Disk Utility hanging on Erase/Partition OR Howto backup a dual boot Mactel?

I'm trying to use Disk Utility to format an external usb hd as HFS+ for backing up my Macbook. Running 10.4.7 and Disk Util 10.5.6 (latest version afaik)
Problem is whenever I try to either Erase format a hard drive using my usb2 external enclosure, Disk Util just kinda freaks, not really doing anything, and after a minute or so becomes the program becomes unresponsive. Luckily the rest of my system keeps on working, and I can just force quite disk util. But when I try to shutdown/restart my system I'm forced to do a hard power down.
I've tried leaving Disk Util running overnight, thinking it was just needing a little extra time to get thru the process, but nothing changed when I woke. And a gave the macbook a good hour to shutdown cleanly, but it stays stuck with the blue screen and the spinning gray wheel at the very end of teh shutdown cycle.
Looking at the disk util log (after force quiting and restarting the util) it will simply say:
Aug 12 03:24:09: Disk Utility started.
Preparing to erase : “Mb”
Creating Partition Map
Aug 12 03:25:50: Disk Utility started.
I've also tried running disk util off the osx install cd (tiger 10.4.6), but i get what seems to be identical behavior, and i have to manually turn off the macbook.
I've tried this with two hard drives with identical results. In Windows (boot camp) im able to format the partition fine, but it only does ntfs because of the drive's size (and I'm not trying to use a windows fs anyway).
I plugged the usb hd into a powerbook, and used a 10.4.0 retail cd to run disk util (no hd in the powerbook) and its able to erase/partition the disks just fine. I can then plug them back into the macbook and theyre recognized just fine. But its PPC system and doesnt offer for gtp partitioning which I'm thinking will be a problem because ultimately I'm trying to use this drive to do bootable backups of my macbook.
I'd like to figure out what is wrong with Disk Util. But even if i get the partitioning working, i have the larger problem of -how- to backup the macbook's hd onto an identical sized hd (80 gigs), that will make both osx and windows bootable backups that I can restore off of.
One thought was to use the unix utility dd, and just do a bitwise copy of one disk to another. Any idea if this would work?
Another option would be manually creating the partitions myself, and then backing up each of the drives seperately. Not sure if I could even make a bootable backup of windows from within osx.
I know I'm not the only one running boot camp and looking to have reliable backups. What are other people doing to address this issue.
Ideally I would like to find a solution that:
*creates an identical disk with two bootable partitions
*can be automated, or at best a few simple steps that can be done once and then walked away from
Thanks for the help
macbook Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Similar Messages

Disk Utility hangs when erasing external disk

In Time Machine I wasn't able to figure out how to attach an external drive via USB. I guessed that it probably wouldn't work on a MS-DOS filesystem, so I started Disk Utility, which I never have used before. I have formatted disks before on Linux and on Windows, so it's nice to see a great app for this.
In the Time Machine brief help text, there is not mentioned what kind of filesystem that is required or if it work with any filesystem. So I searched, and it seems as if HFS+ journaled case-insensitive is the filesystem that one should choose. Can anyone confirm this?
When I click erase then the Disk Utility program hangs and I see the spinning beachball. The Activity Monitor program shows that disk activity stops after a few seconds. There is no more activity, so after 5 minutes I stop the program.
I have tried several times, and I see the same behavior. I even tried restarting the computer. But no luck.
Now my external disk no longer shows that it's a MS-DOS filesystem, but shows that it's HFS+ journaled case-insensitive. Probably not ok so far. I try creating a single patition, with format: HFS+ journaled case-insensitive, without OS 9 drivers installed. When I click apply then spinning beachball again and diskactivity stops after a few seconds, and I stop the program after some minutes where it has been inactive.
My guess is that the disk-erasing task failed and has left the disk in a broken state. During this task Disk Utility began to hang for a reason that I don't know.
My second guess to why the create-partition task failed, is that the disk is in a broken state, and thus the partition cannot be created, and Disk Utility hangs.
How do I format the external disk from the command line?

In Disk Utility, select the drive mechanism (not the volume on it) and click the Partition button. Use the Options button to choose the GUID partition scheme, then make one HFS+ (Journaled) volume.
There is no point in using the command line for this task, because if Disk Utility cannot deal properly with the disk, Mac OS X will not either. Disk Utility is using diskutil to do the partitioning and formatting.

Disk Utility hangs attempting to erase SimpleTech 100gb external USB disk

I'm attempting to erase and format a SimpleTech 100gb external USB disk. Disk Utility hangs. The system error log says:
"AppleUSBEHCI[0x1d59000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 91, timing out!
Jul 21 17:30:35 Kari-Hohnbaums-Computer-2 kernel[0]: USBF:"
The console log (and Disk Utility log) shows:
Preparing to erase : “PBEX1”
Creating Partition Map
error writing partition map: Device not configured (6)
Disk Erase failed with the error:
What is the problem? This disk is recognized by Tiger but only as read-only as it ships as an NTFS volume and must be erased and reformatted before it can be used by a MAC.
All help appreciated.

I tried the partition approach and it unfortunately failed as well. The same "hung" symptoms as before. The green light (disk activity) on the disk flashed several times at the initial request, but that was all. I eventually interrupted it after a hourn which generated the same system log message: AppleUSBEHCI[0x1d59000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 91, timing out!
The disk utility log says:
Preparing to partition disk: “SAMSUNG HM100JC Media”
Partition Scheme: Apple Partition Scheme
Mac OS 9 Disk Drivers installed
1 partitions will be created
Partition 1
Name : “PBEX1”
Size : 93.2 GB
Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Creating Partition Map
Partition failed for disk SAMSUNG HM100JC Media Device not configured
Partition complete.
I don't have easy access to a Window's box. I do have access to a Linux system. Perhaps I can configure it there and it will work on my PB.

Disk Utility Hangs during format

Yes, I've seen a hundred other posts on this but all have been archived with no solution.
It seems very likely there is a 10.4 problem. When I try to format a 160GB drive connected via USB Disk Utility hangs and never completes. I have tried to partition it as well with no luck.
Is there a fix? Is Apple working on the problem? Is there a workaround? Even a commandline fix would be acceptable.

This is ridiculous. I have tried 4 different physical drives in 4 different physical enclosures (3 different brands) and it still hangs Disk Utility.
I know I'm not the only one with this problem. What the **** is going on? I can't format a disk and therefore I can't use it. This is absolutely unacceptable.
Sometimes my machine hangs in such a way that I can't even reboot it, it requires a physical power down.
I have been forced to format these on a Windows machine with FAT32 (using a 3rd party app to get past the GB limitation MS sets). I don't want FAT32, I want HFS+. But I can find no other way to do this in Tiger as it ALWAYS hangs regardless of drive, enclosure, filesystem type, size, number of partitions, etc, etc.
Is OS X truly this bad that it can't even format a drive properly? Am I really going to have to rely on Windows and FAT32 whenever I want to format?

Are my photos completely gone if i went into disk utility and clicked erase, or can i recover them?

i wanted to put my macbook pro back to factory settings and re installl the disk. so i went into disk utility and clicked erase, after that i realized i did not put my pictures on my external drive and now i'm wonder even though i pushed erase in disk utility for my HD are my photos just gone off my computer and hidden in files that i have to recover. because i tried a few softwares that i downloaded and i found some of my photos but couldnt get them cause the software was a demo.
main question is even though i clicked erase HD and my pictures aren't on when i re install the mac DVD can i still recover them somehow??

I'm assuming that you were booted from the Mac install disk or recovery partition when you clicked Erase? (It's impossible to erase a disk you're booted from, at least using Disk Utility).
Do you have a backup of your computer, perhaps using Time Machine?
If not, and you still want to recover your pictures, first, STOP. Do not re-install Mac OS X. Installing the system and applications will overwrite your hard drive and potentially permanently lose your deleted files.
The only way you can retrieve your files is by using data recovery software such as Data Rescue. No, it's not cheap, but you have to decide what your photos are worth to you. You would need to run it from another Mac, ideally, and connect to your Mac using target mode.
If you're uncomfortable with that, you should seek a local reputable Mac/data recovery consultant.
The utility kaz-k points you to is not a solution to your problem. It's an Unerase Trash program.
Matt

I accidently used Disk Utility to fix a partition. I cant boot in with any USB drive. Help.

I accidentally used Disk Utility to fix a partition. It erased it. I desperately need to restore it.
I have an imac without a cdrom. How do I create a bootable usb with testdisk as for some bizarre reason it seems impossible to create a bootable usb drive for osx. I tried GParted and the ultimate boot disk that both have test disk.
I am stumped. Why can't I boot into my imac with a usb? I have a mac air that I just cant seem to create a usb drive with testdrive thats bootable. I even tried rEFit but no luck.
Anyone have an idea? How do I fix my system ?

I have an imac OSX 10.8.
I tried creating a usb drive of testdisk on my mac air so that I could use it to boot into the iMAC and restore the partition table.
I created it using:
hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o target.img ~/Desktop/ubcd530.iso
dd if=./target.img.dmg of=/dev/rdisk1 bs=1m
It did not work. It would not boot. I also tried Gnome Partition tool and that did not boot either. I need my old system as it has important data
Any tips? Thanks!

Disk Utility missing the Erase tab

Tonight, I was attempting to reformat my Mac Mini FileVault encrypted hard drive. I have Mountain Lion 10.8 installed on it, and I have a bootable Mountain Lion USB stick.
I booted from the USB device, and first tried to format. Everything was greyed out. I had to "Unlock" the encrypted drive and then it was available.
I then tried to do an Erase, and it failed with an error I didn't catch, and then only "Macintosh HD" shows up (no volume below it in Disk Utility) and the Erase tab is unavailable. The Partition tab is also locked and nothing can be chosen.
I can Verify and Repair with no problems, but I am unable to repartition or erase the drive.
Any thoughts?

I ran in to this issue once again, when trying to clean install Mountain Lion on my MacBook. I rebooted to the Recovery partition, and tried to format/erase using Disk Utility and that failed and left the system where only the drive (Macintosh HD) would show up, and Erase was greyed out. I was unable to format using the command line due to seeing the message:
"The disk is in use by Core Storage as a Physical Volume"
I found a solution here:
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/59026/how-to-install-mountain-lion-on-a -disk-that-cannot-be-formatted-in-recovery-mode
See the post by Anderson, where he shows how to clobber this Core Storage volume:
Basically, you need to run diskutil CoreStorage list from Terminal. Identify the logical CoreStorage volume from that list and note the UUID string.
Then type diskutil CoreStorage delete UUID where UUID is the string you identified.
You can then partition with Disk Utility and run a Mountain Lion install.
This did the trick for me, and I was then able to 0-byte format the drive and do a clean install over the internet.

Disk Warrior/Disk Utility Hangs with External HD

okay, so i will try to make this as quick as possible.
last year, i had an external hard drive that i had been saving all my audio work on. one day i had to restart (i was having a lot of problems with my then IBook G4) so i did, and the drive was no where to be found. made sure there was no connection problems (ie my USB ports) and everything seemed fine. let it sit for a while, thinking maybe it was just tired or something. tried again, same story, and it also made disk utility hang. tried it on a friends mac, same issue.
i also had a a lot of video/music that i watched with my xbox 360. i could still access those files with the xbox, which was weird.
so then my ibook eventually died, and here i am with a newer G5 quad. i tried it again, and still the disk utility hangs, and ive also tried Disk warrior 4. this also hangs.
also, i have tried switching the enclosure to no avail.
its not the end of the world if i cant get the data back, but i would REALLY like to.
any suggestions?

System Profiler shows the same thing: "Manufacturer: PI-236" for each of these HDs. I'm not sure how to rename these drives (I'm not talking about the partitions on them, which I've given descriptive names).
The strange thing is that on my MacBook Air (upgraded to Lion) one of these HDs (now connected via USB) shows up in Disk Utility as "Ext Hard Disk Media" instead of "PI-236". Still not a whole lot of information, you'll notice.
Another external HD (partitioned earlier under Snow Leopard) is shown correctly as "SAMSUNG HD501LJ Media" on both computers.

Disk Utility failure to erase/initialize

I have a 1 TB WD MyBook Studio Edition. I sent this drive to a firm that does video conversions (from film to digital). Drive returned with expected (good) results, but now I can't write anything onto the drive - says I can only read. So I copied all files on the drive to another disk, then used Disk Utility to initialize. First Aid tab action buttons are all greyed out. Erase tab shows default format as MS DOS. I changed to Apple Extended (Journaled) and pressed OK. Process starts, but fails after a few seconds with error "Write Failure". Now disk won't mount when I attach it - only Disk Utility "sees" drive, but fails each time I try to Initialize/Erase.
What's up, and how do I correct?
Thanks

If you haven't fixed this yet, you may be able to use Disk Utility to completely erase and reformat the disk.
Click the top line of the drive, then the Partition tab. Click +1 partition+ (or however many you want) under *Volume Scheme*, then Options at the bottom. Select GUID for an Intel Mac, +Apple Partition Map+ for a PPC Mac. Setup the partition(s) you want to use on the Mac as +OSX Extended (Journaled),+ then click Apply.

Disk utility hangs MAC G4?

Why does Disk Utility hang when starting? ~ Doug

Hi, Doug.
A little more detail on how you are launching Disk Utility on the stated "G4" would help. Some more details about the specific G4, and the problems that may have led to you attempting to run Disk Utility on it would also be useful.
Try running steps 1-2 of the Procedure specified in my "Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption" FAQ.
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 hangs ("not responding") when attempting to Repair Disk on Time Capsule sparsebundle. Help.

I am trying to improve the performance of my Time Machine backup and retrievals via my 2nd Gen. Time Capsule from my iMac Core 2 Duo hard drive with SL 10.6.8. The incremental backups generally take 20 - 40 minutes each hour generally with fewer than 100 MB of data being backed up. I have read through numerous threads on these forums about Time Capsule and Time Machine issues as well as the very helpful Pondini site (http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Home.html) and have tried many other suggestions (listed below), but have been unable to attempt a Disk Utility repair disk on the Time Capsule sparsebundle file.
After locating the sparsebundle 'file' in the finder under Shared/TC/Data, I am only sometimes able to drag the sparsebundle into the Disk Utility volumes and disk window. About fifty percent of the time, Disk Utility hangs when attempting to drag in the sparsebundle. If I am able to get it listed and click on "repair disk", then the beach ball begins to spin and nothing happens. This occurs whether or not I first use AirPort Utility to "Disconnect All Users" from the Time Capsule. I have given it over one hour to attempt the repair disk, but nothing happens, i.e., not a single message shows up in the detail window. The beach ball just spins, and Disk Utility shows up in red as "not responding" under the Force Quit menu.
Also note that on my new Macbook Air, Time Machine runs quite quickly via this same Time Capsule from my new Macbook Air using OS X Lion (which seems to indicate that the Time Capsule drive itself is OK).
I would appreciate any tips on getting Disk Utility to run "repair disk" on my sparsebundle, as I seem to have exhausted most other options (see below) for improving Time Capsule performance -- aside of course, from wiping the Time Capsule clean and starting all over.... (which I really don't want to do, and from what I've read, has not helped some people who've tried this anyway).
Many thanks!
Although I would like to focus this thread on the Disk Utility / sparsebundle "Repair Disk" problem, I should mention that I have tried the following other things:
1. Repaired disk permissions on my hard drive
2. Used Disk Utility to run "repair disk" on my hard drive after starting up from a SuperDuper external backup
3. Run DiskWarrior on my hard drive, again, from a separate startup disk
4. Did the "full reset of Time Machine", a la Pondini Troubleshooting #A4
5. Changed my computer and Time Capsule names to simple short names with only alphanumeric characters and no spaces
6. Ensured that my Time Capsule is being accessed only via ethernet
7. Relaunched the finder
8. And finally, attempting to use Disk Utility to repair the sparsebundle - thus the nature of this post

OK, no takers out there, but I answered my own question (sort of).
The answer is that even though Disk Utility shows up as "not responding" under the Force Quit menu and appears to hang, it is actually still working. A bit of patience shows that after about an hour, my Disk Utility was able to show the 1.44 TB Time Machine sparsebundle from Time Capsule in the disk window on the left hand side. Once this appeared, I was able to click on "Repair Disk" (note that prior to doing this, I had to "Disconnect All Users" from my Time Capsule using the Airport Utility program; otherwise you will get a "could not unmount disk" error). Again, the Repair Disk function appeared to hang Disk Utility as it showed up as "not responding" under the Force Quit menu. However, after about 8 hours, Disk Utility did run the entire Repair Disk protocol on the sparsebundle. The results DO NOT show up in the Disk Utility details window - so even if you are patient enough to let it complete, you will not see anything and may think that nothing happened. However, you can find the familiar results of the Repair Disk function by looking on Console - find the "DiskUtility.log" under Files: ˜/Library/Logs.
Unfortunately, I was hoping to find a problem that would have been subsequently repaired which would result in dramatically increased Time Capsule speed, but this was not the case. Disk Utility showed everything to be "OK" and I am stuck with a very slow Time Capsule....
(And of note, my new Macbook Air (OS Lion) Time Machine functions blazingly fast on both backup and retrieval to and from the very same Time Capsule - even though, these are occuring wirelessly via AirPort -- granted the size of this sparsebundle is an order of magnitude smaller at this point, i.e., only 10 GB right now)
Would still be happy to hear of any similar experiences or tips on getting Time Capsule to work more quickly.

Disk utility hangs during disk verify

Initially 'disk verify' registered errors on exit - minor error/issue it said,some kind of header problem, so I ran disk utility off the install disk. Now the machine's native version of disk utility hangs during disk verify, blue & white spirals forever.
This coincidentally straight after my gmail/google address/account was hacked a couple of days ago.

Have you tried booting in SafeBoot mode (shift key held on start
until login screen appears) then launch Disk Utility and then run
its 'repair disk permissions' item, selecting the Macintosh HD;
and then note the repair window. It should fix something.
And when Disk Utility is done, quit it, and restart the Mac normally.
{...It is unlikely something from gmail affected your computer unless
you open up unknown sourced emails or go to odd web sites where
something may be downloaded from there, which you would almost
have to install (as admin, etc) for malware to work. You can get and
try ClamXAV for free to see if it sees any malware virus content.}
If you use Gmail, and do not log in using the https:// (secure http)
you should change the habit and bookmark the secure login site.
And when booted from the Installer disk and running Disk Utility
from there, see about running "repair disk" and not verify. The
repair choice will verify; but verify will not repair. Could be if
you cannot use the Utility to Repair the issues, and the other
SafeBoot mode and the computer's Disk Utility to get it working
you may need to further troubleshoot and/or get third-party tools.
In any event...
Good luck & happy computing!

Disk Utility hangs up

Running a G5 IMac with 10.5.1. Tried to repair permissions and Disk Utility hangs up at about 25% of the way through the process. Ran Disk Warrior. Still hangs up. Started up form Leopard Install and tried to repair permissions. Still hangs up. Otherwise the system seems to be running OK. Any help or thoughts would be appreciated.

Disk Warrior is NOT compatible with Leopard at this time.
I would not use my Disk Warrior.
Permissions take from 10 to 30 minutes with 10.5.1
Give it time.
It seems like it just sits there on "Less than 1 minute" but it will eventually finish.
Again, give it time.

After i bought mac os x lion from web then download , after that to install but when they ask me to choose disk to install i can not choose, it say this disk does not use the GUID partiton table scheme. use disk utility to change the partition scheme. but

after i bought mac os x lion from web then download , after that to install but when they ask me to choose disk to install i can not choose, it say this disk does not use the GUID partiton table scheme. use disk utility to change the partition scheme. but

after i bought mac os x lion from web then download , after that to install but when they ask me to choose disk to install i can not choose, it say this disk does not use the GUID partiton table scheme. use disk utility to change the partition scheme. but

My disk utility refuses to erase my hard drive

I've been trying for a few years to find some way to reset my mac to factory settings. Every last thing I've tried has failed. I was hoping the disk utility thing to erase it would work but the erase button never lets me to click on it

If you previously encrypted your hard drive (FileVault2) then your drive was enrolled in apple's CoreStorage format. If so, diskutility won't let you perform certain operations, and you'd first need to use advanced diskutil options from the command line ( $ diskutil cs delete ... ) to trash the CoreStorage volume.

Disk Utility hanging on Erase/Partition OR Howto backup a dual boot Mactel?

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