Disk Utility: No Mac Drive in Internal HDD. Can't format or erase.

Hey guys, I just got my new mac mini and I installed a Samsung pro 840 SSD. The thing is I messed up. I turned my mac on and everything went fine, Disk Utility showed up telling me that the drive was "unreadable". I decided to turn the thing off and start Recovery so I could install Mountain Lion onto the SSD. When igot to Recovery, disk utility told me there was an error with the drives and it had to erase them, while it was working I got the The Spinning Rainbow Beach Ball of Death so I turned my mac off. Huge mistake it seems. Now when I want to install Mountain Lion there is no available disk to install it. I started Internet Recovery and accessed Disk Utility again and the Internal Drive actually appears but with nothing installed in it. The option to erase or format are not available. I did a disk verification and repair and everything was OK. I'm going crazy over this. Please help me guys!!! I'm leaving a picture so its clearer. THANK YOU!!

Being a new Mac Mini the system is attempting to create a Fusion Drive setup out of your SSD. Do you have dual drives in the system, the built-in one in addition to the new one you installed?
This is an issue with the new Mac Mini and iMac systems (see here: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57584237-263/disk-utility-may-combine-custo m-drive-setups-on-some-macs/) as these systems ship with Fusion Drive setups and Disk Utility assumes this is the desired setup when you use it to "fix" the drives.
You can see that when you select "Internal Drive" the type is "Logical Volume Group." Since this group is greater than the 840GB, my guess is this is the combined space from your SSD and the built-in one.
To clear this issue, open the Terminal (from the Utilities menu in the OS X installer), and run the following command:
diskutil cs list
You will see a tree of information, with one grouping showing a UUID for the Logical Volume Group (the UUID will be a string of numbers and letters, separated by several dashes).
With this UUID, run the following command to destroy the logical volume group (you can try copying and pasting the UUID, though I"m not sure if the services in the Recovery HD partition support copy and paste--otherwise just type it in manually):
diskutil cs delete UUID
When finished, follow the instructions in the artifcle I linked to above to install OS X to an external drive (if available) and use Disk Utility there to fix and manage the drives, as opposed to the version in the Recovery HD partition.

Similar Messages

Disk utility restore problem: cannot drag internal hdd to destination field

I'm currently trying to restore a time machine backup after my boot ssd recently failed, but am having trouble restoring the backup to my secondary internal drive in the optical bay. My set up isthe following:
Failed ssd in primary hdd bay of MacBook Pro (mid 2010)
1tb secondary hdd in optical drive bay with time machine backup of failed ssd.
2tb external drive
The following is what I have done so far...
1. Booted into the secondary internal drive and restored the time machine backup onto the external USB drive.
2. Booted from the restored backup on the USB drive (this now looks like my old computer again but is very slow as its USB 2.0)
3. Partitioned the secondary internal drive in the optical bay.
4. Now I want to copy the restored volume on my USB drive to the secondary internal drive in the optical bay.
When I open disk utility's restore function I can put my original volum in the source field, however, it will not let me put either partition of my internal drive in the destination field. It has no problem putting other partitions from the USB drive in the destination field - just will not allow anything from the internal drive. Why is this?
I'm thinking it could possibly be because it is in the optical drive bay and apple has prevented copying full volumes into this bay, but then again surely this would be needed when burning DVDs at some stage. Any ideas? Many thanks in advance for any help.

I managed to complete the restore and you may have been right - I booted from the internal hdd then restored the time machine backup stored on the usb drive to a different partition on the internal hd. Seemed to work fine now running of the hd in the optical drive bay but has still crashed a couple of times which is pretty odd. Perhaps the failed ssd in the main drive bay is still causing a bit of a nuisance (it registers for the first 3 minutes after booting up then disappears). Also didnt notice the responsiveness too much when upgrading from hd to ssd, but going the other way back to hd - can definitely now tell the difference. Painfully slow at times! I need to get that ssd replaced I think. Anyway thanks for your advice!

Partitioning my External Hard Drive Using Disk Utility in Mac?

I have a 1 TB external hard drive which I've been using for a year now. It already has 200 GB used space, having approximately 100 GB of movies. Since the format of the single partition it has is MS-DOS FAT32 (so that it can be used on my Mac, Windows and PS3), I can only store files not bigger than 4 GB. Some of the HD movies I have range from 6-8 GB and I can't transfer them to the hard drive and they're occupying so much space on my laptop. Now, I wanna know if I can split the hard drive into 2 or 3 partitions (please recommend whether to use Mac OS Extended (Journaled), ExFAT or both) without having to undergo the process of backing up my 200 GB worth of files onto another hard drive; it's too tedious. Is there a way for me to directly convert some space of my single partition into a different partition with a different format while the hard drive still contains my old files? Thanks!

You can add a partition to the drive. In Disk Utility select the drive and then select the Partition Tab. The current partition layout is shown.
Grab the resize handle in the lower righthand corner of the partition display and drag it the size you want. Click in the new empty gray area and click the + sign, the new partition will be displayed. Enter the information for the partition, name and format and apply.
As for the format you should use it depends on how you will use the partition. If you will only be using it with the Mac then OS Extended (Journaled) is the way to go.
While this procedure is safe for the data on the disk as always whenever doing any system work like this a good working backup is highly recommended. And if you get to a point where you are not sure of what you are doing you can select revert to restore the settings as they are now, at anytime before you hot apply.
good luck

When I reboot my mac it automatically launches disk utilities. i have run the utility. all clear. but each time i reboot i get the disk utility. how do i override so i can have my hard drive back?

When I reboot my mac it automatically launches disk utilities. i have run the utility. all clear. but each time i reboot i get the disk utility. how do i override so i can have my hard drive back?

What OSX version is it?
Does holding alt key at bootup show any boot choices?
Does holding Shift key at bootup to boot in Safe mode do the same thing?

After SN install can't launch Disk Utility from external drive

I recently upgraded 10.5.9 to SN on my white Macbook. First I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old drive onto the replacement drive in an external enclosure. Then I swapped drives so that the new drive is now the internal drive and the old drive is in the enclosure. I then upgraded the OS on the internal drive via SN installer on DVD.
Now when I start from the external drive in OS X 10.5.9 and try to launch Disk Utility from this drive I get a weird error message that "Disk Utility can't be launched because it's incompatible with this architecture." The only things I can think of is that Snow Leopard installs something that globally effects all perhipherals (like new disk drivers?), or that there is something in the enclosure's USB bridge which is causing this, or that installing Snow Leopard breaks the PRAM for older versions of OS X. Tech support for the enclosure vendor tells me there is nothing in the enclosure's USB that would cause this. Any insights into what's happening appreciated.

Thanks for response. Ah, that's it. I was trying to launch it from the applications folder I had dragged to the dock, which was done while running Snow Leopard. That's why (duh!) all the application icons were slashed out. : |

Hard drive is missing. I can boot from the cd but when running the disk utility, no hard drive shows up.

Hard drive is missing. I can boot from the cd but when running the disk utility, no hard drive shows up.
This is a problem that suddenly appeared.

Please post a screenshot of Disk Utility that shows what you mean. Be careful not to include any private information.
Start a reply to this message. Click the camera icon in the toolbar of the editing window and select the image file to upload it. You can also include text in the reply.

Disk utility/external hard drive failure

I have a MacBook that I got about two years ago and a Western Digital portable external hard drive (WD Passport) that's almost as old. I keep almost all of my music files on my external hard drive and then play them through iTunes. About a month ago my external hard drive stopped working. I plug the hard drive into my computer and the blue light comes on. It even shines brighter for several seconds as (it appears) the hard drive attempts to mount. But every time I do this the blue light then becomes dimmer and the drive never mounts. When the hard drive is plugged in and I open up the Disk Utility application the drive shows up. When I try to manually mount the disk it tries and fails. When I click "Verify Disk" it tries and then an error message pops up saying "Phase 1-Read FAT, Unable to read FAT (Input/output error)". I've read that the PC disk utility application may be better at reading drives so, once I'm in a place where I have access to a PC, I'm going to give that a try. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

I am assuming that you're using the Passport in the same USB port that you always have. I ask this because some people complain about USB devices working on one port but not the other, as they claim that one port may put out more voltage then the other. If this is happening in your case it would kinda make since as when you plug in the Passport all that is required is the logic board power then it will start to spin up the disk which will pull down the power and that may be why you're getting a dimmed light on the Passport.
Just try the other USB port to verify, I know it sounds silly but it's worth a shot.

Tried installing Illustrator CC but ran out of disk space on primary drive... how can I install on secondary drive?

Tried installing Illustrator CC but ran out of disk space on primary drive... how can I install on secondary drive?

Run_Esperanza how much space do you still have available on your primary drive? It is possible to customize the installation destination within the Creative Cloud Desktop application. You can find more details at Install and update apps - https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/help/install-apps.html.
Please be aware that you will need disk space on the primary drive to installed shared components plus contain the temporary files for installation.

Disk Utility does not show my internal hard drive.

Recently, my Macbook Pro crashed.
THE PROBLEM
1. I turn it on, it starts normally at first, the Apple Logo Shows for several seconds
2. It changes to a no-smoking sign without the cigarette
3. If I try to boot safe mode, a folder appears with a question mark
4. If I try the internet recovery, I get to the part where I can restore OSX, use disk utility, etc.
5. When I try to restore OSX, it doesn't show my hard drive as avilable to install upon - no drives are shown
6. When I try to use disk utility, it only shows my Mac Base System, totaling 2GB, I cannot do anything.
THE QUESTIONS
1. What do I do? Thoughts? How do I recover my hard drive data before sending this computer to Apple to fix?
2. How can I use an external enclosure to recover my data using my desktop? What cords do I need? What is a good drive? Is it hard?
3. My SD card slot shows, could I install OSX on that and try to load my OSX to gain access to my harddrive that's missing?
4. Why would my main hard drive not show? I'm supposed to have a 250GB hard drive.
5. Is there anything I can do on Terminal to try to make my full hard drive appear? Or gain access?
6. What will Apple do with my RAM that I installed? I upgraded to 8GB? Will they just return as is?
Thank you.
Model: MBP from Mid-2010 13" running OSX Mountain Lion 250GB HD

Youre working the wrong end trying to revive a dying drive, a replacement is only $65
Did you have a backup of your vital data?
Terminal isnt going to do anything to help your HD.
questions:
1. get a new HD, install OS........recovery internal HD data using another computer and throwing the internal HD into a USB enclosure to extract data......however depending on the HD, data extraction may prove futile.
2. external USB enclosure, comes with USB cable....takes 3 mins to put internal HD into enclosure.
3. no,...... installing OS on a dying drive is beating a dead horse,...
4. because its dead/ dying.
5. no
6. Yes, they wont mess with your RAM.
Contact Apple for fix, of if you have the skills you can install a new HD yourself

Disk Utility wont drag drives on Mac book Pro

I am tring to back up may system drive, and i cant drag it to the source on disk utility, acctually i cant drag anything into it, while i have no problems on my dual g5, so i guess the problem is on the intel disk utility.
any ideas?

You need to drag the volume, not the "disk"
On most Macs, this would be "Macintosh HD"
Scott

Is Drive Genius the best disk utility for Mac?

I just wanted to see if any one had an opinion on Drive Genius? I have one computer that is brand new (Imac) and a Powerbook that is a bit old. I want to keep them both running in tip-top shape.

I've not used Drive Genius and cannot comment on that program but I have used Disk Warrior and Tech Tools Pro and Data Rescue. All three have fixed me up but if I had to choose just one of these it would be Tech Tools Pro because DW is a one-trick pony for the price and I think that Tech Tools Pro can now do what Data Rescue can do. I just didn't have it when I used Data Rescue but the app seems to have caught up doing what the other two can do. More for your money!
BTW: I didn't buy Drive Genius because when I decided on buying Disk Warrior I read some negatives about it. Things like additional corruption caused by running it and inabilities to fix things that seemed like Disk Utility could easily resolve. That was a few years ago so hopefully they fixed some of the failures it had that seemed as valid issues at the time.
Message was edited by: David Farah

Disk Utility and Hard Drive replacement on MacBook.

I am preparing to upgrade the hard drive on my MacBook and I was reading this document http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacBook13inch_HardDriveDIY.pdf and a the end after installing the hard drive and preparing to install Mac OS X the directions state the following: "Leave the Disk Utility application open, and restore the backed up files from the image you created before removing the hard drive.". I think that this would be a much quicker option then having to re install every application and copy over back up user data. My question is how do I create an image of the contents of the hard drive to use once I upgrade the drive?

I'd just clone (make a complete bootable backup) the internal to a backup external drive, swap out the internal, then clone back. That way you wouldn't have to do any installations.
To backup (clone) your main drive, you can use the donationware CarbonCopy Cloner @ http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html , or the shareware SuperDuper @ http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html , or the freeware IBackup @ http://www.grapefruit.ch/iBackup/index.html, or the Restore function of Disk Utility included in OS X.

My external drives no longer appear in Finder, BUT they do appear in Disk Utility (and network drives appear also)

Hi folks, I hope someone can assist. I have a Mac Mini 2011 running 10.8.5. All has been well. Suddenly, when I plugged in an external flash drive (USB), nothing showed up in Finder. Things I have done:
Confirmed SideBar and other Finder preferences are set to show/reveal external, network, and internal HDs
Tried multiple flash drives and hard drives, using drives formated in GUID/OSXExtended as well as FAT and NTSF. None show up.
Confirmed that the Hidden flag in terminal is not set.
Note: I can see the drives in Disk Utility, but the partitions/volumes are gray and will not be mounted.
Note: Network drives and internal drives appear and work as expected
Note: My network Time Machine also appears and performs as expected.
The only suspect I can think of is a small, free app I installed this morning called Caffein (which manages the sleep mode).
Also, I loged out and switched to another user account on the same machine (that I use solely for the purpose of troubleshooting), and it was similarly affected.
Thanks in advance!
Dave

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It makes no changes to your data.
Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
diskutil list | pbcopy
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear below what you entered.
The output of the command will be automatically copied to the Clipboard. If the command produced no output, the Clipboard will be empty. Paste into a reply to this message.
The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.
If any personal information appears in the output, anonymize before posting, but don’t remove the context.

Disk utility no longer working, any alternative HDD maintenance prog?

Hi all,
I have an early 2003 Powerbook G4 12" aluminium. 80Gb HDD with about 4.5Gb free. It's running very slowly but I hardly tax the machine so I'm not too bothered, but I tried to run Disk Utility to make sure everything was ok and it couldnt even verify permissions. It said it might take several minutes to run the permissions, but after 20+ minutes I gave up.
Is there any alternative free program that'll check all the important bits and make sure things are fine?
I used to use OS9 and ran things like Techtool lite and Norton speedtools; zapping the PRAM, optimising the drive and that sort of thing. I get the feeling the HDD on this powerbook is fragmented to ****, but then I didn't think Macs slowed down from such things like a PC.
But its made me realise I don't have any kind of housekeeping tools to keep my now OSX machines running (those being the G4 powerbook and a Quicksilver G4, running Leopard and Tiger respectively).
Many thanks for any help.

Are you running Disk Utility using your Tiger install DVD? If not, you need to.
Another popular utility is Disk Warrior (more powerful than DiskUtility), however, it costs about $100.
You don't have enough free space on your hard drive as it is typically recommended to have 10-15% free.
Mac OS X: System maintenance
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=607640
Mac Tune-up: 34 Software Speedups
http://www.macworld.com/article/49489/2006/02/softwarespeed.html
52 Ways to Speed Up OS X
http://www.imafish.co.uk/articles/post/articles/130/52-ways-to-speed-up os-x/
Tuning Mac OS X Performance
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/performance.html
11 Ways to Optimize Your Mac's Performance
http://lowendmac.com/eubanks/07/0312.html
The Top 7 Free Utilities To Maintain A Mac.
http://mac360.com/index.php/mac360/comments/the_top_7_free_utilities_to_maintain _a_mac/
 Cheers, Tom

Disk Utility Failed, Mac HD not working and cannot reinstall OSX

Hi,
I am totally frustrated.
Was working on capturing video using Final Cut Pro and the application froze. After repeated attempts, I kept getting the message to restart the G5.
I tried reinstalling Final Cut Pro - and installation failed. I ran disk utility first aid and found an error on the Mac HD (Startup Disk). So I restarted machine from the DVD (pressing the C button when restarting) and ran disk repair from the DVD OSX Utility. Still got the error that "First Aid Failed" Disk utility stopped repairing Macintosh HD because the following error was encountered. The underlying task reported failure on exit. HFS volume checked 1 volume could not be repaired because of an error. Repair attempted on volume 1, 1 volume could not be repaired.
Then I tried reinstalling OSX onto a second internal SATA HD. Installation failed. Try installing again.
So now what do I do?
I am running Mac OSX 10.4.9
Please help...urgent.
Thanks
MQ

Thanks for the answer...that's what I was thinking.
The following are various issues I am considering maybe the cause:
1. Memory - I installed 2GB a few weeks ago - third party.
2. External HDs - I installed an external Maxtor 1.5TB drive 3 days ago.
3. I live in Africa - and power frequently gets disrupted - even though the machine is on a "solatek" (power stabilizer and high end protector against spikes) - 2 days ago my UPS was down and for repairs - and we had three power outtages.
Lastly, as I mentioned I live in Africa - Mombasa - Apple tech support is almost non-existent here...so I am hoping I can resolve this without having to ship it abroad.
Please help and thank you...
MQ

Disk Utility: No Mac Drive in Internal HDD. Can't format or erase.

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