Disk Utility is hanging

I'm having with Disk Utility all of a sudden. When I run Repair Permissions, it will run for about 75% complete and then just hang.
The line it seems to stop running at says this:
We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock. New permissions are 33261
It has stopped here twice and when it gets to this point, it never goes any further. It has been stuck here for the last 30 minutes.
I haven't changed anything on my dock. Any suggestions?

Hello Jeff.
Try running Disk First Aid repair via Disk Utility when booted from the Tiger install disc.
Check Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption for system troubleshooting procedures and when doing so, follow all steps/instructions in the order provided.

Similar Messages

Disk utility is hanging trying to erase ssd. Can I force quit?

I will keep this sorry Halloween tale short. And, not bore you with how I got to where I am, as we'd both need drinks if I did.
Needless to say, here I am watching Disk Utility making zero progress on erasing my SSD.
Progress bar os stuck 1/3rd of the way and the app has been running just over an hour.
SSD is OWC 6G Mercury Pro 240gb
Activity monitor shows activity in DU, but again, no progress as noted by static blue bar.
Drive got messed up during Yosemite install.
The SSD, once proudly a Guid Partition Format pre-Yosemite, had been converted into a Logical Volume Partition, without permission.
No, I did not enable file vault!
Now, getting corruption errors all over the place, I set out to reformat, and here is where I am, stuck.
Is 70 minutes without progress bar movement too little time?
How long could it be to erase?
I also must tell you that following instructions, I removed the corrupted sad and put it in a firewire 800 enclosure, while running my MBP with a 7200rpm Mountain Lion, pre-Yosemite clone.
Textbook cue of why you make clones!
Question: Is it safe to force quit DU?
Or should I sleep and see if anything happens by morning.
Thanks to one and all.
I know my Halloween is certainly scary enough…!

Well, thanks for the looks…
I'm calling it a night.
The DU progress bar still hasn't moved, (visually), in 4 hours since first post.
However, in Activity Monitor, DU still shows both read, and write, disk activity. Pitifully slow. But steady
I'll check in here again in the morning before, "pulling the plug."
Best,
Rich

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.

My external hard drive accidentally switched off during Disk Utility's "erase free space" process. I restarted the external hard drive and Disk Utility, but now I get the "couldn't mount disk" error when trying to finish the erase. Please help!

My external Lacie Quadra hard drive accidentally switched off in the middle of "erase free space", and when I switched it back on Disk Utility was hanging. So I Force Quit Disk Utility and restarted it. Now when I try to erase I get
"Secure Disk Erase failed with the error: Couldn’t unmount disk."
But "erase free space" seems to work...
What can I do? I'm erasing as I'm giving the drive to someone else and I wanted to wipe it clean.
Also should I use "erase" or "erase free space" if I want to wipe the drive clean?
Please help!

Sorry I don't really understand.... there are no partitions on the drive. How do I repartition it?
And should I use "erasing free space" or "erase" for wiping clean my drive of everything? Erase seems to be faster last tiem I tried.
Thanks!

DISK Utility issue..Please HELP

OK I had a 200 GB Hard Disk that I was using on my Windows machine. Since I am a Mac Guy now, I decided to buy an external USB enclosure, and use this as extra storage space. I am using DISK Utility to first partition the drive (1 partition) and then proceeded to Erase with zeros (1 time). Last night when I started this process it estimated a completion time of 3 hours. A few hours later it estimated at 1 hour and 16 mins. That was 8 hours ago. I hear the disk making noise as if it is writing, but I do not see any progress.
I was doing a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and had the Install Mac OS 9 Disk Driver option checked. Not sure what difference this makes as all I want to use this disk is for storing photographs.
Has the process failed and am I in an eternal wait state? Does it normally take this long? Should I keep it running for the next 24 hours just to see? Suggestions please...
Thx in advance.

Well it sounds like Disk Utility has hanged. Open up Activity Monitor Applications/Utilities. If it is hung it will be in red...I'm pretty sure, I don't really remember the last time an app hung on my machine.
If everything is fine, it might just be that it's a big drive and it takes along time.
BTW, it seems sort of backwards to me to partition and then erase. If I were I would erase the disk FIRST, using the format you described, and THEN partition.

Strange occurrence with permission repair/disk utility

Aloha all, I'm having a strange problem with disk repair and wonder if anyone else has seen this and/or how to fix it. If I have my external HD used for Time Machine turned off and open Disk Utility to check/repair permissions, none of my drives show up in the column on the left, and Disk Utility just hangs with the little spinning symbol. I let this run for over an hour before I had to force quit it. If however the external drive is on, everything works as normal in Disk Utility. Anyone know what might be causing this? I often eject and turn off my external drives at night, after I turn off Time Machine. I don't really need it backing up every hour during the night, and the drive is getting full so every little bit of space helps. I have deleted the permission file on my main drive and that didn't help. I'd like to be able to turn the external drive off and still be able to use disk repair. Mahalo for any tips, suggestions, or info you can provide. JB

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

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.

Software update/ Disk Utility/ CD stuck/ Installation problems

hi,
-my mac hangs up when it check for software on 10% and stays there for hours.
- when running disk utility is hangs on gathering disk information.
- i have a cd stuck on my machine and i can't get it out . i tried every technique but all fails.
- when installing programs i reach to the point where it asks me for software volume and the pane is blank.
thanks

Five ways to eject a stuck CD or DVD from the optical drive
Ejecting the stuck disc can usually be done in one of the following ways:
1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the left mouse button until the disc ejects.
2. Press the Eject button on your keyboard.
3. Click on the Eject button in the menubar.
4. Press COMMAND-E.
5. If none of the above work try this:
Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following:
/usr/bin/drutil eject.
If this fails then try this:
Boot the computer into single-user mode. At the prompt enter the same command as used above. To restart the computer enter "reboot" at the prompt without quotes.
Once you get the disc ejected you will need to reinstall OS X if possible. You may be able to do the following:
How to Perform an Archive and Install
An Archive and Install will NOT erase your hard drive, but you must have sufficient free space for a second OS X installation which could be from 3-9 GBs depending upon the version of OS X and selected installation options. The free space requirement is over and above normal free space requirements which should be at least 6-10 GBs. Read all the linked references carefully before proceeding.
1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
Repairing 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 Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard.) 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.
2. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

Disk Utility create encrypted disk image hangs

I'm trying really, really hard to backup my data but apple is not making it easy for me.
I need my files encrypted for an offline backup. Time machine only allows home folder to be encrypted, and due to my home folder being on my SSD drive I cannot fit my files all in there, not by a long shot.
Using Disk Utility, I choose "new disk image from folder", and select "read only", 256-bit encryption. Some of the folders worked. However some will just hang for hours on "Creating Image, copying...". I can see at the destination the dmg file has stopped incrementing larger. It has reached the full size of the folder approximately. Does apple fail at some file types? I already ran disk repair several times to no avail. I don't know what else to try, it just doesn't want to work. All I want is an encrypted backup, that any OSX install can retrieve without any special software involved. Sometimes I'll get a very unhelpful error message "Operation not supported". Whatever that is supposed to mean. Google was no help so hoping for some insights here.

Create an encrypted sparse disk image instead of from folder, mount it, and then drag & drop your files into ii.

Disk utility-erasing a HD, creating partition map hanging

Hi all,
I have been given an external Maxtor USB drive, 120 BG, with the need to securely wipe the old information on it. I have used Disk Utility, and zeroed the HD with a 7 times pass. This took 17 hours, and it moved to the "create partition map" stage. It's been doing that for 24 hours and still the progress bar is rolling. All other options are greyed out and nothing can be selected in Disk Utility. I have chosen to format it in Mac OS X Extended, Journaled. There was about 45 GB data on the drive.
Would this amount of time be expected, or has something gone wrong? I hesitate to force quit DU, in case I render the drive unusable. If I do that or shut down the computer, what's likely to happen to the HD? Will I be able to mount it again and start over. Any tips much appreciated.
Frances

Hi Frances,
17 hours for the 7-times pass is normal (and usually completely unnecessary unless you work for the CIA). However, the hang at the "create partition map" stage is not normal. I would interrupt it and reformat the drive, since the zeroing is finished anyway.
If this answered your question please consider granting some stars: Why reward points?

Disk Utility hangs during DMG file creation

I use disk utility to create DMG files from folders (with the corresponding command from the File -> New menu). Every now and then (and quite often, really), Disk Utility will not complete this process, but instead hang forever. It seems that something in the kernel gets stuck, because the machine can get increasingly unresponsive after the hang has started (for instance, I wanted to look in the system log right now, but running less on /var/log/system.log would create long hangs on the whole UI). The only way out is a reboot.
The machine is otherwise very stable.
(Ah, and Time Machine started at the same time now, and doesn't seem to be able to run - maybe disk utility and time machine are creating some deadlock situation?)
Anyone who has seen similar behaviour?

I haven't had this issue this since upgrading to Snow Leopard, so I assume it has been fixed.

Disk Utility hangs

My drive is partitioned into 3 logical drives.
1 - boot and appliactions (Disk Utility repairs permissions OK)
2 - CD scratch disk - Disk Utility verifies the disk OK
3 - data - Disk utility displays Verifying Disk Data but then hangs with no activity. Error log says that D cannot be unmounted.

Sounds like there's some file that's being used on the third volume. Try this. Restart, launch Disk Utility, select that volume, and click on the unmount button. If that works, then select the volume, select File->Mount Volume, and repair the volume.

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 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?

Disk Utility is hanging

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