Disk utility is acting strange

Hello,
My Disk Utility is acting strange: I get inconsistent results on First Aid.
I get either "Volume Bit Map needs minor repair", "Keys out of order", "Invalid node structure", "Invalid volume file count", "Invalid volume free block count", or "Volume Header needs minor repair". I click Repair Disk. And after some clicking, the problems seem to go away, showing “the volume appears to be ok”. But the problem is that when I hit Verify Disk a couple of times, or a few minutes later, Disk Utility finds these problems again.
Does anybody know what might be going on here? This is my external backup drive; my internal Macintosh HD is fine. Well Disk Utility says so....
Thanks

Verify Disk performs what is known as "live verification" and may sometimes give spurious errors. This is what might be happening. To be sure, this really must be done from Disk Utility booted either from an external Volume or from the Install Disk. I would go straight to Repair Disk and not bother with Verify. Permissions Repair, on the other hand, should be done from the normal boot Volume.
How were you doing "Repair Disk"? You probably know that option will be dimmed out when you are booted normally.

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MacBook Pro just shut off, disk utility gives a strange report, please help

My MacBook Pro just turned off for no reason. I started it back up and in the Finder under devices to the left where it usually says "My Name"'s MacBook Pro, it now has a (2) beside it. I repaired permissions and got the following report:Repairing permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Reading permissions database.
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All of the Warnings end with "and will not be repaired".
Does anyone have any idea what this might mean?
Also, when I started it back up, the hard drive made the same sound as when I insert a CD or DVD into the computer.

the DU warnings are harmless.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448?viewlocale=en_US
you could have a hardware problem with your drive though.
verify the disk (not permissions) using disk utility and if it reports any errors, boot from the leopard install DVD and repair the drive using disk utility there.
you can change the name of the computer and get rid of (2) in system preferences->sharing.

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I started up Disk Utility on my AGP, it showed "estimated 1 minute", After about 30 minutes the scan was still said "estimated 1 minute" and the blue bar had not moved. So I hit the red button to close/quit and then the window came to life and showed the scan detail and the blue bar started moving. Of course I canceled the quit and the Disk Utility completed the job. Estimated times for repair are not even close on the AGP, Results listed below.
On my MacBook Pro, the Disk Utility was fast and no problems,
Both machines gave the exact warnings and errors. see report:
Repairing permissions for “The System”
Warning: SUID file "usr/libexec/load_hdi" has been modified and will not be repaired.
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DiskManagement.framework/Versions/A/Resources /DiskManagementTool" has been modified and will not be repaired.
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Warning: SUID file "usr/libexec/authopen" has been modified and will not be repaired.
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Good Morning,
Honestly this is a known issue. Disk Utility is acting really "Odd™" under Leopard when it comes to time and speed.
I'm sure it will be corrected with either a hotfix or in 10.5.2.
Hope this helps! 
David

Disk Utility acting strangely

A problem, please: I'm trying to use Disk Utility to help recover the desktop icons for my backup, a La Cie d2 hard drive, which have disappeared. La Cie says to first Repair Permissions.
But Disk Utility presents a blank page with the rotating time cog going round and says "gathering disk information." This goes on and on and nothing happens. Eventually I force quit.
Above problems aside, everything seems to be working fine.

Thanks, Tom, it seems I'm on the right track and now HALF my LaCie is up.
The 149GB hard disk is partitioned, half for back-up and half for videos, but the back-up icon in Disk Utility is greyed out. When I check (and highlight) the whole hard disk and try Repair, I'm told "First Aid failed ... Disk Utility stopped repairing ... because ... the underlying task reported failure on exit" (whatever that means). I'm also told "1 volume did not need to be repaired" -- no doubt the video half of the disc.
But of course we're only talking about a single disc that happens to have two icons, and my suspicion/hope is that what's going on is nothing serious, just a missing LaCie icon on the desktop. And without it, I can't back-up.
Further help would be most appreciated . . . Fortes

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I've got a mid-2011 MacBook Air running OS 10.7.4. When I run Disk Utility in repair disk mode, I get a pop up that says "Alert - Storage system verify or repair failed" and in the details window it says "Problems were encountered during repair of the partition map" and (in ominous red type) "Error: Storage system verify or repair failed."
What makes this problem strange is that I only encounter this error message when running Repair Disk from the MacBook Air's hard drive. Whenever I boot from an external drive and run Disk Utility on the MacBook Air disk from the external, I get no error message. I've run Disk Warrior on the MacBook Air disk as well, but it doesn't indicate that there are any problems.
I called Apple Support and they told me to take it to the Apple Store and get the hard drive replaced, which is nice of them but which still means that I'm going to be without a computer for a few days if not longer and I'll have to deal with the hassle of transferring files. I'd much prefer to fix the problem without having to replace the drive, assuming the problem is fixable.
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The item you select does it appear somewhat like this:
Of course the content is different, but I'm more interested in the structure you see. On your computer you see Macintosh HD whereas on mine it says Lion HD.
If so, then in order to repair Macintsoh HD you have to boot from a different drive because you cannot repair the active startup volume. When you select the top entry and click on the Repair Disk button all that does is repair or replace the drive's partition map.
Now, if the partition map is damaged, then the only way to fix it is to repartition the SSD. Doing so will erase all the data on the drive. So you need to make a backup of Macintosh HD on a cleanly erased external drive. I would suggest using the cloning option in Disk Utility to clone the SSD to the external HDD:
Clone Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue button.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external HDD. Source means the internal SSD.
Once you have your backup then you may proceed to repartition the SSD.
Step One: Boot from the external drive. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive then click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Step Two: Partition the SSD
1. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder of the HDD.
2. After DU loads select your new 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. 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 then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
Step Three: Clone the HDD to the SSD
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the SSD. Source means the HDD.
Step Four: Open the Startup Disk preferences and select the SSD Macintosh HD volume. Click on the Restart button. You should boot from the SSD. Eject the external drive and disconnect it from the computer.

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After doing several updates recently on my MacBook Air, decided to run a Disk Permissions Repair. Upon opening Disk Utility, I see my HD, then a grey horizontal line, and under that I see: decryptedFile.dmg then an icon of Flash Player under that. Seemed rather strange to see this in Disk Utility. Why is it showing up? Do I need to to be concerned? How do I get rid of it?

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jettyboy wrote:
I have deleted the permission file on my main drive and that didn't help.
Exactly what did you do?

My MacBookPro is acting strange, it was suggested i reinstall the OS. When i bought Lion it was downloaded with no disk. can i do that?

My MacBookPro, that i purchased in Sept 2009 and have upgraded many times, is now acting up. The screen is grey occationally, I cannot not leave the power plugged in or the external drive now because that leads to trouble. When i get the grey screen i get big pixels when i move the cursor over the screen and i can see my account under the grey, so i click on it and i can log in, but it has started gettng very hot sometimes, and it shuts down often when i close the lid instead of going to sleep (unless a program won't quit).
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[task] failed with the error:
Input/Output error.
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*Disk Appeared ('disk2',Mountpoint = '', fsType = '', volName = '')
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Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on '/dev/disk2'
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Strange .dmg showing in Disk Utility

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I have the same, but I am using Lion:
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Ciao.

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I have 3 drives on my Mac Pro
“HD 2” is declared SMART “failing” with Disk Utility.
It is “VERIFIED” and passed using TechTool Pro 5.
After this I went ahead and rebuilt volume structure with TechTool and did a complete surface scan, both were successfully completed. No bad blocks.
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Message was edited by: bandu2

Can the drive send Disk Utility one message and a different one to tech tool ??
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Strange hidden user discovered with Disk Utility

Hi Peeps
I just ran repair permisions, which I always do before installing an update, and Disk Utility showed this:
Repairing permissions for “MacProBeast”
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Repaired "usr/share/derby".
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent" has been modified and will not be repaired.
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the "ARDAgent" has always been there, it's the "usr/share/derby" that concerns me, anyone else have anything like this show up in their 10.6.3?
Bobs

It's an innocuous message as are the others. Nothing to be worried about and you haven't discovered a hidden user.

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Last login: Thu Apr 10 18:03:08 on console
wr-130-64-184-253:~ betsyk$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *320.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            319.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
wr-130-64-184-253:~ betsyk$ diskutil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found
wr-130-64-184-253:~ betsyk$ mount
/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
wr-130-64-184-253:~ betsyk$ df -m /
Filesystem   1M-blocks   Used Available Capacity iused   ifree %iused Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2    304425 274476     29698    91% 70329971 7602931   90%   /
wr-130-64-184-253:~ betsykirtland$

Disk Utility - strange error - enough free space

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Welcome to Apple Discussions!
The true space of a blank DVD is not 4.7 GB based on 1024 MB GBs, but based on 1000 x 1000 x 1000 Bytes. As a result, when the original file size might be 4.36 GB it might not be enough. I've found you really have to go under 4.34 GB to fit a DVD to the brim, and sometimes less depending on the quality of the DVD media.

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After reading another forum about my problem, I decided to repair permissions for my Mac. When I click repair permissions in Disk Utility and authenticate, it says the following: "Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit." What does that mean and is it dangerous, If it is, how can I fix it? TIA!

That is an error from repairing partitions, not permissions, and means you need to insure you have backup(s), and 3rd party utility to repair the drive, like Alsoft Disk Warrior.
It also suggests you were running from DVD or another disk drive, otherwise you can't repair a partition, only verify.
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/Users/account/Library/Caches
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Disk utility is acting strange

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