External HD won't mount - Disk Utility hangs

My power cord got knocked out while writing a file to my Maxtor OneTouch III Mini (160GB) USB hard drive. Now when I connect the drive, one of the two partitions shows up, but the computer will freeze if I try to do anything with it. Disk Utility will sit and spin for hours "Gathering disk information..."
This was working fine, and I had JUST put my iTunes library there yesterday. I'd reformat the drive if I had to, but I'm not even sure if I can do that...
Any advice is gratefully accepted.
12 PB G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

You can try to use other disk repair tools like TechTool, DiskWarrior or Drive 10. They usually give better results and could save your data without formatting the drive, if it is not physically damaged.
Why reward points ?

Similar Messages

Iomega external HD no longer mounting, disk utility fails to resolve issue.

I have an Iomega external HD (1TB) that's been working faithfully for two years as my time machine backup. I have Mac OS X 10.6.8. This morning, the HD was no longer showing up on my desktop. I have tried to mount the HD through disk utility and it states it is unable to mount the drive. A screenshot of what I see on disk utility is below. The drive still lights up, sounds like it is running and the drive is active. I have also done the following:
1. verfied drive; states it needs repairs. When repairs attempted, utility goes on, and on, and on with no progress and I have to force quit.
2. Have reset the PRAM and nothing changes.
3. Have started mac in safe mode, still not recognized and same error messages given in disk utility.
4. Other external HD works fine on mac, have not had any software changes/updates since yesterday that I know of that would affect anything.
5. USB and Firewire ports all functioning correctly and the drive is recognized on those under system profiler.
5. I have attached the problem HD to my Windows XP laptop (an old one but still works) and the drive is recognized under device manager but does not show on the desktop (formatted for mac though, so not too surprising).
Would appreciate anyone's advice on this one, have hit a wall.

Turn off Time Machine, select the 1TB ST310005 Media Drive instead of the Time Machine partition and see if it will Repair.
If that doesn't work, you might Erase / Repair / Format and start over providing that there is nothing critical on the Time Machine backup that you can't live without.

Dmg files won't mount, Disk Utility/Toast won't launch?

Hi folks,
I've just joined your fine community in search of help with my problem that I see on Google pops up on boards frequently... but no suggestions have helped me yet...
In a nutshell, if I download any dmg file, eg. Apple updaters, they won't open - the error dialogue is something like "failed to open, no mountable file system". This seems to be an underlying general error, as I also can't launch disk applications like Disk Utility and Toast. They just bounce in the dock and then quit.
I have:
- rerun the 10.4.4 combo installer
- done /sbin/fsck -yf at startup - all reported ok
- booted from and run Disk Warrior - all reported ok
- booted from and run Techtool Pro - all reported ok
- switched to another user account.
And the problem with dmg and Disk Utility/Toast persists! In all other respects, the Powerbook G3 (576mb/80gb) is running fine (apparently).
Hope someone can help
B
Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.4)

I just went thru a simular problem. A couple of things to try.
Boot of your install disk and ignor the install window and open disk utility from the menu at the top. you are running off the o/s on the disk an not the hard drive. You can repair permissions and the Hard drive because you are now working off a different filesystem.
If that doesn't work do a rinstall from the install disk but when you get to the window that has an "options" button select it (you may have to) and instead of doing a full install. Uncheck all boxes. This way it does not reinstall fonts etc.
You will not lose any files or programs or have to reinstall them. You might have to reinstall devices that have special drivers like printers that came with an install disk etc.
You will revert back to the origional ver like 10.4.1. just go to apple update and let it do its thing.
Good luck

My external drive won't mount. Disk Utility says it can't repair disk and to backup the disk and reformat, but how can I do that if it won't mount?

My external drive won't mount. Disk Utility says it can't repair disk and to backup the disk and reformat, but how can I do that if it won't mount?

See mount section in 1st linked article.
Disk Unmount Using Terminal
Disk Utility – Force Mount Disk

Disk Utility hangs attempting to erase SimpleTech 100gb external USB disk

I'm attempting to erase and format a SimpleTech 100gb external USB disk. Disk Utility hangs. The system error log says:
"AppleUSBEHCI[0x1d59000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 91, timing out!
Jul 21 17:30:35 Kari-Hohnbaums-Computer-2 kernel[0]: USBF:"
The console log (and Disk Utility log) shows:
Preparing to erase : “PBEX1”
Creating Partition Map
error writing partition map: Device not configured (6)
Disk Erase failed with the error:
What is the problem? This disk is recognized by Tiger but only as read-only as it ships as an NTFS volume and must be erased and reformatted before it can be used by a MAC.
All help appreciated.

I tried the partition approach and it unfortunately failed as well. The same "hung" symptoms as before. The green light (disk activity) on the disk flashed several times at the initial request, but that was all. I eventually interrupted it after a hourn which generated the same system log message: AppleUSBEHCI[0x1d59000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 91, timing out!
The disk utility log says:
Preparing to partition disk: “SAMSUNG HM100JC Media”
Partition Scheme: Apple Partition Scheme
Mac OS 9 Disk Drivers installed
1 partitions will be created
Partition 1
Name : “PBEX1”
Size : 93.2 GB
Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Creating Partition Map
Partition failed for disk SAMSUNG HM100JC Media Device not configured
Partition complete.
I don't have easy access to a Window's box. I do have access to a Linux system. Perhaps I can configure it there and it will work on my PB.

Disk Utility hangs when erasing external disk

In Time Machine I wasn't able to figure out how to attach an external drive via USB. I guessed that it probably wouldn't work on a MS-DOS filesystem, so I started Disk Utility, which I never have used before. I have formatted disks before on Linux and on Windows, so it's nice to see a great app for this.
In the Time Machine brief help text, there is not mentioned what kind of filesystem that is required or if it work with any filesystem. So I searched, and it seems as if HFS+ journaled case-insensitive is the filesystem that one should choose. Can anyone confirm this?
When I click erase then the Disk Utility program hangs and I see the spinning beachball. The Activity Monitor program shows that disk activity stops after a few seconds. There is no more activity, so after 5 minutes I stop the program.
I have tried several times, and I see the same behavior. I even tried restarting the computer. But no luck.
Now my external disk no longer shows that it's a MS-DOS filesystem, but shows that it's HFS+ journaled case-insensitive. Probably not ok so far. I try creating a single patition, with format: HFS+ journaled case-insensitive, without OS 9 drivers installed. When I click apply then spinning beachball again and diskactivity stops after a few seconds, and I stop the program after some minutes where it has been inactive.
My guess is that the disk-erasing task failed and has left the disk in a broken state. During this task Disk Utility began to hang for a reason that I don't know.
My second guess to why the create-partition task failed, is that the disk is in a broken state, and thus the partition cannot be created, and Disk Utility hangs.
How do I format the external disk from the command line?

In Disk Utility, select the drive mechanism (not the volume on it) and click the Partition button. Use the Options button to choose the GUID partition scheme, then make one HFS+ (Journaled) volume.
There is no point in using the command line for this task, because if Disk Utility cannot deal properly with the disk, Mac OS X will not either. Disk Utility is using diskutil to do the partitioning and formatting.

Disk Warrior/Disk Utility Hangs with External HD

okay, so i will try to make this as quick as possible.
last year, i had an external hard drive that i had been saving all my audio work on. one day i had to restart (i was having a lot of problems with my then IBook G4) so i did, and the drive was no where to be found. made sure there was no connection problems (ie my USB ports) and everything seemed fine. let it sit for a while, thinking maybe it was just tired or something. tried again, same story, and it also made disk utility hang. tried it on a friends mac, same issue.
i also had a a lot of video/music that i watched with my xbox 360. i could still access those files with the xbox, which was weird.
so then my ibook eventually died, and here i am with a newer G5 quad. i tried it again, and still the disk utility hangs, and ive also tried Disk warrior 4. this also hangs.
also, i have tried switching the enclosure to no avail.
its not the end of the world if i cant get the data back, but i would REALLY like to.
any suggestions?

System Profiler shows the same thing: "Manufacturer: PI-236" for each of these HDs. I'm not sure how to rename these drives (I'm not talking about the partitions on them, which I've given descriptive names).
The strange thing is that on my MacBook Air (upgraded to Lion) one of these HDs (now connected via USB) shows up in Disk Utility as "Ext Hard Disk Media" instead of "PI-236". Still not a whole lot of information, you'll notice.
Another external HD (partitioned earlier under Snow Leopard) is shown correctly as "SAMSUNG HD501LJ Media" on both computers.

External drive won't mount after plugging in iPhone - MacBook 13'' (2,1)

Hi Support Crew...
I have a 13" MacBook(2,1) running OS X 10.6.2. This is a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo machine w/ 4 GB RAM & 320 GB hard drive.
Today, I had the Iomega drive plugged in via USB, along with my soundcard (MOTU 828mk2) plugged in via FW. This is a very normal setup for me which has been bug free since I bought this computer over 2 years ago. When I plugged in my iPhone 3G via USB I got an error message which comes up when you incorrectly remove a device. This was strange because I didn't unplug anything, I only plugged in the iPhone. The iPhone was playing music when I plugged it in and I had to unplug and plug is back in to get iTunes to recognize it.
Ever since this happened, my Iomega external drive won't mount. I am able to access it via Disk Utility (and ran the Verify Disk/Repair Disk - everything is "ok"), however I can't access the data on the drive. I really really need the data but of course can't access it to backup.
Disk Utility log:
500.11 GB Ext Hard Disk Media (black text)
Iris (grey text) - I ran Verify Disk & Repair Disk
2010-01-22 14:20:51 -0800: Verify and Repair volume “Iris”
2010-01-22 14:20:51 -0800: Starting repair tool:
2010-01-22 14:20:51 -0800: Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
2010-01-22 14:20:52 -0800: Checking extents overflow file.
2010-01-22 14:20:52 -0800: Checking catalog file.
2010-01-22 14:20:56 -0800: Checking multi-linked files.
2010-01-22 14:20:56 -0800: Checking catalog hierarchy.
2010-01-22 14:20:58 -0800: Checking extended attributes file.
2010-01-22 14:21:00 -0800: Checking volume bitmap.
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800: Checking volume information.
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800: The volume Iris appears to be OK.
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800: Volume repair complete.
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800: Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800: Repair tool completed:
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800:
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800:
System Profiler shows the drive (on both FW & USB ports when I tried other cords). This drive does not require power and I am not using a USB hub, strictly the laptops ports. And yes, the laptop's power adapter is plugged in.
System Profiler: Device Tree log:
Iomega eGo HDD:
Capacity: 500.11 GB (500,107,862,016 bytes)
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk1
Product ID: 0x047c
Vendor ID: 0x059b (Iomega Corporation)
Version: 0.01
Serial Number: 000000066273
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Iomega
Location ID: 0xfd300000
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 0
Partition Map Type: APM (Apple Partition Map)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
Iris:
Capacity: 499.97 GB (499,972,702,208 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk1s10
When I tried to run Migration Assistant, I just get the spinning search circle and none of the drives come up, just endless searching.
The fact that I got the "Improperly removed device" error when I plugged in the iPhone makes me think something weird is up and it's not actually the external drive. There is clicking/whining/noise, the drives powers up fine and is recognized by the system but the mount point is now "not mounted".
Does anyone have any idea how to fix? If you live in SF, I will buy you a beer.
J

I meant to say; "There are NO clicking/whining/noise sounds made by the external hard drive"

Disk Utility hangs ("not responding") when attempting to Repair Disk on Time Capsule sparsebundle. Help.

I am trying to improve the performance of my Time Machine backup and retrievals via my 2nd Gen. Time Capsule from my iMac Core 2 Duo hard drive with SL 10.6.8. The incremental backups generally take 20 - 40 minutes each hour generally with fewer than 100 MB of data being backed up. I have read through numerous threads on these forums about Time Capsule and Time Machine issues as well as the very helpful Pondini site (http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Home.html) and have tried many other suggestions (listed below), but have been unable to attempt a Disk Utility repair disk on the Time Capsule sparsebundle file.
After locating the sparsebundle 'file' in the finder under Shared/TC/Data, I am only sometimes able to drag the sparsebundle into the Disk Utility volumes and disk window. About fifty percent of the time, Disk Utility hangs when attempting to drag in the sparsebundle. If I am able to get it listed and click on "repair disk", then the beach ball begins to spin and nothing happens. This occurs whether or not I first use AirPort Utility to "Disconnect All Users" from the Time Capsule. I have given it over one hour to attempt the repair disk, but nothing happens, i.e., not a single message shows up in the detail window. The beach ball just spins, and Disk Utility shows up in red as "not responding" under the Force Quit menu.
Also note that on my new Macbook Air, Time Machine runs quite quickly via this same Time Capsule from my new Macbook Air using OS X Lion (which seems to indicate that the Time Capsule drive itself is OK).
I would appreciate any tips on getting Disk Utility to run "repair disk" on my sparsebundle, as I seem to have exhausted most other options (see below) for improving Time Capsule performance -- aside of course, from wiping the Time Capsule clean and starting all over.... (which I really don't want to do, and from what I've read, has not helped some people who've tried this anyway).
Many thanks!
Although I would like to focus this thread on the Disk Utility / sparsebundle "Repair Disk" problem, I should mention that I have tried the following other things:
1. Repaired disk permissions on my hard drive
2. Used Disk Utility to run "repair disk" on my hard drive after starting up from a SuperDuper external backup
3. Run DiskWarrior on my hard drive, again, from a separate startup disk
4. Did the "full reset of Time Machine", a la Pondini Troubleshooting #A4
5. Changed my computer and Time Capsule names to simple short names with only alphanumeric characters and no spaces
6. Ensured that my Time Capsule is being accessed only via ethernet
7. Relaunched the finder
8. And finally, attempting to use Disk Utility to repair the sparsebundle - thus the nature of this post

OK, no takers out there, but I answered my own question (sort of).
The answer is that even though Disk Utility shows up as "not responding" under the Force Quit menu and appears to hang, it is actually still working. A bit of patience shows that after about an hour, my Disk Utility was able to show the 1.44 TB Time Machine sparsebundle from Time Capsule in the disk window on the left hand side. Once this appeared, I was able to click on "Repair Disk" (note that prior to doing this, I had to "Disconnect All Users" from my Time Capsule using the Airport Utility program; otherwise you will get a "could not unmount disk" error). Again, the Repair Disk function appeared to hang Disk Utility as it showed up as "not responding" under the Force Quit menu. However, after about 8 hours, Disk Utility did run the entire Repair Disk protocol on the sparsebundle. The results DO NOT show up in the Disk Utility details window - so even if you are patient enough to let it complete, you will not see anything and may think that nothing happened. However, you can find the familiar results of the Repair Disk function by looking on Console - find the "DiskUtility.log" under Files: ˜/Library/Logs.
Unfortunately, I was hoping to find a problem that would have been subsequently repaired which would result in dramatically increased Time Capsule speed, but this was not the case. Disk Utility showed everything to be "OK" and I am stuck with a very slow Time Capsule....
(And of note, my new Macbook Air (OS Lion) Time Machine functions blazingly fast on both backup and retrieval to and from the very same Time Capsule - even though, these are occuring wirelessly via AirPort -- granted the size of this sparsebundle is an order of magnitude smaller at this point, i.e., only 10 GB right now)
Would still be happy to hear of any similar experiences or tips on getting Time Capsule to work more quickly.

Disk Utility hanging on all user accounts

Hi,
I suspect that my son applied new permissions to enclosed items somewhere and that this is the reason that Disk Utility hangs (doesn't respond) when I start it. As a remedy I repaired permissions while started from an external disk and then applied some command lines that I learned for resetting user account permission (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1655174&tstart=0). But still DU is unresponsive and must be force quit. Additionally I cannot open the DVD tray and Firefox tells me "...update available but you do not have the systems permissions required to install it....".
So I think my user permissions reset was not successful. My question is: did the command line language change from Leopard to SnowLeopard because Terminal gave me some feedback that "-H makes sense only with R" or something to that effect.
Do you have any idea about these things? What's the best way to proceed? Thanks.

Has command line language changed in SnowLeo compared to Leopard?
There are a few changes that reflect the differences between the two OS versions but the vast majority of commands are the same. There are hundreds of commands. Including the flags, switches, & options available for them there are thousands of variations. Plus, characters like spaces, slashes, dashes, & quote marks have special meaning depending on where they appear in the command line so even a minor typo can dramatically change a command into something other than what you want.
Because of this, you should not use a command unless it is specifically recommended for an issue you have explained completely or you have at least a fundamental understanding of command line syntax & the options for a command you are going to use. Each command has a manual page ("man page" for short) that you can access in Terminal by typing the word "man" followed by a space followed by the command name. For example, try "man man" to see the manual page explaining that command.
It would help greatly if you could provide the exact command & flags you used, plus any error messages they generated. Also, "standard procedures" doesn't tell us much since different users consider different things standard.
I suspect your problem is not caused by mis-set permissions, although they may have lead to the condition that caused it. But without more info it is hard to say what the problem is or how to fix it. It might be simplest just to reinstall the OS (which for Snow Leopard is not that big a deal), let Software Update bring it up to current versions, & then deal with any remaining user level permission issues separately.

Disk utility hangs MAC G4?

Why does Disk Utility hang when starting? ~ Doug

Hi, Doug.
A little more detail on how you are launching Disk Utility on the stated "G4" would help. Some more details about the specific G4, and the problems that may have led to you attempting to run Disk Utility on it would also be useful.
Try running steps 1-2 of the Procedure specified in my "Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption" FAQ.
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 Hangs during format

Yes, I've seen a hundred other posts on this but all have been archived with no solution.
It seems very likely there is a 10.4 problem. When I try to format a 160GB drive connected via USB Disk Utility hangs and never completes. I have tried to partition it as well with no luck.
Is there a fix? Is Apple working on the problem? Is there a workaround? Even a commandline fix would be acceptable.

This is ridiculous. I have tried 4 different physical drives in 4 different physical enclosures (3 different brands) and it still hangs Disk Utility.
I know I'm not the only one with this problem. What the **** is going on? I can't format a disk and therefore I can't use it. This is absolutely unacceptable.
Sometimes my machine hangs in such a way that I can't even reboot it, it requires a physical power down.
I have been forced to format these on a Windows machine with FAT32 (using a 3rd party app to get past the GB limitation MS sets). I don't want FAT32, I want HFS+. But I can find no other way to do this in Tiger as it ALWAYS hangs regardless of drive, enclosure, filesystem type, size, number of partitions, etc, etc.
Is OS X truly this bad that it can't even format a drive properly? Am I really going to have to rely on Windows and FAT32 whenever I want to format?

Disk utility hangs during disk verify

Initially 'disk verify' registered errors on exit - minor error/issue it said,some kind of header problem, so I ran disk utility off the install disk. Now the machine's native version of disk utility hangs during disk verify, blue & white spirals forever.
This coincidentally straight after my gmail/google address/account was hacked a couple of days ago.

Have you tried booting in SafeBoot mode (shift key held on start
until login screen appears) then launch Disk Utility and then run
its 'repair disk permissions' item, selecting the Macintosh HD;
and then note the repair window. It should fix something.
And when Disk Utility is done, quit it, and restart the Mac normally.
{...It is unlikely something from gmail affected your computer unless
you open up unknown sourced emails or go to odd web sites where
something may be downloaded from there, which you would almost
have to install (as admin, etc) for malware to work. You can get and
try ClamXAV for free to see if it sees any malware virus content.}
If you use Gmail, and do not log in using the https:// (secure http)
you should change the habit and bookmark the secure login site.
And when booted from the Installer disk and running Disk Utility
from there, see about running "repair disk" and not verify. The
repair choice will verify; but verify will not repair. Could be if
you cannot use the Utility to Repair the issues, and the other
SafeBoot mode and the computer's Disk Utility to get it working
you may need to further troubleshoot and/or get third-party tools.
In any event...
Good luck & happy computing!

Disk Utility hangs up

Running a G5 IMac with 10.5.1. Tried to repair permissions and Disk Utility hangs up at about 25% of the way through the process. Ran Disk Warrior. Still hangs up. Started up form Leopard Install and tried to repair permissions. Still hangs up. Otherwise the system seems to be running OK. Any help or thoughts would be appreciated.

Disk Warrior is NOT compatible with Leopard at this time.
I would not use my Disk Warrior.
Permissions take from 10 to 30 minutes with 10.5.1
Give it time.
It seems like it just sits there on "Less than 1 minute" but it will eventually finish.
Again, give it time.

External HD won't mount on PB

External HD won't mount on PB but, will on iBook, G5 iMac, MBP, and Mirror Door G4. I have a USB 2 HD that will mount on everything but 15" Aluminum PowerBook. I even tried updating the IOUSBFamily.kext but no luck that just made my camera to start working with my PB. When I plug in my HD the LED just blinks back and forth orange and green instead of Blinking orange and turning a solid green when connected.
Any sugestions?

In reply to arnie: Good tips!
I'll just add - booting holding "AppleOption+OF" boots into open firmware. I've never booted into this mode (on purpose...) but it seems to be (correct me if I'm wrong) a unix interface to OS X. Just make sure to type the commands EXACTLY. Unix is much pickier than OS X.
I've heard problems like this before - usually with those little bus-powered HDDs and Powerbooks. It's something to do with the amount of power the Powerbook puts out, although it should be the standard 500 mA that the USB 2 specs require. This can happen with firewire, however. If there's a power cord, use it.
You might try plugging the drive into a self-powered USB 2 Hub - one with a cord that plugs into an AC wall socket, then connect it to the Powerbook. If the Powerbook recognizes the drive, then it probably needs extra power.
Good luck
-Dan
15" 1.67 Powerbook G4 (Jan 2005), 400 mhz AGP Sawtooth G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8) 4G Clickwheel and 5G Vid iPods
Message was edited by: Daniel W, stupid grammer!

External HD won't mount - Disk Utility hangs

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