Hard drive will not partition

Any steps or changes I need to do in order to partition my hard drive?
An error message keeps popping up saying "Couldn’t modify partition map because file system verification failed."

Do what? Backup? This will get you started.
Basic Backup
Get an external drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Although you can buy a complete external drive system, you can also put one together if you are so inclined. It's relatively easy and only requires a Phillips head screwdriver (typically.) You can purchase hard drives separately. This gives you an opportunity to shop for the best prices on a hard drive of your choice. Reliable brands include Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. You can find reviews and benchmarks on many drives at Storage Review.
Enclosures for FireWire and USB are readily available. You can find only FireWire enclosures, only USB enclosures, and enclosures that feature multiple ports. I would stress getting enclosures that use the Oxford chipsets especially for Firewire drives (911, 921, 922, for example.) You can find enclosures at places such as;
Cool Drives
OWC
WiebeTech
Firewire Direct
California Drives
NewEgg
All you need do is remove a case cover, mount the hard drive in the enclosure and connect the cables, then re-attach the case cover. Usually the only tool required is a small or medium Phillips screwdriver.
Once you have a backup then you will need to do the following:
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one or more. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU when the process is completed to return to the installer. Install OS X on the first volume if you created more than one.
NOTE: Do not make more than one partition if you intend to use Boot Camp Assistant to create a Windows partition.

Similar Messages

External hard drive will not partition correctly

This is a somewhat long post, but the point is this: I have a new 1TB Fantom GreenDrive (attached via USB) which I cannot partition the way that I want to. I want to allocate 300G for a Time Machine backup partition and the remainder as a partition for everything else. For some reason, I'm only able to partition the drive so that it has two equal-size partitions. While this isn't terrible (the 300G figure was somewhat arbitrary), I'm curious to see if anyone knows what's going on here. As part of my tale, I list three "mysteries" that have really stumped me.
For at least a year now, I've had two external USB drives attached to my machine through a hub. One (a Fantom Titanium-II 500G drive) was for Time Machine, and the other (a LaCie 150G drive) was for other files. These drives were almost always connected to my machine, and they were almost always powered on. About three weeks ago, the Time Machine drive started unmounting, seemingly randomly, from the computer. When I tried to verify it in Disk Utility, it gave me an error, and the drive would again unmount. At the same time, I started having problems with the LaCie drive - when I plugged it in, the Mac gave me a message saying that the drive wasn't working properly and that I had to back up everything on it.
This all seemed too coincidental to me, and so is the first mystery of my saga. However, I saw the GreenDrive on sale and decided to pick one up, rather than trying to fix the two drives. When I connected the GreenDrive to the computer, it was formatted at NTSF. When I tried to format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), Disk Utility gave me an error.
If I booted the Mac into Windows, I could format the drive again as NTSF, and it would work fine. When I went back into the Mac side, it worked there, too (that is, I could read from it and write to it). Also, I could use Disk Utility to format the drive as MS-DOS (FAT). Of course, I needed to format the drive for the Mac so that it would work for Time Machine.
When I went into the Time Machine preference pane and selected the GreenDrive for Backup (which was still formatted as MS-DOS (FAT) at the time), and did the erasing from within Time Machine, I was able to get the drive formatted as one large Mac OS formatted partition. Why I was able to successfully format it from Time Machine, but not from Disk Utility (which I believe is what Time Machine uses for the erasing, anyway) is the second mystery.
So, now I had a 1TB hard drive set up a single partition. I still wanted to divide it in two. However, when I tried using Disk Utility to partition it the way I wanted, I got an error saying the partition failed. Just as a test, I tried partitioning as two equal-size partitions, and this worked. Why it would let me partition in this configuration, and not the way I wanted, is the third and final mystery.
In the end, I'm almost where I want to be. I had to spend a little bit of money, but I have more total storage space available, and it seems to be working fine. Also, I was able to format the LaCie drive, and it seems to be working well, so it wasn't a total loss. Still, any answers you guys can provide would be greatly appreciated.
<Edited by Moderator>

Be sure your drive is initially partitioned into one single volume. Then format the volume for Mac OS Extended. Once that's done re-partition the drive into two volumes (if that's what you desire) then resize them as you want. How you do the resizing may be important. Usually the larger volume is the first or top volume. Select it by clicking on its rectangle in the sizing gadget. Then in the Size field enter the size you want. That should result in the first volume being resized to what you want and the second volume automatically resizes accordingly.
Here's how I suggest doing it:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the drop down menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

I recently updated my Mid 2007 iMac with the latest OS 10.8.5 now my external hard drives will not show up. They show up when I boot them up on a machine running and earlier OS. Is there a fix for this?

I recently updated my 20-inch, Mid 2007 iMac with the latest OS 10.8.5 now my external hard drives will not show up. They show up when I boot them up on a machine running and earlier OS. Is there a fix for this?

Can you see them in Disk Utility?
If so, can you select and Mount them?
If not, disconnect them, reset the iMac's SMC and then reconnect them.
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Unplug the computer's power cord.
3. Wait fifteen seconds.
4. Attach the computer's power cord.
5. Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.
If you still can not see them, connect them back up to the iMac running the older OS, open Disk Utility and look to see how they are partitioned and formatted.

External Hard Drive will not mount after upgrading to Yosemite

After upgrading to Yosemite, my external 3TB hard drive will not mount... can't see in Finder, but does appear in Disk Utility. Follow steps to Repair disk, but get a message that D.U. cannot repair disk.

See mount section.
Disk Unmount Using Terminal
Disk Utility – Force Mount Disk

My external hard drive will not open and only shows up in Disk Utilities. When I try yo repair it, it give me and error of invalid sibling link. How do I fix my external hard drive?

My external hard drive will not open and only shows up in Disk Utilities. When I try yo repair it, it give me and error of invalid sibling link. How do I fix my external hard drive?

Invalid sibling link may not be fixable by Disk Utility. (Disk Utility is very conservative, and will not attempt repairs that might cause you to lose data.)
It is an indication of serious Directory damage.
that leaves
a) third-party Utilities that will take those risks, or
b) re-initializing the drive (which deletes all your data) and restoring from another backup source.
c) "Copying off whatever files you can salvage" has gone by, and you cannot copy anything off a drive that will not mount. You may be able to use "rescue" programs such as prosoft engineering Data Rescue to copy files to another drive, but that sounds a lot better than its reality. You may get many files, but not get ANY filenames.

External hard drive will not eject

Since upgrading to ML my small "my passport" hard drive will not eject. First it gives me the message "the disk couldnt be ejected because Safari is using it and to close Safari and try again". (not sure why safari would be using it..) When I close safari then I get the message " the disk couldnt be eject because another program is using it"
My only option is to force eject each time.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Susan
Mid 2011 15" macbook pro

Have you updated your "My Passport" software lately, there have been recent updates for Mountain Lion issues: http://community.wdc.com/t5/News-Announcements/bd-p/Announcements
http://community.wdc.com/t5/News-Announcements/Software-Update-WD-SmartWare-Upda te-1-3-4-x-for-Mac-Users-7-26/td-p/444122

My WD 2tb external hard drive will not unmount from my MacBook Pro.

My WD 2tb external hard drive will not unmount from my MacBook Pro. It no longer even shows up in finder, however it does show up in Disk Utility. I have tired so many of the suggestions on the internet all to a fail.
I keep getting the message to be sure that all applications are closed before ejecting the drive. I have no clue how to tell which appliactions are using the external drive to shut them off. I turned off Time Machiene to be safe.
I don't need anything on the external drive, I am just trying to erase it, save my current info, and migrate it to my new MacBook Pro.
I have been about four days now with this issue all over the internet, in this community, and watching videos on everything and nothing about this topic to a fail.
I think I am doomed and have lossed this external drive because of some wierd application that will NEVER close on my hard drive for it to disconnect correctly. It's annoying.
Does anyone have a solution?

Have you trie using another USB port? Can you test the USB ports with other USB devices to assure they are working? You may want to reinstall OS X in case there has been a driver glitch.
Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

My Hybrid 1TB Seagate Hard Drive will not work in my data doubler caddy installed in the optical bay

My Hybrid 1TB Seagate Hard Drive will not work in my data doubler caddy installed in the optical bay of my MacBook Pro

Thanks for all the advice. It looks like I have finally got my MBP working again (after two weeks of pain).
The WD HD works fine internally, but restoring from TM introduced a whole load more of issues/incompatabilities (see above). Eventually the only thing left was to re-build rather than restore:
i) mount the WD disk internally and install Snow Lepoard from the orginial installation disks
ii) get online, and after much trying download Lion (previously purchased). Perfrom all update.
iii) Connect my Time Capsule, identify my data, photo and music files and then copy them accross by hand
iv) install all the other applications (e.g. MS Office:mac, etc) from scratch.
This exercise has shown me that even though tools and procedures exist to address separate issues, when the complexity of inter-dependence is introduced there are a raft of problems that crop up.
Now I am back in business I will be using TM and CCC to take full and regular copies. I did this previously, which has saved me from losing my data and cherished pictures, but hopefully next time (and I'm sure there will be a next time) the recovery will be less infuriating.
BTW I got a refund on the Seagate Momentus XT. They guy in the shop said it wasn't the first time he'd heard of this issue with MBPs. Great.

Hard drive will not mount shows up in Disk Utility

I have an external drive with a bootable OS X 10.6.8. I was in a transition between building up a SSD swapped drive. The SSD is installed in the CPU box but I have my old installation running from an external.
I have several external hard drives. They are all Firewire. Some have USB 3.0 and or eSATA options but my MacMini only talks to Firewire and USB 2.0.
I understand that you daisy chain Firewire drives and turn them on and off in sequence as they fall from the CPU box/case.
Firewire is a power source. I run the external with the OS using an AC adapter but one Firewire drive is powered through Firewire.
I have had as many as 4 external drives running along with the internal drive without a glitch while I was reorganizing files.
Today I booted off the external drive. It was running fine. I turned on one Firewire drive (the one that runs on Firewire power). That drive stumbled. I recognized the sound when there is an interruption in power. This cause the external boot drive to stall. I had to force a reboot.
Now the external boot drive will not boot up. It does not mount but Disk Utility sees it. The drive itself is bright and clear in Disk Utility but the partition (single) is faded out. I can run Verify and repair in DU. DU says it doesn't see anything to repair. It will not mount on its own or when I click the Mount button in DU. It does not produce an icon on the Desktop (because it is not mounting).
I also have SpeedTools. But although it sees the drive I cannot do anything with it. None of its tools run more than a spli second before they fail.
This drive has USB 3.0 and I see everything through USB that I see through Firewire. Connecting the other way did not get around the problem.
Of course I will buy an AC adapter for every external drive and never run them using Firewire again but the horse is out of the barn.
I have the original installation disks and could run the Archive and Install option but it would require physically swapping drives with the internal. I'd like to avoid it if possible. It is a MacMini and tedious.
Any suggestions?

I took the problematic hard drive and installed it in my Mac Mini so I could attempt a Safe Boot and then Archive and Install if necessary.
Safe Mode didn't work. The drive produced the circle with a slash symbol.
I reset the PRAM which was part of a list of steps to work through I found created by Apple Support.
I was able to boot up to Verbose Mode and view the text of the boot process. I wrote it all down. I can answer questions about the content better than typing it all out exactly. It includes, "...journal magic is bad..." "...failed to open..." and ends with "...cannot mount root, errno = 19"
I attempted Archive and Install however when it went to show what target drives were available it was a blank box and all buttons were grayed out.
I rebooted and opened Disk Utility from the DVD. The drive appeared the same with the top main line bright and the partitioned volume faded. Still was unable to mount. I ran Verify and this time a red line of text appeared "Invalid content in Journal" and at the end I ran Repair. When running I could read line by line and at one point it showed "checking volume information" then the following line "Repairing volume" the following line "Rechecking volume" more line of checking then it ended with "The volume was repaired successfully."
It still would not mount. I ran Verify again and again said "Invalid content in Journal" and this time it stopped midway saying "The volume was found corrupt and needs to be repaired. Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk."
I clicked Repair and it ended with The vol. was repaired successfully."
Still unable to mount I began repeating Repair over and over. Each time it found something to repair and ended with a success message. After several more Repairs I tried Verify and it stopped midway saying to Repair the disk.
Question: Does running Repair multiple times continue to correct bits and pieces little by little or is this a generic message and we should treat it as a problem Disk Utility cannot pinpoint and is just beating its head against the wall?
The step by step instructions I downloaded mentioned running Repair more than once but it did not say that running it 20 times would erode some problems and eventually lead to a fully repaired disk (if the problem was something DU could take care of in the first place). At this point I have run Repair about 20 times total with a series of 10 back to back skipping Verify. I keep seeing the lines about invalid content in a journal and that it repaired something successfully. Yet I still cannot mount the disk.

After security update my hard drive will not show

G4 Tower - Mac OS X - 733mhz.. After a security update 2 days ago i can not get my computer to boot. It comes up to the gray apple screen and just sits there. I put the install dvd in and went to disk utilities, but the hard drive does not show up at all. I tried to boot the computer in target mode from my laptop. It goes into target mode, but the drive never shows up on the screen. I put disk warrior in the laptop and launched it, and it seen the drive as a firewire drive, but the only option was to rebuild. I have a lot of info on the drive, and am hoping that I do not have to go to that extreme. Please help...

the only option was to rebuild. I have a lot of info on the drive, and am hoping that I do not have to go to that extreme. Please help...
I think you are misunderstanding what disk Warrior will do, and how it does its magic. Disk Warrior is a wonderful, powerful, tool and works well for many people. When it suggests a ReBuild, it is saying your drive is recognized and intact enough to attempt to construct a new (proposed) Directory.
It will scavenge all the information it can find from every possible source (including the existing Directory) and build a new (proposed) Directory of all your recoverable files. If the damage is not severe, nearly all your files will be included in the new (proposed) Directory.
It then lists the differences between the new (proposed) Directory files compared to the old (existing) Directory files, and invites you to look at them side-by-side, if you like. ONLY if you approve, will it replace your old damaged Directory with the new (proposed) one. If you choose not to replace your old Directory, it just quits and nothing is changed on your Drive.

Hard drive will not mount - SMART STATUS "not supported"

I was in the process of "sanitizing" an iMac G5 last night by erasing the data with Disk Utility and the hard drive is not not recognized...and some alarming noises periodically come from the drive.
Is there something else I should try to determine if the drive can be saved? (never had trouble before.)
Failing that, how do I determine which drive I should order as a replacement (250 gig,) and from where?
Thanks!

If you are hearing noises from the HD, then I suggest that oyou start backing up.
Which "model" & "generation" G5 iMac do you have?
Need this info so that the knowledgeable users can provide you with the proper troubleshooting solution(s).
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301724-en How to identify your iMac
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh355.html Getting information about your computer
You can have this info displayed on the bottom of every post by going to 'My Settings' which is located in the column on the right under your name, and filling in the information asked for.
Thank you
If you have the iSight model, you will need to take your computer to your nearest AASP. The iSight models (except for RAM installation) are not user repairable & will void the warranty if attempted.

Lacie 500GB Porsche USB 2.0 external hard drive will not sleep

Hi there,
I bought a Lacie 500GB Porsche USB 2.0 external hard drive that shipped along with my new iMac. I have noticed that even though I check to "put hard drives to sleep" when not in use under system preferences, this hard drive will never sleep. I have to eject it and then turn the hard drive off. Anyone know how to fix it or know if it is a Leopard or Lacie issue that might be fixed with a driver or firmware update?

Hi,
I just got the same drive and was wondering the same thing. I inquired with LaCie about it and here is the response that the support people gave me:
"That particular unit does not sleep. We changed the bridge to the newer controller, which is faster and better for data transfer, but that feature was dropped from the design. I'm sorry."
Hope this helps.

Win8.1 hard drive will not load in one computer but will in another

I have a HP s3707c (product FQ578AA-ABA, Software build 91NAv6PrA1). Win8.1. This computer got stuck in the "preparing automatic repair" loop and will not start windows. It freezes with the windows icon showing and no spinning circle of dots appear. I made a recovery USB and it will not start from it either. I thought that it might be a hard drive problem (or software), but the HP diagnostic test from hitting F9 on start up indicate that everything passes. I have a second computer that is the same type, so I took the hard drive out of the computer having problems and put it in the one that is not having problems. It started up just fine. I put the hard drive from the good computer into the one having problems and it still would not start up windows from the drve or from the recovery disk. Any suggestion on how I should proceed diagnosing the problem on this machine not starting up windows?

Hello D1P. I understand that the hard drive will work on one computer, but not another one. I do have to point out that the computer you pointed out (FQ578AA), does not have Windows 8.1 drivers, as indicated here. You should reference this document for more information: What if I don't see my operating system.
If you are interested in troubleshooting the issue under this environment, you can test the computer for hardware failures. If there is an error, this indicates that the computer could have a hardware failure. Otherwise, you are likely facing a compatibility issue.
Please let me know the results of you troubleshooting. Thanks for posting on the HP Forums. Have a great day!
Mario
I worked on behalf of HP.

Hard Drive will not Mount

I have a Seagate Barracuda 1.5 Gig installed in a MacPro as an additional drive and as of today the drive will not mount. Yersterday I noticed it ejected itself; I immediately rebooted and started to download the data to another drive but it ejected itself again after about 25% complete copy. I attempted to "verify drive" with Disk Utility but it was not listed. This morning it will will not mount. The drive is still under warranty so replacement is not an issue. Where I am at a loss is recovering the data. I fired up time machine and there was no data from this drive backed up (Bay 2). I checked the preferrences and the drive was not "excluded". So, I'm at a loss as to how or if I can recovery any data. I removed the drive from the MacPro and fired it up in a docking station (SATA) without results; still will not mount. Is recovering my data beyond hope? Any ideas or tips would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Koyangie

Hatter,
Tried Recovery Mode without success. Although the drive appears in Disk Utility I get an error after selecting Restore! If I click on the Image icon it will not list the contents.
There is perhaps .6 TB on this driver (images). After I posted and received yourt reply I took another look at my Time Machine and found all my data under Shared. What a relief.
Thanks for your advice. I'll return the drive to Seagate for a replacement. Hopefull I will be able to format it before sending it back.
Koyangie

External hard drive will not stop spinning even after partition

Just been on to WD As i had a 320 passport that would not stop spinning ,
After contacting them i discovers all 5 are doing the same. Other brands too. They get hot, The 320 I did a full mac HD disc utility check, partitioned , All fine , but the Ext HD still keeps spinning, WD company said its a problem with the computer,
So i have done the same test and repair on permissions on the main internal mac drive.
So what’s Causing this ? WD do there own diagnostics, Only on windows.
I have read the other forum here on the matter but could not make any sence of it,
A resolve would be good , thank you

Perhaps some application is using the hard drives... check "Activity Monitor" in Applications>Utilities and see if you can figure out what might be doing it.
Some ideas are any virus scanning program, any hard disk monitoring program, and spotlight. You could try going to Spotlight Preferences (in System Preferences) and adding your hard drives to the Privacy tab.
Hope this helps!
www.briancometa.com

Hard drive will not partition

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