Disk Utility verify vs repair contradiction

Since installing Yosemite, I've had an issue with Disk Utility; when I run a verify on my internal drive, it tells me I need to repair the volume in recovery mode. I boot into recovery mode and repair. Then restart and run verify in regular mode. It tells me again that the volume needs to be repaired, etc, etc. You get the gist of the cycle.
So which one is right? Verify or repair.

Others have seen this. If it shows okay in the Recovery Volume and everything is working okay, just let it go. You could also get the drive tested if you are concerned. Do a backup, preferably 2, just in case.
If you live near an Apple Store, make a Genius Bar appointment to have the computer tested. Supposedly there is no charge for testing. Use 2nd link if not near an Apple Store or aren’t in the US. Hardware Repair - Keeping Confidential Data Safe
Genius Bar Reservation US
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Similar Messages

Disk Utility/verify and repair grayed out, using startup disk

I'm frustrated. I'm trying to repair my hard drive. I restarted from the OS X Mac Mini install CD (holding down the letter C when I heard the chime), opened Disk Utility from the Utilities folder, selected my hard drive image, but the "verify disk" and "repair disk" options are grayed out. I'm at a loss as to how to proceed. Thanks for any help.

"...opened Disk Utility from the Utilities folder,..."
If that's what you did then you didn't boot from the disk. You booted from your hard drive and that's why Repair Disk was grayed out. Try again. Insert the disk into the Mac restart and hold down the 'c' key and keep it down until you see the Apple logo and the spinning cog. You'll know you've booted to the installer disk when you need to select your language to proceed with OS installation. Select your language and then from the menu Utilities select Disk Utility.

Disk Utility verify or repair permission runs but doesn't indicate anything

Recently I ran Disk Utility to repair permissions after a software upgrade and the utility ran and ran, but no permissions were repaired and the utility didn't stop running. After an hour, I stopped running repair permissions. Does this indicate something remiss about the utility? Or worse? What should I do about this?

You might want to boot from your OS installer disk and launch Disk Utility. Repair Disk from there.

Disk utility - Verify and repair disk permission does not work

On my dual i'm trying to make a verify and than a rpair disk permission but the bar stop after a while and will never finish (even if the estimaed time is less than one minute).
Ideas?
mg

Same boat... here's my thread from early this week:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1403467
Haven't had time to test the suggestion yet though.

After getting the dreaded gray/blue screen, I tried to run disk repair on the internal disk. I got an error message saying "Disk Utility can't repair this disk and restore your backed-up files. The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely

After getting the dreaded gray/blue screen, I tried to run disk repair on the internal disk. I got an error message saying "Disk Utility can't repair this disk and restore your backed-up files. The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely." What do I do now? This is an iMac and I'm running 10.6.8.

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it. See below for how to clone a drive.
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. 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 the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
You may be able to backup your data if you have an erased external drive you can use. Before you do the above but after you have opened Disk Utility you can try to clone your drive:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag
       it to the Destination entry field.
5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
      the Source entry field.
6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Now this will only work if the drive is accessible and can be cloned by Disk Utility. Otherwise, you would need to access your drive from another Mac that you can connect via Firewire - Target Disk Mode.

Disk Utility - Verify Disk Permissions / Repair

I run Disk Utility > Verify Disk Permissions with this rsult:
Verify permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Permissions differ on "usr/share/derby", should be drwxr-xr-x , they are lrwxr-xr-x .
The following repair was successful.
A few minutes later I run Verify Disk Permissions again with the SAME result:
Verify permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Permissions differ on "usr/share/derby", should be drwxr-xr-x , they are lrwxr-xr-x .
What does it mean and how can I stop this error?
Thanks!

There is nothing in that message that requires repairing. That is why it keeps showing up.
The permission database has to be updated every time the system is updated. If they miss a change that they have made in the system, it will get flagged as you see, but doesn't mean anything is wrong.
That KnowledgeBase article also must be updated to reflect the things they missed.
All that message is saying is that the directory derby is now replaced with a link to another directory (the l vs the d). However, mine doesn't have a link. Did you install anything that might have updated derby?
If you open Terminal and enter this code, can you post the line that has derby on it?ls -al /usr/share/
I'm repairing permissions now to see what pops up for me, but that will take a little while.
Edit: I looked into the Derby directory and Derby is a Relational Database Management System used by Apache. So, did you install something that modified Apache, PHP, mySQL or something like that? It might have altered the link.
Message was edited by: Barney-15E

"Disk Utility can't repair this disk...and restore the backed up files"

Hello, my macbook crashed a few days a go as well and after going to the recovery drive and OX Utilities tried to verify and repair disk it gives me this error "Disk Utility can't repair this disk...and restore the backed up files" is the second time that occurs after replacing the hard drive for a new SSD, i thought my problem was solved and is not. Any Ideas? the only other thing i can think of is the logic board?

Backup your files and arrange for an appointment at an Apple store genius bar for a free evaluation.
Ciao.

External Hard Drive Disk Utility Can't Repair the Disk

Hi,
I have a Seagate 1 TB Backup Plus Drive which was working perfectly fine until I plugged it into a USB hub. It detected it while in the hub and I was able to get files off of it, but when I ejected it from the hub and put it back into the USB slot on the computer it was not detected by finder. It shows up in the disk utility and I clicked verify and repair and it says:
Verify and Repair volume “Seagate Backup Plus Drive”
Checking file system
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
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.
Is there any way to get this to work properly again? Or if not is there a way for me to recover my files on the external hard drive?
Thanks
I have a Macbook PRO late 2011 running OS X Mavericks.

Use a more powerful utility such as DiskWarrior, or a product such as those listed here.
(108710)

Disk Utility reports minor repair required - how risky is this?

I was verifying permissions the other day and thought I'd check the hard drive as well. When running the verify hard drive it stopped with an error report as follows:
Volume Header needs minor repair
The Volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired
Error the underliying task reported failure on exit. 1HFS volume checked. Volume needs repair.
The Macbook seem to be running fine. Should I run the repair or leave it. Someone once told me that if the Disk Utility fails to repair the problem it can leave the disk unusable. Any truth in that?
Thanks
Michael
iMac G4 15" flat screen : MacBook 1.83 (Tiger) Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Directory structure issues can lead to freezing, general slowness, startup issues (computer may not startup all the way), Applications or files may not open.
It is usually suggested to repair the disk with Disk Utility that came with the computer or a disk utility that is compatible with the operating system that you are using.
Here are some articles from Apple's knowledge base. Some are technical:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302411
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=13628
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=7565
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=19516
Directory structure issues usually are not HW issues, but is the way the computer or OS, stores/sorts information on the Hard drive.

Disk Utility can't repair TM backup disk

Hello all
Recently, my external backup disk (a 750 GB WD My Passport) that I use with Time Machine has been acting up. At first, it wouldn't show up on the desktop, but was being recognized in Disk Utility (with the "Time Machine Backup" partition greyed out). After multiple restarts and unplugging/replugging the hard drive, I finally got to be properly recognized, i.e. it showed up on the desktop with the proper Time Machine hard drive icon. So I thought the problem was gone and started a routine backup. However, Time Machine returned an error:
"Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder."
I search the forums, and followed the advice here: http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/C10.html
I tried repairing the disk, but DU couldn't repair it:
Verify and Repair volume “Time Machine Backups”
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Detected a case-sensitive volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Incorrect number of thread records
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
Checking multi-linked directories.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Invalid volume file count
(It should be 3991498 instead of 3904049)
Invalid volume directory count
(It should be 678218 instead of 673790)
Invalid volume free block count
(It should be 9588404 instead of 11784378)
Volume header needs minor repair
The volume Time Machine Backups was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
Volume repair complete.Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
Error: 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.
So now I'm still following the advice on the above mentioned page by posting on here. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. I am using a 2010 15in 2.66 i7 MBP, if that makes a difference, although my guess is the problem's with the harddrive itself. I think there may have been one time about a month ago when Time Machine stopped responding (or something like that) which forced me to pull out the harddrive, possibly corrupting the data. But I'm not sure, and I do recall making at least one successful backup after that. Well, actually TM confirms this: "Latest successful backup: 5/27/11 at 11:51 PM". So I have no idea what's going on. Again, any help would be appreciated.

You can't tell what's corrupted or where. Time Machine backups have a very complex structure, all linked together. So, you can often do new backups, or restore individual items, or even entire backups, as long as you don't stumble over the damage.
There's a chance a heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair app, such as Disk Warrior, can repair them. It's about $100, and probably a good investment for the future, but there's no guarantee it can fix them.
If not, or if you don't want to spend the money, your only option is to erase the disk and let Time Machine start fresh.
It sounds like you may have other data on it; if that's in the same partition, that's not a good idea. This is a good time to copy the data off, erase the disk, and make 2 (or more) partitions on it, so Time Machine has its own, exclusive space. See #3 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for details and instructions.

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 can't repair this disk

I have been having trouble booting. It started when I connected a router to it. It seemed to eat up the free disk space and I only have 77 MB left or something around that.
Anyway, I tried deleting files with command-s commands, and it worked one time and it freed up 2 GB of space. I restarted the computer and when I tried to start it up, it still got stuck in the gray screen with the whirly thing at the bottom. I checked the space and it was 77MB now.
I decided to boot from the Install Disk (Snow Leopard 10.6.0).
I checked Disk Utility first and verified the disk. It came up with the message:
"Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk .... disk, and restore your backed-up files."
What should I do now?
I have the Mac HD volume on backup already so I don't have to do the back up stage.
Should I erase the disk while I am in Disk Utility?
And format it to Mac OS Extended Journal?
And then install the operating system again?
Thanks.

To answer your questions, first, some other options...
If you fill your disk up that far, you are going to have problems. Don't ever do this, 10% is a bare minimum, you may need even more, depending on the size of your disc.
I have seen before where a disc repair utility couldn't perform its function simply because there was not enough slack space available on the drive. While I have never seen this with disc utility, it is possible that the disc is repairable as-is, if you could just free up a couple more gigs of space first.
Secondly, you could also try Disk Warrior, or to a lesser extent, Techtool Pro, or even iDefrag. I have personally never had Techtool Pro fix anything that Disk Utility or Disk Warrior couldn't fix, so I hesitate to even mention it, but I have had Disk Warrior and iDefrag clear up problems that Disk Utility either couldn't detect, or couldn't fix.
If you are still in dire straits, you should re-partition the drive using disk utility. This is the safest route, then go from there.
good luck!
-a

HD corrupt, disk utility can't repair it. can't boot.

I have a early 2009 iMac with the latest Mountain Lion update (did the last update two days ago). My HD has two partitions: one for os x and one for windows with bootcamp. I'm curently writing using the windows partition where everything works fine.
Yesterday I started my mac on X. Same gray loading screen but it had a small bar on the bottom. When the bar reached nearly half, the mac shut down. This happens now every time I try to start the mac on X and if I keep pressed ALT to choose which partition to use, the one for X is called "EFI Boot".
I booted in recovery and later using a snow leopard dvd, and I used disk utility. It said "invalid index key" and that the volume needed to be repaired, but disk utility couldn't repair it.
I tried rEFIt to check if there were problems with the partitions: all ok.
I tried the fsck console command: all ok.
Now I'm in the windows partiton and if I navigate through the X partition (I have MacDrive installed) I see that some files are missing. I'm sure they should be there, but they're nowhere to be found.
Of course MacDrive tells me that the volume is damaged, etc...
What can I do?

What files are missing?
Might try this...
Just recently I ran into a problem when I tried to Verify my hard disk and when it tried to verify the catalog, it responded "Invalid sibling link." Repair Disk didn't work. I searched the web and Apple's site, and couldn't find anything useful except to buy DiskWarrior or reformat the drive. Knowing that OS X is built on Unix gave me a few clues on how to proceed. The solution is pretty simple:
    1.    Boot off the OS X CD (reboot, hold C while booting).
    2.    The installer will load up, go to Utilities in the menu and run Terminal.
    3.    Type df and look for the drive that has your Mac system mounted---you'll have to unmount this. On my MacBook Pro, it was /dev/disk0s2.
    4.    Type umount /dev/disk0s2, replacing disk0s2 with whatever disk your OS lives on.
    5.    Type fsck_hfs -r /dev/disk0s2. If you umounted the wrong thing, it will complain that you can't repair a mounted drive. Go back and umount the right thing and repeat this step.
Just for fun, you might want to run another fsck_hfs on your disk (use the -f option because your drive is probably journaled). Hope this helps someone so they don't buy a program that's going to do pretty much what we did with fsck_hfs, and so they don't waste time searching for an answer to no avail. By the way, TechTool Deluxe (3.1.1) didn't find the Catalog problem for some reason (you'll have this on a CD if you have AppleCare), which is why I resorted to fsck.
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070204093925888

Disk Utility can't repair Time Machine + HDneeds to be repaired using the Recovery HD

Time Machine does back up. In fact it does not even show up on my desktop. I used didk utility and msg I got is below.
I am in a place where I cannot even buy a flash drive. My harddisk is malfunctioning. Its hard to restart from the 'sleep' mode, so I have it on all the time. What can I do to fix this? HELP!
This is what Disk Utility says...
Verify and Repair volume “Time Machine Backups”
Checking file systemChecking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Detected a case-sensitive volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Incorrect number of thread records
Incorrect number of thread records
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Invalid directory item count
(It should be 163758 instead of 163846)
Incorrect folder count in a directory (id = 18)
(It should be 0 instead of 88)
Checking extended attributes file.
Invalid sibling link
Rebuilding extended attributes B-tree.
The volume Time Machine Backups could not be repaired.
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.
Ref the HD:
Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking file systemPerforming live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Volume bitmap needs minor repair for orphaned blocks
Checking volume information.
Invalid volume free block count
(It should be 78219814 instead of 78056382)
The volume Macintosh HD was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired using the Recovery HD. Restart your computer, holding down the Command key and the R key until you see the Apple logo. When the Mac OS X Utilities window appears, choose Disk Utility.

AMBKK wrote:
The volume Time Machine Backups could not be repaired.
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.
Your backups may be hopelessly corrupted, but there's a chance an (expensive) 3rd-party Disk Repair utility might be able to fix them. For the moment, eject and disconnect the TM drive and try to repair the internal.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired using the Recovery HD. Restart your computer, holding down the Command key and the R key until you see the Apple logo. When the Mac OS X Utilities window appears, choose Disk Utility.
Do that first.
If that's not clear, see the yelow box in #6 of Using Disk Utility.

DiskWarrior and Disk Utility can't repair volume after 10.4.6 upgrade

I appreciate any advice on the following problem:
After installing the 10.4.6 update On April 4 (which installed just fine), I did my usual post-installation system maintenance including repairing permissions, running CRON scripts and cleaning the caches. I got a strange Apple Script error that flashed on and off the screen (too quickly for me to document) while I was cleaning the caches, then the process finished. Then when I used DiskWarrior as part of my usual maintenance, it "stuck" while saying that the process was slowed because of a disk error. I waited for an hour, and it never completed. I then restarted using the OS install disk, called up Disk Utility and selected Repair Disk. This is what I got:
Verifying volume "Macintosh HD"
Checking HFS Plus volume
Checking Extreme Overflow file
Checking Catalog file
Invalid node structure (in red font)
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired (in red font)
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit (in bold red font)
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair (in bold red font)
I cannot repair this problem using either DiskWarrior or the OS installer disk with Disk Utility. In addition, I was unable to archive & install the system while using the OS install disk! I have tried repairing permissions and using DiskWarrior and the OS Installer disk again with no success.
I am able to work on my Mac, but things seem slower and I get occasional oddball errors that make no sense. A few times, applications have quit unexpectedly when they weren't before.
Am I going to have to initialize the hard drive and reload everything?
Many thanks!
--Melissa
Mac G5 (dual 2GHz) Mac OS X (10.4.6)

I had a similar experience after installing 10.4.6.
The messages I got in Disk Repair were:
Checking Catalog file.
Illegal name (in red)
Illegal name (in red)
Keys out of order (in red)
The volume Rich's HD could not be repaired. (red)
Error: the underlying task reported failure on exit. (In red)
After a long time on the phone with Apple, we decided to reinitialize the hard drive. I have reinstalled the OS and am in the laborious process of restoring my user files and non-Apple applications. What a hassle! And I am not even sure all will be restored to proper functionality.
Don't know if either yours or my disk failure are related to 10.4.6 but Apple better watch closely for user feedback. These are potentially disastrous problems for users if they have not backed up.

Disk Utility verify vs repair contradiction

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