTI DragonBurn
<http://www.ntidragonburn.com/en/us/product/dragon_burn.asp?>
Shareware or freeware
DVD Image Utility
<http://geek.thinkunique.org/2007/07/17/dvd-image-utility/>
Disco
<http://discoapp.com/>
no longer supported, but free, simple, and runs well under SL.
LiquidCD
<http://www.maconnect.ch/>
free; iffy support, but, again, simple, and runs well under SL.
Burn
<http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html>
open source; not clear how active development and support are, but runs well under SL.
Terminal Whiz Kid
mkisofs
<http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/cdrecord.html>
(part of the cdrtools kit)
Use mkisofs to create the disc image, and burn it with hdiutil or drutil. (Some of the free options mentioned above actually use mkisofs.)

Disk Utility in recovery partition doesn't see errors present when scanning from 10.8.3

I'm running Disk Utility and finding some errors (Unable to bootstrap transaction group XXXX: inconsistent crosscheck, No valid commit checkpoint found, The volume XXXX was found corrupt and needs to be repaired, Incomplete or inconsistent CoreStorage Physical Volume set)
When I reboot into the recovery partition and try to fix these errors, the disk checks out fine. Back in 10.8.3, I get the same errors. Any ideas?

Yes, I chose the Repair Disk option from the Recovery Partition Disk Utility. This is a FileVault encrypted drive, and I've entered in the password to unlock the disk. From the Recovery Partition, Disk Utility reports no errors during Verify or Repair (same with Disk Permissions).
Once back in OS X 10.8.3, all the errors that I described previously show up in Disk Utility. It can't be unmounted since it's my startup disk, so I'm stuck not being able to fix things.

Disk Utility locks when trying to partition

Well, I'm in a right pickle at the moment. I decided to reinstall Mac OS X on my PowerBook. For some reason, when starting Disk Utility from the OS X DVD 1, it just says 'Gathering disk information...' with the spinning icon. Still no luck. Then, after restarting, nothing happens. Just the old OS 9 icon saying it can't find the System Folder.
I then tried to install Ubuntu Linux which worked perfectly. I tried the Hardware Test CD which worked fine as well and said everything was OK. I then tried to reinstall OS X but without luck. Disk Utility just hangs....
I'm off on holiday in 48 hours so I need this machine fixed. Any ideas? I have an iPod and another Mac (good ol' Mini) so I thought I could do something with this. I backed up the machine so everything is safe but I just need to install OS X on it. So, how can I fully restore the disk back to normal?
Thanks
Seb

Are you sure you made the partition HFS+? You need to make sure that the partition is compatible with being a system disk.
Are you using the disks that originally came with the computer. If you use disks from another machine, the installer may refuse to install. If you have a retail version, you might have problems if the retail version is older than the computer you are trying to install on. Even though the retail versions of the OS should work on a variety of machines, it may not be compatible with computers that are newer, even though installing and applying software update should get you to the version you needed. Apple doesn't anticipate you using retail disks on a machine that came with the same version bundled with it.

Disk Utility Hangs When Creating a New Partition

Hello,
I recently purchased a Late 2005 Power Mac G5. My problem is, that the hard drive is 250 MB and only one partition appears in the disk utility of 37 GB. I try to add a new partition, but it hangs on "modifying partition map". Any Help?
Additional info -
Main Disk
Name : WDC WD2500JD-41HBC0
Type : Disk
Partition Map Scheme : Apple Partition Map
Disk Identifier : disk0
Media Name : WDC WD2500JD-41HBC0 WDC WD2500JD-41HBC0
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : Serial ATA
Connection ID : Device 0, "A (upper)"
Device Tree : first-boot/@0:0
Bay : "A (upper)"
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : No
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : No
Location : Internal
Total Capacity : 232.9 GB (250,059,350,016 Bytes)
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Verified
Disk Number : 0
Partition Number : 0
Partition -
Name : Mac OSX 10.5
Type : Volume
Disk Identifier : disk0s3
Mount Point : /
File System : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Connection Bus : ATA
Device Tree : first-boot/@0:3
Writable : Yes
Universal Unique Identifier : 989D8CCE-3C5D-3ECC-9A12-C025D2DF23F2
Capacity : 37.1 GB (39,873,503,232 Bytes)
Free Space : 24.5 GB (26,274,824,192 Bytes)
Used : 12.7 GB (13,598,679,040 Bytes)
Number of Files : 484,775
Number of Folders : 110,579
Owners Enabled : Yes
Can Turn Owners Off : Yes
Can Repair Permissions : Yes
Can Be Verified : Yes
Can Be Repaired : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : Yes
Disk Number : 0
Partition Number : 3
Thanks

Have you tried doing this first:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
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 Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
If there are no errors reported then try the routine I suggested rather than trying to expand the existing partition just try to Add a second partition as you have tried before.
If this still gets you nowhere, then I'm afraid you're left with having to repartition from scratch. You'll want to backup the existing files if you don't wish to lose them. I would then do this:
Drive Preparation
1. 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 Utilities menu.
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. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
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.
When the above is completed quit DU and return to the installer. Complete the OS X installation.

Disk utility freezes when partitioning HD

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for