Erase button on Disk Utility doesn't work

II'm trying to erase my external HDD so I can use it to restore a backup of my HDD , since there's a problem with my HDD and my MacBook Pro is stuck on startup, but the erase button (is not grey, it looks functional) doesn't respond. I press it and nothing happens. What can I do? I need to backup my files ASAP

Connect the external drive to another mac ( a friend maybe?) and re-format it using that.
I'm not 100% clear on what you're trying to achieve here, but it sounds like your MacBook HDD is corrupted. Make sure you've tried repairing the HDD using disk utility in the recovery partition. This will tell you if the disk is usable. It may repair it and return your system to normal operation.
If your HDD is corrupted or damaged you may have trouble backing it up to the external drive anyway.
Personally I would remove the HDD, replace it with a new one and re-install OS X onto it. While you're out getting a new HDD, pick up a SATA to USB drive caddy that will allow you to connect the old HDD to your new restored Mac via USB. If it's readable then you should be able to copy data off it.
Your ability to re-install to a new hard drive will tell you if the problem was with the old HDD or with the Macbook itself.
If the old HDD is not readable you may have lost your data, or you may need to go to a professional data recovery service. This is why backups are essential. I would recommend using your external drive for backups with Time Machine.

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Repair Disk on disk util doesn't work

Onyx maintenance indicates my startup disk requires repair.
When I reboot from my system DVD and attempt the repair I get the following dialogue
" Verify and Repair disk - eMac HD.
Checking HFS Plus volume
Checking Extents Overflow file
Checking Catalog file
Invalid extents entry
Volume check failed.
Error: the underlying task reported failure on exit.
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error."
I've never encountered the term "extents entry" before.
Any idea what the problem could be? What fixes might be available?
So far all is working, but I'm waiting for the problem to leave me without the ability to continue working with this machine.
I am backed up.
Any help appreciated.

You must repair the HD, if Disk Utility or fsck should fail to repair it, your best bet is DiskWarrior from Alsoft, you'll need the CD to boot from if you don't have another boot drive...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
Your best bet is DiskWarrior, you need the CD/DVD though.
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
But others that may work…
Drive Genius…
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php
TechTool Pro…
http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83
Only other Apple option is to erase/fromat the drive.

Lion Disk Utility doesn't finish erase

Since installing Lion (clean install) disk utility doesn’t finish erasing or partitioning external disks. I used the disk utility from the install drive to erase the internal drive before installing Lion, this worked fine, but ever since it failed to erase any of my external drives. It starts of as normal but the progress bar stops half way and just never finish. Disk Utility does respond.
I tried different format options, repair and verify but none of the processes finish.
I went back to the install drive that I used to erase the internal drive before Lion install and it also didn’t want to finish.
I copied the old disk utility from Snow Leopard to my desktop, it opens with a warning, but gives the same outcome.
Any advice?

I'm having the same problem on my late 2010 Air with Lion installed over Snow Leopard.
I've tried several usb memory drives and several external harddrives...all the same problem with the progress bar getting stuck halfway. wether I select 'partition' or 'erase'.
the 'genius' at the mac store told me that he advises a clean install of Lion. I did...or I thought I did but all my files were still in place and the problem was still there. Guess I will have to wipe the drive first.
Also, unable to repair permissions on the MAC drive.
But it is remarkable how few people seem to experience this problem thus far. A google search hardly returns any results.

Disk utility doesn't let me erase flash drive

Hello Everyone!
Today I have encountered a very annoying problem. So I put my flash drive into my computer and it worked fine. But in the permissions it said I can read only. I knew what to do - I went to Disk utility. I expected to be able to just erase the drive but no. It wasn't letting me. Does anyone know how to fix this?
Thanks

Some flash drives have a failure mode in which they are irreversibly write-locked by the internal controller when it detects a write error. If the drive doesn't have a write-lock switch (most do not) and you can't erase it in Disk Utility, that's almost certainly what has happened. To be sure, test it with another computer, if possible.

HT1695 my iphone wont find wifi anymore, in settings the wifi button is off and it won't turn on. tried resetting and erasing phone and it still doesn't work. ???

my iphone wont find wifi anymore, in settings the wifi button is off and it won't turn on. tried resetting and erasing phone and it still doesn't work. ???

Follow all the steps in the article below:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1559
If the issue remains it would be best for you to back up your phone then book an appointment at an Apple Retail Store to be evaluated.
Hope this helps

Macbook Pro: Disk Utility doesn't see my HD

Hi guys,
My Macbook Pro has been running slower lately, but I honestly didn't think too much about it...until today. It's just over a year old, running Mac OS X, and I mostly use Safari as my browser, but I have to use Firefox for my online classes. Today, Firefox froze up and quit responding, so I Force Quit it. A few minutes after this, Safari did the same thing, and then it was my entire desktop. Nothing was responding; I had to shut down by pushing the power button.
And then, it wouldn't turn back on. The chime sounded, the apple appeared, and the spinning circle underneath it. And it spun, and spun...until a generic "stop" symbol replaced the apple logo. I immediately shut it back down and did an online search. I followed every fix recommended for this issue. I tried reseting the PRAM, and then the SMC, and still the same thing happened. I tried to boot in Safe Mode, and if seemed to be working...right up until an hour passed and nothing new was happening. I shut it down again, and tried booting from the install disc of Snow Leopard. That worked, and I tried to do Disk Utility with the intention of following the online apple directive of running first aid on my HD. Except Disk Utility doesn't see my HD, only the boot disc and DVD drive. I'm guessing this is a bad sign. I tried calling Apple Care, but they are closed right now. I will call them in the morning, but in the meantime, I thought I'd see if anyone here had any advice I haven't already tried. Sadly, I haven't run Time Machine in...months. I'll end up losing a lot of stuff because I just didn't do that if my HD is toast.
Any suggestions?

Sure seems to be a failed(ing) hard drive. If you happen to get it into safe mode again, the ONLY thing you should immediately do is copy off your Home folder to an external USB disk, SD card, something. Then just get it to an Apple store for check.
Try to copy your files off first and don't try anything else to get at that disk until you copy your home folder. If the disk is failing and you're trying to do things to it you'll loose the chance to get that data.

Disk Utility refuses to work because of Lion!

I want to resize and add a partition (i.e. split a partition into two smaller partitions) on my hard drive, and I get the following error:
“Partition failed with the error: This operation requires a newer version of Mac OS X for this disk”
This is interesting (and annoying) because I used this exact computer and OS X version, 10.6.8, to format and partition this drive in the first place.
The reason must be the copy of Lion and/or the copy of the Lion installer (the full, “offline”-enabled installer that I made with the help of instructions) that I cloned onto the drive with Carbon Copy Cloner. I also cloned the Lion Recovery partition over. It probably also matters that I booted from all three partitions once (to test that they worked).
So...
what did Lion do to the partition map or whatever that causes the 10.6.8 Disk Utility app to no longer be able to change it and why?!
how do I undo this so I can use 10.6.8 Disk Utility to modify the partitions again?
I know I could just use 10.7's Disk Utility to get the job done now, but I don't want to be dependent on “OS X Vista” in the future.

You do not have to erase the HD. The problem is almost certainly the presence of the hidden "Lion Recovery" partition -- the Snow Leopard version of Disk Utility doesn't understand what it is so for safety's sake it won't let you change the partition map.
If you are willing to sacrifice that partition, you should be able to use Snow Leopard's Disk Utility to do what you want, although I can't guarantee this will work, or that it won't cause some unexpected problems with Lion. However, I have done this with a drive that originally had both Snow Leopard & Lion on separate partitions that I wanted to dedicate to Snow Leopard only, & it works fine for that.
With that understood, you can do this in Terminal. First, use "diskutil list" to get the IDENTIFIER value for the Lion Recovery partition. An example would be:
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk1s3
The IDENTIFIER value here would be disk1s3.
Now, erase the partition, converting it to a normal HFS+ volume Snow Leopard's Disk Utility will understand, with the following command, replacing {IDENTIFIER value} with what you got from the list command:
diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ Blank /dev/{IDENTIFIER value}
An example would be:
diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ Blank /dev/disk1s3
IMPORTANT!! The previous step erases the contents of the partition. If you use the wrong IDENTIFIER value, you will erase the wrong partition, leaving you with a drive that won't start up your Mac, no data, etc. If you are not sure about this, don't try it! You really shouldn't be doing this OR resizing partitions without a backup, but if you are unable or unwilling to back things up, this is your only alternative.
At this point, quit Terminal, launch Snow Leopard's Disk Utility & confirm that it shows a new partition named "Blank," which should be about 650 MB. You should now be able to use Snow Leopard's Disk Utility to resize partitions, delete the "Blank" partition, etc.

Disk Utility doesn't recognize HD. Installed new one, same problem.

Hello,
I have a MBP. It suddenly wouldn't boot up, and had the flashing question mark folder upon starting up, so I figured that the HD needed to be replaced. I ordered a brand new drive, and when I try to install Leopard, it doesn't see the new hard drive. I open Disk Utility to partition the drive to GUID, but Disk Utility doesn't even see the new drive. Just my optical drive is listed.
I hooked up the old hard drive externally to another mac, and it appears to be working just fine. So it isn't a bad drive as I had originally thought.
What else could be wrong? The laptop fails to see any internal hard drives. Is there anything else that I can do to fix this problem? Thanks.

Purely conjecture, your serial ATA controller may be bad (or the cable). I assume nothing shows in System Profiler/Hardware/Serial-ATA either. Maybe try the SMC reset?
-If the computer is on, turn it off.
-Disconnect the AC Adapter and remove the computer's battery.
-Press and hold down the power button for 5 seconds and then release the button.
-Reconnect the battery and AC Adapter.
-Press the Power button to restart the computer.

Erasing Securely in Disk Utility

Erasing Securely in Disk Utility
I wish I could send this directly to the Apple software engineer in charge of Disk Utility, but maybe there is someone on this Forum who is technically very savvy and would stake their reputation on their answer.
I would bet thousands have had this same question cross their mind...
I'm trying to understand the process regarding erasing a hard disk using Disk Utility.
For this example, use a 300 GB hard drive that has the following:
150 GB of readable files
100 GB of files that were sent to the trash and emptied (but not "secure empty trash"… so just their directory info was erased when trashed)
50 GB of never used free space
I'm confused by the wording in the Disk Utility's erase options.
One of the choices is Zero Out Free Space.
Does that mean it only writes zeroes over the 50GB of never used space?
Or does it write zeroes over the 50GB AND the 100GB spaces?
Another confusing choice is Zero Out Data
Does that mean it only writes zeroes over the 150GB of readable data?
Or does it write zeroes over the 150GB AND the 100GB of unreadable data ?
If the latter is true, then the sequence probably should be
erase free space (unless it ONLY writes zeroes to never used space)
then choose
zero out data (assuming it also zeroes the unreadable data too)
Thanks for any help

Perhps I did not make myself clear (or you misread a verb or two).
I did read your link,but it does not clarify the technical design of this software.
The Erase button lets you "Zero Out All Data", but data to me is a file (whether or not it is readable in the directory of not). Whereas Free Space can be either virgin territory or trashed files with the directory info stripped clean. So why do you say that Zero Out All Data would include virgin disk space when there was never data there ?
Also if Erase>Zero Out All Data "writes zeroes to every byte on the drive", and projects an erase time of 13 hours, then why does it estimate 2 days 9 hours when I choose Erase Free Space>Zero Out Deleted Files? (Which further confuses the reader with this Apple description: It writes zeroes over the UNUSED space in the disk.) (My capitalization for emphasis). Yes, parts of it are CURRENTLY not being recognized, but it IS filled with data (as opposed to the virgin space being filled with no data).
So you can see why I am confused.
And though you may be right, I alwatys ask. "Would you bet your child's or your mother's life on your answer?"
That's why I left it an Open question for the moment ... hoping to also snag an Apple Moderator.
Thank you for your help though.

Disk Utility is not working for me.

I have had a nightmare trying to install a Boot Camp partition on my brand new 27" iMac with 3TB Fusion Drive and running 10.8.4.
When trying to use Boot Camp Assistant, it would start the partition, then not finish. I quit BCA, tried repairing both the partition and the disk, that didn't help either. So I went into Disk Utility to create a new partition with no file system on it, assuming I could just use Boot Camp Assistant to format it when the partition was created. It would start, but not finish. I tried Repairing the disk and the partition, neither helped.
So I booted with CMD+R, launched Disk Utility, and tried to create a 500GB empty partition. It started and just never quit, so I CMD+Q, got out of it, went back to Disk Utility, I found that I now have a 1.22TB empty partition and a 1.78TB Mac Partition. This is probably my own fault, I should have just let it run, but after 20 minutes, it wasn't moving.
I figured that would work okay, so I tried installing with BCA, but found it's looking for an HFS+ partition to resize and wouldn't work with an empty partition, so I figured I'd just format the empty partition as HFS+ and install with BCA. Unfortunately, I can't get Disk Utility to format the partition. I select the empty space, it puts a white block on it like normal titled Untitled 2, I select Mac OS Extended (Journaled), hit apply, something flashes very briefly over the "capacity" line, and then nothing happens. Hit revert and it shows up with the Macintosh HD partition and the empty partition. No matter what format I choose, nothing happens. If I try to exit, it tells me that changes have not been saved.
I'm trying to just extend the Mac partition, but the resizing option is not available. I can't drag it to cover the Free Space partition, I can't type in the Size to resize it by number, I can't do anything. I've tried to repair the disk and the partition, nothing happens. I can't reclaim the space no matter what I do.
At this point, all I want to do is recover the entire space of the hard drive for Mac OS. I'll try again with Boot Camp Assistant after Apple works the kinks out.
Any help would be appreciated.

The Boot Camp Assistant in 10.8.4 should be able to partition your 3TB+ drive so you can have Windows. If Disk Utility is not working then your disk is corrupt. Backup all your data using Time Machine. Erase the volume and restore from Time Machine backup. You can use the ‘OS X Recovery Disk Assistant’ (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433). Open Recovery Disk Assistant and follow the on screen instructions to create a Recovery HD on the external drive. When the Recovery Disk Assistant completes, the partition will not be visible in the Finder. To access the external Recovery HD, connect the drive, then restart the computer and hold the Option key. Select Recovery HD from the Startup Manager. You would need to re-install Mountain Lion up to 10.8.4. Then ran Boot Camp Assistant and then install Windows. Once you have confirmed that Windows is running then open up Migration Assistant (in the utilities folder) and migrate your Time Machine backup back on to the hard drive.

Brand new Mac, had to erase drive through disk utility as time machine back up failed. Now disk utility only has the option to install Mountain Lion which my Mac won't allow. Anyone any ideas as my Mac won't load anything up but disc utility!

Brand new Mac, had to erase drive through disk utility as time machine back up failed on initial setup, USB cable popped out Now can only access disk utility as won't load to log in screen. The only has the option in disc utility is to re-install Mountain Lion which my Mac won't allow or loading another time machine back up but after an hour of it processing, that didn't resolve the issue either! The time machine back up is the latest back up of my Mac Book Pro which was using OS X Maverix. I'm guessing I'm going to have to take my Mac to the store but that would be a hassle so does anyone have any ideas?

Follow this guide using another Mac.
Insert your newly created Mavericks USB into you Mac, press the power button and then hold down 'option,' until it gives you an option to boot from the USB. You will then be able to erase the internal disk with Disk Utility and reinstall Mavericks straight after.
After that you should be able to use Migration Assistant to restore your applications and user data.

Disk utility functions not working properly

Most functions on my disk utility are not working FOr example the burn button is dimmed and out of function I tried erasin the com.apple.diskutility.plst but nothing happen
Message was edited by: DDGT

DDGT:
Let me just post some general directions and see if you recognize them as the way you did them:
1. Repair Disk Permissions
While booted from your internal HDD
Go to (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in left column and First Aid in main column.
Click Repair Disk Permissions at bottom left.
2. Repair Disk
Insert Installer disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key until grey Apple appears.
Go to Installer menu (Panther and earlier) or Utilities menu (Tiger) and launch Disk Utility.
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in the left panel.
Select First Aid in the Main panel.
(Check S.M.A.R.T Status of HDD at the bottom of right panel, and report if it says anything but Verified)
Click Repair Disk on the bottom right.
If DU reports disk does not need repairs quit DU and restart.
If DU reports errors Repair again and again until DU reports disk is repaired.
If DU reports errors it cannot repair you will need to use a utility like Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior
+A problem with the restore function also accured ( i tried to restore my Macintosh HD to an external if anything wrong happens Un fortunatly the Hd has something wrong and DU cant fix it properly+
First tell me about the HDD to which you are trying to install.
• Is it a firewire, firewire/USB, or USB HDD?
• Does the HDD have anything on it currently?
• Was the HDD formatted Mac OS Extended before you attempted installation?
• What method did you use in trying to backup the internal HDD to the external? e.g. what software did you use? Were you using Disk Utility or another backup software?
You responses will help me give you specific directions in terms of how to go about accomplishing what you wish to do.
Please post back with information on the points noted above.
Cheers
cornelius

Erase functions on Disk Utility in Lion

Having installed Lion on my MacBook Air I find the erase functions on Disk Utility are no longer available. Any ideas?

Michael Superczynski wrote:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1533
Thank you for the link Michael.
I'm still wondering why I can't erase or partition my disk.
It works fine in SL on my MacBook Pro Unibody (late 2008). It even works on my old white MacBook from 2005 which I upgraded to the OS X Lion.

Airport Disk Utility Doesn't See External Drive, But Airport Utility Does?

Hey! I am a recent Apple convert and just got a brand new MacBook and Airport Extreme. I am trying to get my Maxtor OneTouch 320GB HDD to work with the Extreme, but to no avail. The Airport Utility sees my HDD, but the Airport Disk Utility doesn't? Any hints/tips on how to fix this problem? Any help is appreciated! Thanks!

All I can think of is that the drive is formatted in NTFS which I have heard cannot be read by the AEBS(Airport Extreme Base Station), but I am confirming this right now in a different message. If you can copy the files, format your drive in HFS+(the Mac's standard file system), then reload the files. See if it works and reply back.

Disk Utility doesn't recognise inserted DVD-R DL

I upgraded to Leopard from Tiger a few week ago and Disk Utility has been working fine for a while. I bought a few blank DVD-R DL disks with 8.5Gig storage capacities, but, when inserted, Disk Utility doesn't show them in the top of the pane on the left side.
It shows the Super Drive, but doesn't show an inserted DVD below it like it usually should.
Any suggestions?
Message was edited by: jemorris55

Alright, so instead of burning to the disk specifically, I burned to the superdrive which automatically burned to the disk. It worked alright and now that the DVD has something on it, its icon pops up in Disk Utility. I don't know why it chenged...

Erase button on Disk Utility doesn't work

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