Disk utility on jump drive trashed my files.

I rip a lot of CD books and listen to them when I get the chance. I have been putting stuff on a jump drive until needed and then moving it back to the hard drive. Today, I was getting some strange activity, I decided to use disk utility to fix it. After a repair where it seemed to find a bunch of dangling bits and repaired them, I now have what were previous folders with audiophiles turned into exec files. Any way to recover this?

10.5.3 is the latest. You can use MS-DOS to format the flash dirve and the Dell will read it. Are you certain, though, that he's plugging the thing in correctly? If Windows sees a disk that it can't read, it should prompt the user to either eject or format it.
PowerMac G5 dual 2.0/iMac DVse/iBook 12 1.2 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3)

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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.

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. : |

Have a mac book pro that crashed. ran disk utility to repair. comp booted and ran for short time. then crashed. ran repair again. disk utility said it could not repair files and i needed to format hard drive and start again. now nothing works

have a mac book pro that crashed. ran disk utility to repair. comp booted and ran for short time. then crashed. ran repair again. disk utility said it could not repair disk and needed to format and start again.
comp said it could not unmount disk and now when comp trys to boot all i get is a question mark on the screen. help

Erase and Install
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard 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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU after formatting completes and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.
5. After restart into Snow Leopard download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

Disk Utility - Erase Free Space - Creating Temporary File Freezes

BDAqua: I tried responding to your reply to my original posting but I get an error message that I was not authorized to reply. I logged out. I can't find the original posting in my Activity so I approached from the link in my e-mail saying you had replied. Now it says the area is restricted. What's up with that?
Rod
Here's the original post:
I used "Erase Free Space" with Disk Utility after trashing several files I no longer wanted on the hard drive or recovered. I used "Zero Out Deleted Files" option. It took over 12 hours before an error message appeared "Your start up disk is almost full. You need to make more space available on your start up disk by deleting files." I thought that was what I was doing. Disk Utility continued but got stuck on "Creating Temporary File." I force quit Disk Utility after several more hours. I had to manually shut down the computer because the restart command wouldn't work. It rebooted and appears to be OK. Evidently, this temporary file consumes significant amounts of disk space. This is an older iMac with 10.4.11 (18 GHz PowerPC G5) - I know, pretty old but I still have OS 9 on it and several files I need to extract before I trash it.
1. Should I do nothing? The iMac seems to be working fine.
2. How do I know if this Temporary File exists and consuming space? Spotlight doesn't find it. Where is it?
3. Is my start up disk in fact almost full? How would I know that?

Here's what I tried to say in my response that I wasn't authorize to make:
I can't seem to reply to your response BD . . . says I'm not authorize . . . so I'll try to reply to my original post.
Thanks BD for your reply. Here's the info on the drive: 1.3 TB capacity with 1,017 GB available. Eventually I will recycle the computer at Best Buy who guarantees the hard drive will be erased. I just want to get all my files off first. I'll just do another Erase Free Space and see, as you suggest, if there are any files to be zeroed out. Maybe there aren't any. I've extracted most of what I want but am debating how to move the entire iPhoto library to an external drive so I can access it from my Mavericks machine. Can I just drag and drop the iPhoto Library, or do I need to export it somehow?

Disk Utility - Erase Free Space - Creating Temporary File Freeze

I used "Erase Free Space" with Disk Utility after trashing several files I no longer wanted on the hard drive or recovered. I used "Zero Out Deleted Files" option. It took over 12 hours before an error message appeared "Your start up disk is almost full. You need to make more space available on your start up disk by deleting files." I thought that was what I was doing. Disk Utility continued but got stuck on "Creating Temporary File." I force quit Disk Utility after several more hours. I had to manually shut down the computer because the restart command wouldn't work. It rebooted and appears to be OK. Evidently, this temporary file consumes significant amounts of disk space. This is an older iMac with 10.4.11 (18 GHz PowerPC G5) - I know, pretty old but I still have OS 9 on it and several files I need to extract before I trash it.
1. Should I do nothing? The iMac seems to be working fine.
2. How do I know if this Temporary File exists and consuming space? Spotlight doesn't find it. Where is it?
3. Is my start up disk in fact almost full? How would I know that?
Thanks!

Then I would not do any secure erasing. It's exceptionally time consuming and unnecessary. Before you take it in for recycling boot it from your OS X installer DVD. Do this:
Drive Partition and Format
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. 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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply 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 Security 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.
A one-pass Zero Data option is all that is required to prevent access to your erased files.

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.

Disk utility's encrypted drives and user permissions

I've decided against using filevault based on some of the feedback and research I have conducted. I am still interested, however, in encryption of some documents. I have used the Disk Utility to create a 128 bit encrypted .dmg image. I mount it using my user account, but only as r-x. I see that root has write permission, and so I assume it is safe to write to these drives. What is the best way to make it so that my user account has rwx permissions? I could manually do a chmod each time I mount the drive, but that seems silly. Also I noticed that apple doesnt seem to mount drives using the same files as linux, so I'm a little confused. Could someone please provide some insight to this. Also, *put on tin foil hat* how secure is this? When I access the drive is it writing unencrypted data to the swap file? thanks,

Hi, iMacGyver.
A. You wrote: " I have used the Disk Utility to create a 128 bit encrypted .dmg image. I mount it using my user account, but only as r-x. I see that root has write permission, and so I assume it is safe to write to these drives."Were you logged in as root when you created the dmg? Or did you create a read-only image from a folder containing the documents?
To create a disk image to which you can add/remove documents and on which you will have Read/Write permissions:
1. Log in to your account.
2. Launch Disk Utility.
3. Select File > New > Blank Disk Image...
4. In the New Blank Image window, type a name for the new disk image in the Save As field, then select a location for saving the disk image, the desired Size, Encryption (select AES-128 in the pop-up menu), and leave Format as "read/write disk image."
5. Click Create.
6. Provide a password for the disk image when prompted. If you want extra security, de-select the option to save the password in your keychain, but be sure to never forget the password if elect to not save it in your Keychain.
You can then double-click the disk image you just created, type the password when prompted, the disk image will mount, and you can add files to it. Ejecting the disk image will unmount it and all the content you added will be encrypted.
One can use Disk Utility > File > New > Disk Image from Folder... to create either a Read Only or Read/Write encrypted disk image of an existing folder of documents, but if you elect to make it Read/Write there isn't much spare capacity for adding documents as the size of the disk image is based on the size of the folder.
Also, if your comfortable with Terminal, you can look into the hdiutil command for creating and managing disk images.
For example, if in step 4 above you selected the format as "sparse disk image", you'd later need to use the hdiutil command to compact the sparse image to recover disk space from files deleted from the spares disk image. Spare disk images are always Read/Write and only occupy as much hard drive space as the data they contain, e.g. a 100 MB sparse disk image containing 30 MB of files only uses 30 MB of hard disk space: they grow as files are added. A conventional R/W disk image of 100 MB in size takes up 100 MB of hard drive space even if it is empty.
However, when you delete files from a sparse disk image, the amount of hard disk space it occupies does not decrease until you compact it using the compact verb of hdiutil. Disk Utility does not expose all of hdiutil's functions.
B. You wrote: "Also I noticed that apple doesnt seem to mount drives using the same files as linux, so I'm a little confused. Could someone please provide some insight to this. "I don't understand what you mean. You'll need to be more specific.
C. You wrote: " Also, *put on tin foil hat* how secure is this? When I access the drive is it writing unencrypted data to the swap file? thanks"To use encrypted swap files, select "Use secure virtual memory" in System Preferences > Security. Depending on the applications you use, there may be a slight performance reduction with encrypted swap.
D. Your questions imply you're new to Mac. While you may be familiar with Linux, there are differences, especially in doing things through the GUI. If that's the case, my "Learning About Mac OS X" FAQ has a number of resources that you will find helpful including books, online training, and more.
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 doesn't open, trash works incorrectly.

After updating to 10.7.3 I have noticed that Disk Utility no longer opens. It pops up into the utility bar for a few seconds, bobs up and down a couple of times, then disappears. The next time I click on Disk Utility I don't even get that much of a response. It just doesn't open. No error report, no pop ups saying that it can't be opened - Nada. I can't use disk utility AT ALL anymore. I've tried Zapping my PRAM, but that's about it.
The other thing I've noticed is that any time I put something into the Trash Bin it automatically tells me that it will delete the item - it doesn't sit in the trash bin like it used to until you manually delete it. The only time I can get it to behave normally is when I am using an external drive and I put something from the external drive into the trash bin.

Repairing the permissions of a home folder in Lion is a complicated procedure. I don’t know of a simpler one that always works.
Launch the 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 page that opens.
Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
chmod -R -N ~
The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. When a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) appears below what you entered, it’s done. You may see a few error messages about an “invalid argument” while the command is running. You can ignore those. If you get an error message with the words “Permission denied,” enter this:
sudo !!
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
Next, boot from your recovery partition by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
When the recovery desktop appears, select Utilities ▹ Terminal from the menu bar.
In the Terminal window, enter “resetpassword” (without the quotes) and press return. A Reset Password window opens.
Select your boot volume if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select  ▹ Restart from the menu bar.

Disk Utility "restore" fails with "no such file or directory"

Some time back, perhaps a LONG time ago, I successfully used Disk Utility's "restore" function to "clone" my Mac OS X partition onto an external disk, before I upgraded the OS on my internal drive.
This weekend I tried to do it again, and failed on every attempt.
My first attempt was on my MacBook. At very end (the progress "bar" was all blue) it died saying that there was an error (2), "no such file or directory". I think the external drive probably isn't GUID, which would make it non-bootable, but I'd still think "restore" itself should work.
Okay, let's try my Power Mac G5, which is where it worked several releases ago. Same thing.
Okay, one more try... Booted into safe mode (in case background activity accounts for the missing file/directory), did the restore again, failed again.
I realize that SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner or other tools may be "better", but since this worked once it seems like it still should.
Any ideas?
Doug

Did you:
A. Repair the hard drive and permissions prior to cloning?
B. Erase the destination drive before cloning?
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.) 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 shutdown the computer for a couple of minutes and then restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.5.2 for Tiger) 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.
How to Clone Using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the startup or 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.
8. Select the destination drive on the Desktop and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. At the bottom in the Ownership and Permissions section be sure the box labeled "Ignore Permissions on this Volume" is unchecked. Verify the settings for Ownership and Permissions as follows: Owner=system with read/write; Group=admin with read/write; Other with read-only. If they are not correct then reset them.
For added precaution you can boot into safe mode before doing the clone.

Using Disk Utility to partition drive

After downloading a system update yesterday my mac mini hard drive is no longer bootable. The recovery HD is unbootable, too.
When I boot up using the install CD I can run Disk Utility and see that there are no problems reported with the hard drive, but I cannot repair permissions (No valid packages).
If I restore the operating system from the CD my only option is to erase the hard drive.
But what if ...
I create a new partition using Disk Utility?
There's loads of free space on the drive, but if I attempt to create a new partition will I wipe out existing data?
If I succeed in creating a new partition would I be able to restore the operating system there without erasing the hard drive?
Would it be possible then in some way to restore my user account data?
I'm just trying to avoid the hassle of re-installing my applications and recovering my data files from backup. It seems like the data is still all there on the hard drive except that something went wrong during the system update that renders the disk unusable.
Any help appreciated.

Yep, that is too old...
Mac mini
Mac OS X Install Disk 1
Mac OS X version 10.4.7
AHT version 3A102
Disc version 1.1
2Z691-5887-A
Mac OS X Install Disk 2
Disc version 1.0
ZZ691-5860-A

Flashing folder now disk utility cannot repair...backup files and reformat disk?

Hey,
my MacBook pro recently froze on the spinning wheel while I was using the Internet, I had to hold down the power button to shut down
Once I restarted the machine I was left on a grey screen with a flashing folder sign..I read all the articles on this that I could find online and followed the procedures until the only option left was to use disk utility from the install dvd and try to diagnose and repair the problem.
I used disk utility and found it could not repar the disk named. Disk0s2 ..which I have also read is a bad sign to start with...the log said this..
                           Verify and repair volume disk0s2
                            Checking journaled HFS plus volume
                            Invalid b-tree node size
                            The volume. Could not be verified completely
                       Disk utility could not repair this disk..backup files, reformat disk and restore backed up files
I need some advice as to that's what I should do and if there's a way for me to save my files on the mac....and more importantly how to reformat the disk properly..I've tried the YouTube tutorials and couldn't get what I was after.
Thanks to anyone who can help me with this
Thank you again for reading this
Dan

Your going to need to read the Data Recovery tip I created here
Your going to need to buy DataRescue $99 or similar to read the 1's and 0's of your files and restore them to another drive while booted from another Mac or a drive with OS X on it.
Have fun.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3172
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents

Missing disk utility and DVD drive

Hi,
My father has a macbook with Leopard installed.
He deleted some files/apps by mistake including the Disk Utility.
Also (and to help!!!) the DVD drive stopped working.
Can anyone tell me how can I reinstall the Leopard (or the Snow Leopard that I have on my macbook pro)?
Thank you very much

miguelporto wrote:
My father has a macbook with Leopard installed.
He deleted some files/apps by mistake including the Disk Utility.
Also (and to help!!!) the DVD drive stopped working.
Can anyone tell me how can I reinstall the Leopard (or the Snow Leopard that I have on my macbook pro)?
Welcome to Apple's discussion groups.
If the DVD drive stopped working because of the files he deleted, you may be able to boot from a Leopard installation disc and reinstall it.

Disk utility states: This drive has hardware problem that can't be repaired, backup and replace disk.

iMac is within warrenty.

quince88 wrote:
Sorry running 10.6.8, did everthing except Restore Vol, including Tech Tool Deluxe with Drive Hardware test 'Failed' and under Disk Utility S.M.A.R.T. status 'Failing.' I am in Thailand so off to the Apple people on Sat. Thanks for the help.
I think that is a wise choice!
Good luck and btw I hope you have a good backup, if you do use Setup Assistant to restore so you can pick up from where you left off. You should use Pondini's Snow Leopard Setup Assistant tips it will show exactly what needs to be done. If the Apple people are going to install SL for you make sure you give them your backup so they can restore for you.

Disk utility on jump drive trashed my files.

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