Disk Utility "waiting for the drive"

I'll be calling Applecare on this, but would like to know if anyone else has experienced this problem:
I have a 2 month old MBP with the following model Super Drive:
HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N (according to System Profiler, it can write to all formats including -R, +R, DL). From another thread, I assume this is an LG?
I decided to test the drive - made a short 40 second movie and created a disk image. Upon opening Disk Utility and inserting a DVD (Verbatim +R), I got the following: "waiting for the drive" for 5 minutes. Ejected the disk and tried again - same result.
On the third try, it actually recognized the DVD, but only gave me the option to burn at 4x or 8x. I usually burn at the slowest speed available (2x), so I cancelled, ejected the disk and tried again. Fourth and fifth tries: no action, just "waiting for the drive".
I then tried to use Toast with the Super Drive; before inserting the disk, I set Toast to burn at 2x, but once I inserted the disk, Toast recognized it, but changed the available burn options to 4x or 8x.
Next I connected my external burner and got the options to burn at 2.4x, 4x, or 8x both in Disk Utility and Toast.
I then used the same disk on my iMac; tried both the Super Drive and my external burner (using both Disk Utility and Toast with both) and got the following burn options:
iMac Super Drive/Disk Utility: 2.4x, 4x, 8x
iMac/external burner/Toast: 2x, 4x, 6x, 8x
There seem to be a couple of issues:
The "waiting for the drive" problem (what could possibly cause this?)
The "non-availability" of a slow burn speed of the Super Drive
And a third problem: this DVD drive is the slowest I've ever experienced; it took 50 seconds for the icon to appear on the desktop after inserting the DVD vs. 7 seconds on the iMac (this is the DVD I burned using Toast/exterbal burner,testing it on a TV and the iMac). It played fine on all three.
Has anyone encountered a similar "waiting for the drive" issue and/or the fact that this drive takes a very long time to recognize/read a DVD?
Appreciate any input!

I spoke with a product specialist at Apple and it was agreed that we'd wait to see if the problem persisted; at that time, we'd talk about getting the drive replaced.

Similar Messages

Burning a dvd ... "waiting for the drive" ??

after choosing the file i want burn, i hit the "burn" button and a drop down window tells me that it's "waiting for the drive"... i've never seen this before. what gives?

No offence, but did you remember to insert a blank CD or DVD?

Faxing does not work. Says it's waiting for the driver to connect.

I set up the bluetooth fax printer but when I click to send the fax, it says that it's waiting for the driver to connect.
Any ideas?

If you don't have a land line you can't fax without a system like eFax which uses e-mail to send faxes to a phone number. If you have a land line, you must tie up the land line to connect to another phone number to Fax to it.
You can probably also fax over VOIP based lines, but not all have a strong enough signal for faxing. Check with your VOIP carrier if you have one if Faxes are supported. Regardless, the Fax capability of any multifunction printer or scanner is only operable through an actual phone line. VOIP offers phone line to internet capability.

Disk utility software for external drive

i upgraded my macbook's hard drive so i utilized the original apple HDD into an external drive.
am using ONYX regularly to check on my internal hard drive.
however, i do not know how to check my external hard drive for errors, is there a software capable of doing such a task?

Glad I could help. Thanks for the s.

Waiting for the disks to reappear with new 1 TB internal drive

Hi, I have a MacBook Pro 17inch Late 2011 model with OS X installed 10.10.1
Ran for two years with a 256 GB ssd boot drive and a 750 GB toshiba secondary internal drive.
Last week I replaced the 256 GB sad with a 1 TB SAMSUNG ssd, cloned it and it works fine.
I am writing this email on said mac
This week I updated the secondary 750 GB drive with a 1 TB Seagate ST1000LM014-1EJ164.
The Seagate is recognised by Disk Utility and when I try to format it as a 1 partion Mac OS Extended (Journaled) it allows me to do so.
Then the message comes up that it is waiting for the drive to reappear message. I have waited over night, all day, tried all combinations of the format, etc with out luck and with the same error.
So I took an identical model drive that I installed on one of my windows notebooks that had been running for a week with out issues and it has given me the same problem.
Any comments appreciated !
Br, mitch

What happens when you connect that 1 TB Seagate externally via USB?
Ciao.

Weird Disk Repair warning for backup drive

I used to run Time Machine and Silver Keeper (Lacie software that came with my 2TB backup drive). Both backed up to separate partitions. Yesterday I decided to stick with Time Machine only. So I deleted the Silver Keeper's partition and then extended Time Machine's partition for all of the drive. I used Disk Utility to do this.
This morning, when I turned my computer on, I got this error after starting up:
"Disk Repair
The disk "2TB-TM" was not repairable by this computer. It is being made available to you with limited functionality. You must back up your data and reformat the disk as soon as possible."
Well, I was able see the drive on the Desktop and access all the backup files--until running Disk Utility. TechTool Deluxe does not see the drive. But Disk Utility does see the drive. But the Verify/Repair Permissions is greyed-out. When I click the Verify and Repair Disk buttons, I get this error (in bold red letters):
Invalid record count
Volume check failed.
Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.
I can reformat this drive as it recommends. But I'd rather not if it's a simple fix. Any suggestions?

Eric Basir wrote:
OK, I'll reformat. I'm assuming that will fix the problem and my drive will be back to its normal self. I also assume that I messed it up with that repartitioning. Do I need to worry about my drive being broken or replaced?
that's hard to say now. reformat and see what happens.

Will Restore in Leopard Disk Utility reliably copy a drive with bootcamp?

I have a drive partitioned part OS X and part Bootcamp (with Windows XP installed). If I use Apple's Disk Utility to 'Restore' the drive (to copy the drive to a larger drive) will this work reliably for bootcamp as well as the OS X content? Presumably this just clones the drive?

Once you install MacFUSE you can not use the Startup Disk Utility anymore to boot into Windows, you need to hold the option key every time.
As you stated, NTFS is owned by Microsoft, its their proprietary format and has many different versions of it. I don't think any company has the full right to format NTFS which basically comes down that you can not complain to any of the companies or MS about data loss.
My idea with an image is that I can always read it, so in case the WinClone format or write fails I still have all my files (and not just parts of it). Since I am booted the most amount of time on Mac OS X anyway I don't care that a script creates an entire mirror image of my current Windows drive overnight.
I actually have several basic images that I can always restore in case I want to clean up my drive.

Disk Utility - Erasing a hard drive using MS-DOS (FAT)

Hi all,
I have recently purchased a 500GB external hard drive. I have used Disk Utility to format the drive from NTFS to MS-DOS (FAT) so I can use it with Windows PC's as well as Mac's.
My issue is this.
I copied a 1.16GB file over Firewire 800 to test the speed and then deleted it. After deleting the file the info pane still reports that 1.17GB of the drive has been used.
Why is this?
Thanks!
David

Did you remember to empty the trash can? If not, the file is in the hidden directory .Trashes on the Windows drive. You don't reclaim the space until you empty the trash.

I can't burn a dvd using any method, Idvd tells me that my super drive is missing, dvd studio pro quits when i click burn and disk utility keeps spitting the disk out when i click burn and enter the disk??? how do i repair my superdrive for imac

I can't burn a dvd using any method, idvd tells me that my super drive is missing, dvd studio pro quits when i click burn and disk utility keeps spitting the disk out when I click burn and enter the disk??? how do i repair my superdrive for imac, or how do I do whatever I need to do to get it working: I have already tried using a lens cleaning cd and also restored my nvram or something i forget what it was called but i restarted my computer holding down command+optoion+p+r and still nothing???
Free solutions are the best, although if I have to pay I will, I would prefer to not have to buy an external burner if possible and already know that is an option so please don't give me that answer... thank you for any help you can give

Unless your iMac is still covered by AppleCare, get an external DVD burner.
You can get perfectly good ones from Amazon for less than $40.

Waiting for the disks to reappear

Hi. Yesterday I was copying some files to my 32gb microSD drive during the night. Probably the computer went to sleep during the copying and now I can't use the drive. I tried to fix it in disk utility, but it says the drive has only 8,4mb and I can't use first aid, erase, nothing. I tried to partition it and it stucks at "Waiting for the disks to reappear". I tried terminal too - diskutil eraseDisk HFS+ newdisk disk1. Same. Waiting for the disks to reappear at 50%.
I even tried to format it on windows, but it says it can't format it too.
Is there anything I can do?
Thanks a lot.
(sorry for my bad english)

I have a 16GB usb stick. I have the exact problem as well. I cannot erase the drive.
I have been trying to erase/partition it in the hopes of erasing the files in contains because they have been corrupted

I have two hard drives on my mac 10.5.8 power pc and hear the clickking sounds of the first hard drive and think that it may be dying, can I install everything on the other hard drive also and wait for the first drvie to die before i use the other drives

I have two hard drives on my mac 10.5.8 power pc and hear the clickking sounds of the first hard drive and think that it may be dying, can I install everything on the other hard drive also and wait for the first drive to die before i use the other drives? Or, what is the best way to handle this?

I do not know what you are waiting for.
I'd make a backup of your important stuff before cloning the entire disk.
Carbon Copy Cloner will copy your startup drive to an external firewire drive. You can boot from the external drive to verify that you have a good clone. When you upgrade your existing startup drive, you can at any time boot from your external drive and go back to your existing system.
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
SuperDuper is the wildly acclaimed program that makes recovery painless, because it makes creating a fully bootable backup painless. Its incredibly clear, friendly interface is understandable, easy to use, and SuperDuper's built-in scheduler makes it trivial to back up automatically. And it runs beautifully on both Intel and Power PC Macs!

My HD needs to be reformatted according to Disk Utility, but even when I use an external device for startup, Disk Utility cannot reformat the HD

I have a Macbook with a 500 GB Hard Drive. A routine check on Disk Utility told me the disk needed to be reformatted. I restarted from an external USB drive, but when I try to use Disk Utility to repair the HD or to reformat it, Disk Utility is unable to do anything with the HD (cannot repair, cannot erase,cannot reformat the HD). Is there a utility App that can help me with this, or is the HD unrecoverable?

Hi
Thanks very much for your reply. We have been starting up from a backup (USB) drive and use the disk utility that is on the backup drive so the internal (problem) HD is not being used for anything (except for wanting to repair it). Still Disk Utility cannot reformat or repair the drive. I have also run Onyx but it tells me everything is OK on the drive.
But I have made a little progress. Using my old install disk for Snow Leopard (10.6.3) I have managed to do a fresh install of the system on the internal HD. Unfortunately, I also asked the install disk to transfer/migrate the settings and documents from the backup drive back onto my internal HD. The install appeared to work, but then it got hung up on copying the documents from my backup drive to the HD. After letting it sit for 2 days without going anywhere, I stopped the install process. I am going to try again, just using my Snow Leopard CD to install Snow Leopard, and nothing else. If that works, I will then get on to the problem of copying the rest of the settings and documents from my backup.
But since the Mac works OK off the USB backup, and will also run off the install CD, I am guessing the problem is with the HD and the only solution might be to replace it if I can't repair it. But the macbook is several years old, and I am not sure it is worth buying a new HD for it.

How does disk utility decide which optical drive to use for burn?

This is a somewhat daft question and purely out of interest.
How does disk utility decide which optical drive bay to open for burning?
I have two drives in a MacPro and both have the same capabilities (DVD-RW). Why does it sometimes open the lower one, and sometimes the top one?

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:
The estimate is based on how long it already took to do how many blocks, and how many blocks are left to do. If you told it to overwrite 35 times, it will be a long, long time before it completes.
The estimate is made grossly large by the presence of Bad Blocks that need to be Read during the test (not the case with Erase and Write Zeroes).
Each Block is written with some redundancy bits, so that small errors can be corrected on reading. A Bad Block causes the drive to re-read. and re-read, and re-read, in hopes of getting correctable data the next time. This should NOT be an issue in writing. But if the drive stops responding (which can and does happen with a bad drive) the Erase function will just sit there, thinking it is making progress, and stretching out the time.
Thanks, Grant.
If I read your reply correctly, Erase and Zero Out free space shouldn't elongate the process, because there's no read occurring.
The drive will not be Mounted while Disk Utility works on it, so it will not be on the Desktop. But ask Apple System Profiler \[ About this Mac > More Info > Serial ATA ] if the drive is still THERE . If it cannot be seen, you have your answer -- the drive dropped out of sight while being tested -- Bad Drive.
Well, now I am confused. It's a FW800 drive. It's on the Desktop. And it appears under FireWire in System Profiler. AND Disk Utility shows a mount point. But the Unmount and Eject buttons are grayed out.
Will the drive be mounted if it fails to respond to Disk Utility? That doesn't seem to make sense.
How do I determine its status? It appears to be stuck at "1 day, 5 hours" but it'll take an hour for that to change. I think it's been that long since I first noticed the time.
Harv

Disk Utility: what's the diff between the drive icons in the left window?

I don't partition my drives. In my left window of Disk Utility I see 2 lines for each drive in my computer. My main drive looks like this:
465.8 GB ST3500630AS Media
Main HD
Main HD is obviously the name I gave my drive. So is the first line the drive and the 2nd line the volume? And if I partitioned, I assume they'd all be listed under the first line (465.8)?
When working on a drive that is not partitioned like mine above such as when repairing permissions or the repairing the disk, does it matter which I select? The top line (465.8) or 2nd line (Main HD)?
Thanks,
Steven

Your assumptions are correct.
Some of the options in disk utility are for volumes and some are for the disk. If an option appears for both, then no, it doesn't matter which one is selected.

Hi, I have a hard disk failure so to recover my data I am using disk utility to restore the data on an external drive while booting from a second external hard drive. When I perform the operation it gives me an input/output error and stops. Any tips?

Hi, I have a hard disk failure so to recover my data I am using disk utility to restore the data on an external drive while booting from a second external hard drive. When I perform the operation and after having selected both my destination and source drives, the operation begins but soon fails due to input/output error. If I try to create an image of the drive it gives me the same error message. Any help would be much appreciated.

Disk Utility only creates a image of the drive, so it's no help getting exactly what you want, which is your files. If the file structure is messed up or the drive is failing then it's no help.
If you have a external boot drive and you can't access the internal non-booting drive though the typical Finder and windows to transfer your files via drag and drop methods, then you need to install Data Rescue on the external boot drive and it will do as best as it can to recover your files. (works on non-encrypted/non-Filevaulted drives only)
.Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
Are you sure you have hard drive failure, or that OS X isn't merely not booting?
Because if the drive is working physically, then there is a host of fixes
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents#/

Disk Utility "waiting for the drive"

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for