Format, image format, partition in disk utility...

I'm hyper in my thoughts of what I wanna do and hypo in really doing them. So this question comes from someone who is know as a geek amongts his folks (and is) and has been using a computer since 10 years and OS X since 3 years now....
If one wants to have a clear picture of what a disk and disk image is all about... how will u put what "format", "image format" and "partiton" are and how they relate to each other.
My need to finally know disk utility more came from the fact that now I want to have a shared iphoto library, which according to a Apple support article, needs to be on a disk image for some permissions related issues. at the moment i have just put the entire library in the shared folder in Users and have set the premissions to let all user accounts in my system to access it. i still dont understand why that would not be apple's way.
anyway, i want to have a more clearer view about what lies inside disks and disks images. so if u could please answer my question above.
thanks
Neerav

Ok thanks for pointing out that i need to use NTFS instead of FAT.. And the order of partitions..
I----------OSX----------I I------Windows----I I---Install---I
My only issue now.. ( atleast i think it is my only issue )
Im a noob at this, so please dont get mad.
But as i understand, you are using the information in this link
http://discussions.apple.com/message/17365855#17365855
to bypass (Or Un-grey) the "create a usb" option.
Now my only issue is that there is no "create a usb" option, i have
"download the latest windows support software from apple"
And
"install Windows 7"
I stuck... ive tried remote disk, rEFIt, installing from usb, installing from dvd.
Dont know where else to go.
Once again, thanks for your help.

Similar Messages

How can you change the primary partition in Disk Utility?

I have made another partition using Disk Utility to install Snow Leopard. On my main partition Lion is installed but when i boot into Snow Leopard and try to delete the Lion partition it comes with an error "This operation requires a newer version of Mac OS X for this disk". I tried deleting the partition from Recovery HD but it says it couldn't unmount the disk.
Is this because Lion is the main partition, can you even delete the main partition?
And if I do delete the main partition will i be able to move the Snow Leopard partition "upwards" in Disk Utility?

ralphfromhome wrote:
1) First of all what is GUID.
It's the "partition map scheme" Apple uses so your firmware knows what is what on your boot drive, what partitions there are and what format they contain.
2) Secondly, would I just be able to make a new image in disk utility and use that instead of an external hard drive?
No, you need something to boot off of and remove all data off the internal drive that's going to be reformatted with a new parttion, that's why you use the free Carbon Copy Cloner, it does both in one shot and it "blesses" the drive to make it bootable.
3) When I use Carbon Copy cloner will it only copy Snow Leopard Installation or all of my files also?
It copies everything in your Snow Leopard partition to the external drive, files, programs the OS everything except whats in the Trash.
4) In your 8th step you mentioned repairing permissions on both. Both of what?
Both drives, the internal and the external clone in Disk Utility (ignore the long list that appears)
It's a safety check to make sure your permissions are set back to original settings, I think the newer version of CCC now does this, but I havent' checked, doesn't hurt to do it again.
5) If you still feel like typing can you tell me how long this whole process might take?
Formatting a external drive
You should Erase with Zero option first, that will take a hour per 500GB
Formatting shoud be rather fast, a few minutes.
Cloning Snow Leopard to the external drive should take about a hour per 500GB
Formatting the internal drive a zero erase first for safety should take another hour per 500GB
Reverse cloning Snow Leopard back onto the internal drive should take another hour per 500GB
Good thing about it, it's pretty much all ciick and go watch TV while it works.
I was actually planning to make a Genius Bar appointment to fix it, by the way does that cost much?
No idea, but you don't have to pay if you get a external drive for $70 or so, CCC is free.
You get to keep the external drive and use it later for cloning as hard drives die all the time, the clone would get you back to using the computer.

How to recover after performing an 'Erase' and then 'Partition' within Disk Utility of an External USB drive?

Hi - I accidently ran an 'Erase' and then 'Partition' within Disk Utility of an External USB drive (meant to run it against another drive that was plugged in). Does anyone have any suggestions on if it is possible to recover from this? It has all my family photos on it and my backup is a few months old :-(
I tried running Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery but it found what looks like basic mac folder structure (probably from the first erase). I think what messed me up was that I rain the repartition which formats the drive a 2nd time! Any help is truly appreciated!
thank you,
-Steve

Hello RalphR_MI,
Take a look at this page, which lists several articles. Please let me know if any of these help you restore your backup.
Also, take a look at this article, as well as this one.
I hope this helps. I'm not sure of a few things, so I'm sorry for sending you so much, but I'm confident it will give you something new to try.
Please let me know if this helps. Good luck!
↙-----------How do I give Kudos?| How do I mark a post as Solved? ----------------↓

I can't delete partition in disk utility, it keeps telling me that "the changes are too small"

I previously split my disk into two different disks, however I want to combine them together again, yet i was unable to delete the second partition. I can't delete partition in disk utility, it keeps telling me that "the changes are too small"
Plz help!!!!!!

Make at least two complete backups of all your data. Boot from another drive and partition this one as desired. Restore the data.

Can't create a 3rd partition in Disk Utility

Long story short I have used Boot Camp to get Windows, so I have 2 partitions. But, I need to create another partition to install another copy of Windows on it, but Disk Utility has grayed out the '+' to allow me to create a new partition. All I can do is delete the 'BOOTCAMP' partition which I don't want to do. I tried another way by going into Boot Camp Assistant and installing Windows through there. I have a bootable USB drive and I know how to install it, all that's stopping me is the partition issue.
Any ideas?
If it helps, I'm using a Late 2013 MacBook Pro with a 15" Retina Display, 2.5 GHz, 512 GB SSD, 16 GB RAM and a NVIDIA GT 750 M.
Thank you for your help

Good thing to mention that, I forgot to do that.
Unfortunately it did not help.. The screen to remove the existing Boot Camp partition does not pop up, it just tries to create the new Boot Camp partition.
The partition I'm trying to create it 150GB. The 50GB mentioned above was on the stock Fujitsu 250GB disk.
Edit:
I'm actually trying to avoid using Boot Camp Assistant.. I became to dislike the utility due to problems creating a partition on my previous HD.
I would like to create a partition using Disk Utility and then install Windows 7 by selecting that DVD to boot from.
Thank you for the tip though, I'll post it there as well!

Resized partition using Disk Utility and now Windows 7 will not boot

Hi,
Hopefully someone can help me!!
I had previously used Boot Camp to install Windows 7. However, I later realised I had not given myself anywhere near enough disk space as I started using Windows for things I hadn't originally planned on using it for.
Anyway, long story short, to solve the problem I uninstalled some applications on my Mac OSX and used Disk Utility to decrease the size of my Mac partition. My plan was then to reboot to Windows and use a Windows application to increase the size of the Windows partition. However - I coudln't even get that far.
Upon decreasing the size of my Mac partition (succesfully) I restarted my Mac in order to boot to Windows. However, I was greeted with a message along the lines of "unable to boot to Windows please insert boot disk and press any key" (I can't remember the exact message).
I was wondering if anyone knows of any way to restore my Windows partition, retaining all of my previously saved files on my Windows disk. It's probably a long shot, but the thought of losing everything I have been working on for the last few months is a sickening one.
What does give me a bit of hope is that, if I click Boot Camp it seems to recognise that Windows 7 is installed as the option that appears is to uninstall it.
Furthermore, if I view partitions in Disk Utility, a "DISK0S4" is listed. However, it's only at 20gb - if this WAS my BootCamp partition previously, it was originally at something around 60gb (I think - either way, definitely bigger than 20gb!).
On top of this, my current Macintosh HD parition is at 260gb and with the DISK0S4 partition at 20.21gb, there seems to be some space missing... I'm hoping this is the files I've been working on over the last few months!
Anyway, I've done some searching on the net and it *seems* that GPT fdisk *might* be my savour. I've downloaded it but have no idea how to use it and don't plan on playing about with it as I could no doubt do some real damage. If it is likely to solve my problem however, I'm certainly more than capable of being walked through what I need to do.
Please help!

Hi Christopher,
I also have problems with Windows rebooting after partition resize trying to reduce Mac side and increase Windows side. I do not see the BootCamp partition labelled as such while running disk utility. The Windows partition shows up when I boot up while pressing the ALT key. However, when I try to run Windows, it says " error loading operatig system".
I also followed instruction and went through to run gdisk successfully. Results towards the end.
What can be done? Windows still does not boot and It shows ? Suspicious MBR at sector 0.
Below is information based on typical questions you ask.
diskutil list
/dev/disk0   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE        IDENTIFIER
   0:              GUID_partition_scheme                        *120.0 GB     disk0
   1:                                           EFI                         209.7 MB     disk0s1
   2:                         Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            78.5 GB     disk0s2
   3:                       Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB     disk0s3
   4:                   Microsoft Basic Data                         31.7 GB      disk0s4
sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0
gpt show: disk0: mediasize=120034123776; sectorsize=512; blocks=234441648
gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 234441647
      start       size            index       contents
          0          1                             MBR
          1          1                             Pri GPT header
          2         32                            Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600           1            GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640 153240016      2            GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
153649656    1269544     3            GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
154919200   17628896
172548096   61892608    4            GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
234440704        911
234441615         32                       Sec GPT table
234441647          1                        Sec GPT header
sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 14593/255/63 [234441648 sectors]Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [     start -       size]
1: EE    0   0   2 - 1023 254 63 [         1 - 172548095] <Unknown ID>
*2: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 172548096 -   61892608] HPFS/QNX/AUX
3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
sudo gdisk /dev/disk0
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.7
Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Partition table scan:
MBR: hybrid
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present
Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.
Command (? for help): r
Recovery/transformation command (? for help): h
WARNING! Hybrid MBRs are flaky and dangerous! If you decide not to use one,
just hit the Enter key at the below prompt and your MBR partition table will
be untouched.
Type from one to three GPT partition numbers, separated by spaces, to be
added to the hybrid MBR, in sequence: 4
Place EFI GPT (0xEE) partition first in MBR (good for GRUB)? (Y/N): y
Creating entry for GPT partition #4 (MBR partition #2)
Enter an MBR hex code (default 07):
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): y
Unused partition space(s) found. Use one to protect more partitions? (Y/N): n
Recovery/transformation command (? for help): o
Disk size is 234441648 sectors (111.8 GiB)
MBR disk identifier: "DELETED INFO"
MBR partitions:
Number Boot Start Sector   End Sector   Status      Code
   1                               1    172548095   primary     0xEE
   2           *     172548096    234440703   primary     0x07
Recovery/transformation command (? for help): w
Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!
Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/disk2.
Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Warning: The kernel may continue to use old or deleted partitions.
You should reboot or remove the drive.
The operation has completed successfully.

Partition with Disk Utility?

I just got a 500gb external drive that I want to partition. Disk Utility is supposed to be able to do this. The help file says "Click Partition" in the Disk Utility window. I see nothing in the window with "Partition" on it. A screen shot I've seen (from LaCie's hard drive manual) shows five buttons across the top of the window: First Aid, Erase, Partition, Raid, Restore, but my Disk Utility only has 4 buttons. The "Partition" button is not there.
Any ideas what's up? This is crazy. What am I missing?
I've clicked on the external drive icon along the left column but nothing pertaining to partitioning shows up.

That is because you have your boot volume selected in the left hand column, select the Hard drive itself, the one with the Manufactory ID number. It should be at the very top.
Joe

I erased my windows partition using disk utility then realized I should have used boot camp, because now I can't resize the original partition and seem to be stuck with a ghost unusable space. Boot Camp now doesn't give me the option to install or re

I erased my windows partition using disk utility then realized I should have used boot camp, because now I can't resize the original partition and seem to be stuck with a ghost unusable space. Boot Camp now doesn't give me the option to install or remove windows partition.

Hi, Ralph,
The problem is that I did erase the partition, using disk utility, but I can't go back to my original disk size pre-partition, as disk utility won't let me do it and gives the message "Couldn’t modify partition map because file system verification failed." When I try to use Boot Camp Assistant it won't let me select the third option to remove windows.

I deleted my Boot Camp partition with Disk Utility and now I cannot reclaim the freespace?

I deleted my Boot Camp partition with Disk Utility and now I cannot reclaim the freespace?
And when I try to add a partition to the free space, and try to apply I do this:
I press apply and it does its thing for like a second, I switch tabs and I get this:
No matter how many times I reboot it doesn't work. Please help

diskutil list:
diskutil mergePartitions:

How do I make NTFS format for partition in disk utility ?

Hi, how would I format a external hard drive partition to NTFS for windows ? There's no option in disk utility. Only MS-DOS ( FAT ) , ExFat, free space, Mac OS extended- journaled, Mac OS extended, journaled case sensitive.
The other partition would be mac os extended journaled . Does it have something to do with partition scheme ? I'm running mountain lion .

anonymous4a wrote:
ok i wasn't clear,
That would have helped.
I want to make a backup of my windows partition and mac partition on my macbook pro retina on to ONE external hard drive.
Ok, so you have OS X and Windows in BootCamp on your Retina MBP.
You want to make a backup of both to one drive and this is what you should do.
Get another powered external drive slightly larger than your internal boot drive.
Use Disk Utility to format this external drive with a GUID partition table and two partitions each slightly larger than your MacintoshHD and BootCamp partitions
The first external partition formatted OS X extended journaled (MacintoshHD2) and the second one exFAT (WindowsBootcamp2) The OS X parittion is first at the top.
Download these two programs, Carbon Copy Cloner and Winclone 3.
Use CCC to clone the OS X MacintoshHD to the MacintoshHD2, and use Winclone 3 (runs in OS X) to backup Windows BootCamp to WindowsBootCamp2.
The OS X clone on the external drive is bootable if you hold the option key down while booting the computer.
The Winclone 3 partition on the external drive is not bootable, it's a backup only as Windows is copy protected and will invalidate itself if it ran.
Warnings:
Don't use CCC to clone BootCamp, it's not designed for that and won't restore to run Windows.
There is no software that can do both parittions at the same time and be bootable or restore properly to a different sized drive or restore the RecoveryHD partition. Some have tried with some other softwares and have problems with lost drive space.
Both partitions have to be cloned/backed up seperatly as there is some intelligence involved and the user needs the option to adjust partition space.
Also, backup your files in Windows (and OS X) to a regular external exFAT drive that was formatted on the oldest Windows machine your going to connect to, OS X doesn't do exFAT correctly so Windows can't read it. The exFAT partition using Winclone likely won't be readable by a Windows PC.
Most commonly used backup methods
.Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's
Again, you can't run Windows from a external drive, it's copy protected and takes the hardware id's into that, so it's essentially worthless to use NTFS on the external WindowsBootcamp2 partition.
All you need is a partition format that can handle over 4GB sized files, and exFAT is ideal and free to use. FAT32 can't handle 4GB+ files and is being phased out.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/06/review-is-microsofts-new-d ata-sharing-system-a-cross-platform-savior/

Explain Image Format options in disk utility

I have a DVD full of jpeg files. I want to make an exact replica. I've read the explanation of how to do this in the Disk Utility help section. There are four options under the Image Format dropdown menu. Presumably there are advantages and disadvantages to each of those options. Where do I find an explanation of those choices? What is my best choice for making an exact replica that can be read by any other DVD drive?

Finally stumbled across the explanation buried in DU Help:
IMAGE FORMAT DESCRIPTION
read/write
Choose this if you want to continue adding files to the disk image after it’s created.
sparse bundle disk image
Choose this if you want to continue adding files to the image and want to conserve space. The disk image is just large enough to hold the files in it and expands to its maximum size as you add files to it. For example, if you create a 100MB sparse bundle disk image, its maximum size is 100MB.
read-only
Choose this If you don’t need to add more files to the disk image.
compressed
Choose this if you don’t need to add more files to the image and you want to conserve space. The data is compressed so the disk image is smaller than the original data.
CD/DVD master
Choose this if you want to use the disk image with a third-party application. The disk image contains a copy of all sectors of the disk, whether they’re used or not, and copies them to other CDs or DVDs bit for bit.

Unable to format / partition hard disk

First start with some up front info:
- This all started when the partition table on my SSD became corrupt out of no where (the result of a system freeze)
- I am using a 3rd party SSD from crucial (The M4)
- I have tried formatting it by using a USB connector and it works fine, connecting it via SATA on the MacBook has problems.
- Tried two different SSDs and the same result.
When I have the SSD connected via the SATA cable in my MacBook the drive is recognized as being unformated. Using Disk Utility I'm trying o create a partition to install OS X but Disk Utility tends to stall on "unmounting" the drive and creating the partition map with an expected wait time of up to 40 minutes (no secure erase selected, just a partition of the disk). Same result on two drives and connecting them via USB partitions the drives normally within a minute. Plugging the drive back into the SATA connector on the MacBook results in the partition not being seen by disk utility (the drive is seen though).
Is this a hardware failure of the MacBook Pro? I made sure that the SATA connector is firmly connected on the board and on the drive.
Any help would be appreciated.

I/O error is usually caused by a bad block.
The standard erase only overwrites the area where the directory will live. It does nothing to the rest of the data blocks.
On a rotating drive, the standard way of scrubbing out bad blocks and substituting spares was to write Zeroes to every block. This takes several hours, but if it finishes without error, you have 100 percent good blocks. On an SSD, there is an underlying problem with deleted data being carried along as if it were good data, and making the drive eventually seem near-full at all times. This can cause the drive to misbehave.
I recommend you try TRIM Enabler, a simple, Free utility that patches the SSD driver to pass TRIM commands to all Internal SSD devices, not just Apple Brand. When you run Disk Utility ( Repair Disk ) you get an additional line of output, " TRIM-ing unused blocks" and the drive may TRIM for several minutes.
TRIM-ing an "erased" SSD will cause all those newly unused blocks to be available for the SSD drive controller to shuffle around in ways that it deems best. This will allow the drive to know which blocks are actually free, and it can do a better, faster job for you.

Cannot format iPod using Disk Utility

My iPod (5th Generation) has been displaying a -48 error for weeks, and i tried to follow the advice to format my iPod using Disk Utility. However, after leaving my iBook 1.2Ghz G4 on over night with Disk Utility erasing it, the little bar was still stuck on partitioning, never moving. What can i do?

try reset in iTunes. Then follow the steps in Jason Creasey's excellent procedure in the long thread ref Code -48. Good luck.

Greyed out Volume Format box in Disk Utility 10.4.

Hi,
i'm trying to open up more space on my hard drive by doing a full erase. Available space is about 6GB on a 80GB drive. Running OS X 10.4.11. on a Mac Book Black. Want to install 10.6. SL.
In Disk Utility the Volume Format box is greyed out. It's set as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
How can i change it?
Thanks for any advice.
Mark

How much free space is on the HD, where has all the space gone?
OmniDiskSweeper is likely the easiest/best, and is now free...
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/download/
And if needed, you can use Terminal to run it in admin mode to see files/folders your user can't see...
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/how_to_recover_missing_hard_drive_space/

Formatting With The Disk Utility?

Hi! Is anyone having good success using Leopard's disk utility? I was trying to partition on the fly with little success (getting the message that it had to be OSX Extended journaled-which it was already) so I decided to erase using case sensitive journaled with no other options selected. It was a 120 gig drive and now after 4 1/2 hours I'm beginning to think it's doing a zero data option. Needless to say the disk utility's status bar isn't much help either. Tom

Hope this link helps. This should also apply to Leopard.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107863
Good Luck!

Format, image format, partition in disk utility...

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