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.

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Disk is locked when trying to re-install osx

I have a time machine backup of my old disk. I get to the OSX Utilities Screen and try to re-install OSX on the newly installed hard drive (My old one was failing) and i get the message (HD is locked)...how can i unlock this disk??
Thanks in advance.

I think what happened here is that the Time Machine backup disk that I used was not formatted in Mac Journaled so it will not boot up. I think im going to have to re-do the time machine backup after after i reformat the disk to Mac Journaled....does this sound correct?

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Disk Utility has been trying to make a partition on hard drive for a long time, I want to make 2nd partition and install the Snow Leopard on 2nd disk,
Lion is very slow on my Early 2011 MBP.

I am using MBP early 2011 with Osx Lion,
Lion was slow for me and I have no external HD to backup my files,
Than I want to make 2 partititon of my internal HD to backup my files to it, and also want to install Snow Leopard to that new partition using the CDs comes with my MBP.
After that.
I was using Disk Utility to partition my MBP to install Snow Leopard to my second part. While partitioning my Disk Utility did not complete and wouldn't continue the process, I waited about 30 minutes to see if it fix itself, so I cancelled it and restart the Mac, upon rebooting I opened Disk Utility to try again and I noticed I lost 400 gigabytes of space. I tried to "Erasing Free Space" but after a couple of minutes it finished and the same problem 400 GBs of lost space.
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Error when trying to partition for Bootcamp

Evening everyone,
I use parallels at the moment but have a piece of software which isn't quite behaving itself. As I have just upgraded to leopard, I thought I would see if setting up Bootcamp and running it in there would solve the problem. I freed up plenty of disk space but when trying to create a 10GB partition in the setup assistant I got this error:
'The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved. Back up the disk and use Disk Utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again.'
I don't know much about the technical side of my computer - partitioning and formatting etc so that message sounds all very scary to me. Is it saying I need to wipe my hard drive and re-format it? It is already formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If so, can I do that from my Time Machine backups? it sounds like a really drastic action. Also, could this be anything to do with my current Parallels software?
Thanks very much for your time, any help would be much appreciated!

when you say "plenty of disk space" how much exactly is that?
that message indicates that bootcamp assistant couldn't find big enough chunk of contiguous free space to create a bootcamp partition. this happens due to disk fragmentation.
at the minimum you should boot from the leopard install DVD and repair the hard drive (repair disk, not permissions).
If you still want to install bootcamp you need to defrag your hard drive. there are several ways to do it. you can use 3rd party software like idefrag. You can clone your disk to an external drive using a 3rd party cloner like CCCloner or Superduper. then boot from the clone and clone it back to the main drive. Or, if you have time machine, you can restore your system from a TM backup. that will also defrag your hard drive. To do that boot from the install DVD and select 'restore system from backup" from the Utilities menu at the top. that seems to be the suggestion the message you saw makes.
also, keep in mind that you need to keep plenty of free space (>15%) on your OS X partition to avoid disk fragmentation problems.
Message was edited by: V.K.

Disk utility can't repair a partition on external hard drive

I have a 1TB Western Digital external FW drive that's only a couple years old (2 or 3, probably). I have it split into partitions, one of which I'm using for Time Machine. The non-Time Machine partition checked out fine with DIsk Utility, but when I ran Disk Utility on the Time Machine partition, I received this message:
Disk Utility stopped reparing "Time Machine." Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
Does this mean the drive itself is failing? I erased the Time Machine partition and recreated it through Disk Utility, and then I verified it. Everything checked out okay, but I want to make sure, especially since I'm hosting my iTunes music in the other partition (it's backed up to a 2nd external drive, so if the drive does die, at least I don't lose everything).
Before this problem happened, both partitions dropped off the Finder and the light on the drive went off. I unplugged the drive and plugged it back in again a couple times, but nothing happened. Finally, the light went back on after plugging it back in for the 3rd or 4th time, but I'm wondering if the drive could be going bad, which would surprise me since it isn't very old.

Brad Cook wrote:
Disk Utility stopped reparing "Time Machine." Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
Does this mean the drive itself is failing?
Possibly, but not necessarily. The File System on the disk was so badly corrupted that Disk Utility couldn't fix it. That might indicate a problem with the drive. It's not unusual for consumer-quality (ie, inexpensive) drives to fail after 2-3 years, although many will run for several years. It's a bit of a crapshoot.
Before this problem happened, both partitions dropped off the Finder and the light on the drive went off.
Whatever caused that is another good possibility -- if a drive is improperly disconnected, OSX can't "close it out" properly, and that can cause damage to the file system. Sometimes Disk Utility can fix it, sometimes it can't. And sometimes heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair apps like DiskWarrior can fix things Disk Utility can't.
A power dip or spike could have caused it, or an overheated electronic component, etc. If it has it's own power supply, be sure it's on a good (ie, not cheap) surge protector or U.P.S. system.
Otherwise, keep an eye on it. If you don't have "secondary" backups, this would be an excellent time to get another drive for that purpose. See #27 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for some suggestions.
Bottom line: personally, I'd not trust my only backups to that drive.
(But then, I'd never trust my backups to any single drive, no matter how new or high-quality.)

Disk Utility: MediaKit reports no such partition

What is up with my disk?
On my brand new mac mini, I played around with resizing partitions in Disk Utility, it worked fine, and I eventually returned it to the original single-partition state.
Then, I ran boot camp, and told it to create a 10 GB partition.
Then, I installed Linux (64-bit Ubuntu) -- from the Linux installer I deleted the windows partition, and a zero-size partition before it, and put Linux swap and ext3 partitions in that space.
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Another disturbing thing is that if I type "sudo pdisk" on the Macintosh command line, and give the 'L' command to list partitions on all disks, pdisk exits with the error "Floating point exception"
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2007-11-04 00:09:19 -0400: Disk Utility started.
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Preparing to partition disk: “Hitachi HTS541612J9SA00 Media”
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition Scheme: GUID Partition Table
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: 3 volumes will be created
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition 1
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Name : “Macintosh HD”
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Size : 90.1 GB
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Do not erase contents
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition 2
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Name : “Linux Swap”
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Size : 488.3 MB
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Do not erase contents
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition 3
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Name : “DISK0S4”
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Size : 10.2 GB
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Filesystem : MS-DOS (FAT32)
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Do not erase contents
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Modifying partition map.
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition failed for disk Hitachi HTS541612J9SA00 Media MediaKit reports no such partition.
2007-11-04 00:09:41 -0400: Partition complete.
2007-11-04 00:09:41 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:41 -0400: Error with partition: MediaKit reports no such partition.

It doesn't sound like you've actually tried reformatting the entire drive, just resizing partitions. There is absolutely no reason why mountability should enter into the picture at all since you can't format a drive if any volumes are mounted.

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Usually when you get this problem in vista, it is to do with folder permissions.
The account you are using needs full control of the iTunes and iTunes Music folder.
Vista file folder permissions help
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/2464a180-e5dc-45d1-a2b8-3c8a 2b571e9d1033.mspx
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/25/how-to-take-ownership-and-grant-permiss ions-in-windows-vista/

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.
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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>
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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 has been trying to make a partition on hard drive for 5 hours what happens if I stop it

I have bee trying to make a partition on my mac Book Pro hard drive with disk utility. It says it is modifying partition map for 6 hours now, What happens if I stop this?

gaborneo wrote:
I don't want to erase my whole drive.
Your only erasing the Free Space of your OS X partition, meaning the areas where there is none of your data stored.
Because when Bootcamp works it's going to take some from that to create the Bootcamp partiton for Windows.
If I choose erase does it then give me the option before I press something else and wipe out what I don't want to wipe out just yet?
If you click Erase Free Space it give s a option and then you go.
My dvd player is bust and at the moment...
Well how are you going to install Windows and the drivers?
You didn't read the Bootcamp manual did you?
https://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/
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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.

The disk is locked when I tried to download Mountain Lion

I have macbook air which is less than one year old. So few days ago, I turned on the computer and there is this flashing folder with a question mark on it. Went to the service centre, and they concluded that everything is okay except that there is a software error and suggest I reinstall the OS through internet recovery. The internet recovery systen require me to have disk to download Mountain Lion. Tries to use my 8 Gb usb drive and it says that it requires to be in gpt format. Finally, made my usb drive to be in gpt format using my windows computer. Then tried to use it again but now it says that my usb drive is locked. Anyone knows to fix this problem? I don't have another Mac so I can't fix it using Mac.

I wasn't able to load to Disk Utility using commad R. I could go back to the main menu of the internet recovery and select Disk Utility to make any changes to the USB drive like making it GPT formatted. Thanks!

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I am getting this error when attempting to partition my FireWire drive.
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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?
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10.4.6 Combo Update has fixed the issue.
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Disk Utility locks when trying to partition

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