Help! Disk Utility failed to restore my 750gb Mac HD

Here's the story. A couple weeks ago I successfully installed Windows 7 Home as a bootcamp partition using Disk Utility, not Bootcamp Assisstant, I clicked on my 750gb mac drive, clicked on partition, clicked the "+" symbol to split the HDD into a second partition, allocated 200gb for this Windows 7 partition remaining 550gb for Mac HD, made it into MS-Dos Format so I can format it into NTSF during the Windows installation; everything was working fine, I even was successfully running Parallels 7 with it.
So here's my problem, the other day I purchased Windows 7 Professional, decided I wanted to do a complete new installation so I went into my Mac OS X Lion and went into Disk Utility, deleted the Windows partition, then dragged the corner of my Mac HD putting it back to 750gb. Now my bootcamp partition of Windows 7 HD is deleted so I went ahead and hit the "+" to create a partition for Windows 7 Pro HD, it gave me a Failed Error message, so I went into my Mac OS HD and repaired Disk, even hit the set permissions button), those both didnt fix my problem of creating a partition.
So i go into bootcamp assistant and went through the process, i already have the mac drives, hit continue, then it showed me what i can allocate for Windows. It tells me I only have 345gb to allocate a Windows partition, but I should have 200gb ontop of that. My total HDD is 750gb and I only have 550gb available for me to use :(. How do I get the remaining 200gb i used from my old windows partiton I already deleted. By the way, I already allocated 750gb to my Mac HDD freeing up all the free space.
Can anyone help? I can send screenshots if needed.
Thank you!

Carbon Copy Cloner your Lion partition to a HFS+ Journaled formatted external powered drive, "hold option boot" from it, check it out and then use Disk Utility there to erase the entire drive and reformat, reverse clone.
You'll loose the Lion Recovery Partition, but you got clones on external drives.
You have to reformat the whole drive, as the GUID partition map is off and needs to be updated correctly.
Also you can download the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant in advance and/or create "hold c" Lion boot DVD's from the MacAppStore Lion installer by holding option key and clicking on Purchases and downloading the Lion installer again and following these instructions.
http://eggfreckles.net/notes/burning-a-lion-boot-disc/
Also just in case you need it as you can always boot your Snow Leopard disk and install then upgrade to Lion on a blank drive without a Lion Recovery Partition.
http://www.walterjessen.com/make-a-bootable-backup-snow-leopard-install-disc/
Once you got Lion up, then Bootcamp the Windows 7 Pro.
You can try WinClone to clone Windows, I don't know how well it will work with Lion, it hasn't been updated recently, your best bet would be to fresh install.

Similar Messages

Disk Utility no longer restores to smaller partitions

Up until today, I've been using Disk Utility to clone my Macbook Pro HD to an external HD. The MBP drive is 750GB, with about 300GB in use. The external 1TB drive has two equally sized partitions of ~500GB. I alternate between the two partitions each time I make a back up. I've been doing this regularly for many years now, and it's saved me on a couple of occasions. My last clone was made on June 2nd. However, today I got this message when trying to make a clone:
Restore Failure
Not enough space on /dev/disk1s4 to restore
This is the first time I've ever had this message pop up. I even tried repartitioning and reformatting the external drive, but it didn't help. The only way I can successfully clone my drive now is by making the external drive one large partition, which results in "Copying blocks. Estimated time: 8 hours". Previously, it took slightly less than 3 hours to clone my drive.
Was there a recent update that changed something with Disk Utility? Is anyone else having this problem?

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Disk Utility will only restore to a smaller partition if you un-select the "Erase destination" check-box. This option does not seem to exist any more in the latest version of Disk Utility (13 (450)). Have you updated to Mountain Lion recently?
A better approach may be to use Time Machine with your external HD. This works nicely with USB disks. You don't need to buy the TimeCapsule hardware. I assume the reason you alternate backups between two partitions is in case it fails during one of the backups. That is less of an issue with Time Machine as it does incremental backups. However, if you want multiple backup disks, Time Machine will automatically alternate backups between them. You can even do the same thing with two partitions on the same disk, but it is safer to use two separate disks in case of a complete disk failure.

My Macintosh HD partition is damaged and the disk utility failed to repair it

I cannot boot anymore after I tried to repair the disk with Disk Utility after my Mac became very slow.
This is the second time it happened to me in a week with the same symptoms. When I try to boot, I see a gray screen and the computer just stops
When I use the recovery partition, the disk utility fails to repair the disk, stopping after failing to fix the catalog file.
I started to use TM to backup my data after erasing the disk and reinstalling Mountain Lion but I wonder if my hard drive is damaged because the same problem happened twice. (Thanks TM for keeping my data safe this time)
Any advice or ways to fix that once and for all ?
PS : The worst is that i can still boot with Bootcamp to Windows, not very useful though

rpignard wrote:
Any advice or ways to fix that once and for all ?
Since your Recovery HD and Windows partition work fine, the problem is located in your Macintosh HD partition and I very highly suspect it's bad/failing sectors that's to blame for your troubles.
This can sometimes occur if the computer was moved while the hard drive was in operation, else sectors fail all by themselves, or if the drive is having mechanical issues, which you problem will continue no matter what you do.
This time when you use Recovery > Disk Utility to erase the Macintosh HD partition, use the middle secure erase option, not the far left or right options (the right will work also just take a really long time)
What your doing is with the middle secure erase option is called a "Zero" write, which Disk Utility will write 0's over all the bits in that partition. When it's done it will read it back for confirmation and when it does so, any bits that are failing will be mapped off by the drive. Hopefully this will resolve the issue without needing a drive replacement.
Once that is completed, reinstall OS X from Recovery, any programs from original sources, files only from backup and your problems hopefully should disappear.
What happens is if your data gets corrupted on the boot drive by failing sectors, it gets transfered to TimeMachine (or to bootable clones) and when you restore your right back to square one. So it's important to rule out that possibility with original installs of OS X and third party programs.
If your problems continue, then it's possibly a problem with third party at boot kernel extension files, (and the catalog problem was yet another one) so to solve this you need to make sure all your third party software is updated and works with your current OS X version.
A trick is, if you get gray screen at boot time, is to hold the Shift Key while booting the computer, this will disable a lot of things and allow you to fix the third party software issue.
What I suggest you do is have multiple backup systems, including hold option key bootable clones, this way if your TM drive gets corrupted you can go back in time to a saved state on the clone, restore that and then your files from the TM drive.
Most commonly used backup methods

Keys out of order, disk utility fails

PowerPC (?, whatever came just before Intel-based machines) iMac running 10.3.something failed to boot - hangs at "Logging into OSX" window but never gets there to log in. Booting from Install CR-ROM and running Disk Utility fails to repair Catalog. Booting in single user mode results in "Keys out of order (4, 51882)" "The volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired". Also tried to boot from Prosoft "Data Rescue II" CD-ROM but no help
Any suggestions to repair/recover?
Files all appear to be there - can navigate around in Unix and list them. Also have external Lacie hard drives connected (unconnecting does not resolve problem) - Would there be a way to cp or rcp some key files to these external drives to at least recover some?

Welcome To  Discussions jeff_st!
If all else fails, and you have access to another Firewire enabled Mac, you can also use Firewire Target Disk Mode, to backup as much data as possible.
Then reformat the HD, zeroing all data, and perform an Erase & Install.
ali b

Disk utility won't restore to external hard drive.

I recently installed Leopard on my Imac G5. I tried to "restore" the HD to a USB external hard drive. It said it would take 15 hours and when I came back - the time machine window was up and had a failure message as did the disk utility for the restore. Does the time machine need to be turned off to successfully restore the HD to an external hard drive?

Also worth noting that, if your drive has a FireWire interface, use that instead of USB. While the theoretical max speed of USB2 is faster than FireWire 400, in real-world conditions FW will blow the socks off USB. And if you're purchasing an external drive, it repays on the long run to pay a little more to purchase one with FW. And, of course, if FW400 is faster, FW800 is out of sight.

I have a problem with disk utility that is not on my mac pro

I have a problem with disk utility that is not on my mac pro

Open your Applications folder then open the Utilities folder. It should be there.
If not, click the magnifying glass icon top right corner of your screen. That's Spotlight.
Type: Disk Utility
Hopefully it will show up.
Mac Basics: Spotlight

Wife about to give birth and Disk Utility failing to repair HD.

Good morning. Starting last night I began having serious issues with my 2007 20" 2.4ghz iMac. I hope someone can help before I employ the "nuke" option.
First a little background. My wife is about to give birth to our second child. I have several in-laws in town and my house is a wreck. So, last night I thought it would be a great time to upgrade my iPhone 3G to iOS 4. I am not implying that updating my phone caused the problems with my iMac but they started about 30 seconds after pushing the "Update" button in iTunes.
The phone did update to iOS 4 after about 3 hours of backing up but immediately the iMac started "hanging up" and the spinning beach ball appeared for minutes at a time. late last night after my iPhone was functioning again, I went to bed.
This morning, the iMac was still responding very slowly and I was getting the spinning beach ball for even longer periods of time. So, I rebooted the machine and upon reboot the iMac would get stuck on the grey screen with the Apple logo and a spinning gear.
I tried all of the methods on this support document.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
It would not boot into Safe Mode.
I reset the NVRAM/PRAM.
I checked the power cables.
I removed all USB and perpherial attachments. (Including even trying to boot without the keyboard or mouse plugged in.)
After booting from the Install DVD and running Disk Utility, Disk Utility was telling me that almost the entire HD is available and that it could not repair the disk. I was receiving "Invalid Node Structure" and "Volume Check Failed" error messages.
So the last thing the support document suggested was a complete erase and re-install. I have been running Time Machine, but have never actually used it to recover anything, much less the 1000s of photos and 1000s of songs on the iMac.
Is there anything else I can or should try before pulling the plug and erasing the hard drive and praying that Time Machine has worked?
My very pregnant wife will have a heart attack if we lost everything on the computer. (I really am not joking that she might go into labor any second, her due date was last week.)
Thanks for the help and advice. I need it.

I know that I am a bother and asking alot of questions in quick succession, but I am hoping to take care of this before the baby makes its appearance.
I'm getting you have a lot on your mind right now, try not to not worry about it. Might be time to take a few deep breaths and try to relax.
If you have had your machine connected to Time Machine and it has been doing backups (I'm sure it has been) you have done everything necessary.
You can attempt an erase and restore however if your disk is dodgy or has failed at best it's a temporary solution. As I stated I would recommend taking it into an AASP and have it looked at.

Hard Drive fubar? Disk Utility fail! New macbook...

My 2009 MBP tried to install a security update last night and failed - had the screen with the box advising to turn off and on again - after 2 power on attempts all was well and working fine.
I turned it off this evening and then turned it back on (I wish I hadn't) only to find a grey screen with a progress bar running along the bottom. The MBP will try a couple of times to start, but the progress bar only gets a 3rd of the way along and after two (three?) attempts it turns off.
I tried booting to safe mode (holding down shift) - tries to boot, fails as above.
Tried the install disc and holding down C - it tries to boot but fails as above.
I tried with command S for single user and made some progress...
typed:
/sbin/fsck -fy
and it ran a disc check, only to tell me the disc could not be prepared and ended with a Signal 8 (???????).
here is a shot of the screen (taken with a camera!):
http://www.olij.co.uk/diskutility_failweb.jpg
Is my hard drive failing?
Is the only solution to reinstall OS X and see what happens? I have a time machine backup (can't remember if it is full image, or just user files!)
Message was edited by: Oliver Jobson

Well, after holding down the power button for 5 seconds (reset EFI?) and clearing the PRAM I am now able to launch the installation DVD.
Disk repair didn't work in Disk Utility so I wiped it and tried to restore from the Time Machine - it isn't working. The process starts and then I come back to find it has failed and an error log.
It seems to go wrong after the process starts to restore the applications.
You can see two error logs, for two seperate restore events:
http://www.olij.co.uk/OSXrestore_crashlog1.txt
http://www.olij.co.uk/OSXrestore_crashlog2.txt
Looks identical and seems to be this bit:
Feb 26 16:31:33 localhost ReportCrash[192]: Exception Type: EXCBADACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Feb 26 16:31:33 localhost ReportCrash[192]: Exception Codes: 0x000000000000000d, 0x0000000000000000
Feb 26 16:31:33 localhost ReportCrash[192]: Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
that might be the major problem?
Is there still something wrong with the disk or (shudder) is the TimeMachine backup corrupt?
Message was edited by: Oliver Jobson

Disk Utility failing to repair permissions after 10.5.7

I have upgraded to 10.5.7 and now I am unable to repair disk permissions. I have tried using disk utility and that does not work. It says it has completed after less than a second, when it says that it will take several minutes to read the permissions database. I need the permissions repaired as Final Draft will not work at all with the current settings.
I have tried repairing from CD but my Superdrive does not recognise the install disk. My other machine shows it as readable. I think that I have a problem with the Superdrive and am dealing with that as well.
I have also tried TechTool Pro 5 and that did not work either. Any suggestions?

Firstly I never delete anything in the library folder. So nothing that I have done.
My Library/Receipts folder is very small, the actual db folder is less than 400 kb and none of the pkg's is older than 16th of May 2009, and all of them are for programs that I reinstalled since.
I can wipe the drive and reinstall Leopard and restore the data via Super Duper. Is that practical as a way of rebuilding the database? Or shall I reinstall applications? I can use Amnesia to clear everything if that helps.

Disk utility - can't restore image - button inactive

Hi,
Can anybody tell me why the restore button in disk utility / restore tab, is inactive? Even after choosing the source image it stays that way. It's a USB flash drive that I'm trying to restore on. Any help would be great! Thanks!

Okay, found it. You have to drag the drive onto the lower field. That should do the trick.

10.4.3 Disk Utility fails to unmount non-Startup Volumes

When I first try to Verify, Repair or even Erase an internal SATA disk (not permissions; secondary drive) with Disk Utility, the first time it fails to do so returning "failed with error Could not unmount disk" - I think because .Trashes/501 is open (I'm doing an lsof on the Volumes in question).
The second time it works OK and Verifies etc.
Is this a known bug in 10.4.3 Disk Utility?
Is there a solution?
TIA
G5 DP 2 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Yes, I found it thanks to the expert help of Nick at Apple, who had me create a second User Account, in which I did not get the error, then binary chop all my 220 preferences until it turned out to be a corrupt loginwindow.plist!
Letting Tiger recreate this on restarting now has DU working as it should.
Thanks, AppleCare!

Help: Disk Utility: Disks need to be repaired

My MacBook Pro lately has been extremely slow and just constantly thinking and freezing.
I ran the Disk Utility to verify the disk and this is what came up:
"This disk needs to be repaired using the Recovery HD. Restart your computer, holding down the command key and the R key until you see the Apple Logo. When the OS C Utilities Window appears choose disk utility."
So I did this step and went to repair it. But when I said repair disk, it said that the disk seems to be Okay.
Why does it say that? How can I fix my computer, or do I need to go to the Apple Store. Please Help.
Thanks

Looking at your top screenshot:
That appears to be the NETWORK version of Disk Utility.
From this I conclude your Internal Hard Drive was seen as failing, and it would not boot to the Recovery_HD partition on the Internal Hard Drive, and went for the Online/Network version of Recovery_HD (from the Internet) instead.
I think you should take it in for service and expect that they are likely to replace the Hard Drive and give it back to you with a new drive with ONLY Mac OS X (no user files) installed.
AppleCare warranty and SSD:
Like most warranties, AppleCare covers defects in materials and workmanship. They will replace like-with-like, that is: they will give you the same drive or a slightly better one. I suggest you have it fixed and take advantage of whatever they will give you under warranty.
Apple does not sell the 2.5" form factor SATA SSD notebook drives that would just fit into the same space as your internal drive. These are very popular with upgraders, and users find they are somewhat faster, run cooler, and allow the battery to last longer. You can always replace the spinning internal drive later with one more to your liking, and run the old one in an external enclosure for more on-desk storage.
You do not void your warranty by installing an aftermarket drive such as an SSD, but the actual new drive would not be covered under the Apple warranty. (many Vendors warrant the drive separately for at least a year, sometimes longer).

Disk utility fails to partition - restarting the compuyter is required

I would appreciate your help-I have tried to find a topic with the same problem but could not.
I want to partition my hard drive in order to have a second partition for time machine. I get an error message, saying that I have to press the power button for three seconds etc to restart the machine. And of course when I come back there is no partition.
So, now I try with the installation disk, and use the disk utility, I repair and verify the hard drive, and I try to partition it. After about 10 minutes, I get the same error message, having again to restart the MacBook. So, what´s wrong?
Any suggestions would be highly appreciated.
Thanks

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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
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.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

Disk Utility Failed, Mac HD not working and cannot reinstall OSX

Hi,
I am totally frustrated.
Was working on capturing video using Final Cut Pro and the application froze. After repeated attempts, I kept getting the message to restart the G5.
I tried reinstalling Final Cut Pro - and installation failed. I ran disk utility first aid and found an error on the Mac HD (Startup Disk). So I restarted machine from the DVD (pressing the C button when restarting) and ran disk repair from the DVD OSX Utility. Still got the error that "First Aid Failed" Disk utility stopped repairing Macintosh HD because the following error was encountered. The underlying task reported failure on exit. HFS volume checked 1 volume could not be repaired because of an error. Repair attempted on volume 1, 1 volume could not be repaired.
Then I tried reinstalling OSX onto a second internal SATA HD. Installation failed. Try installing again.
So now what do I do?
I am running Mac OSX 10.4.9
Please help...urgent.
Thanks
MQ

Thanks for the answer...that's what I was thinking.
The following are various issues I am considering maybe the cause:
1. Memory - I installed 2GB a few weeks ago - third party.
2. External HDs - I installed an external Maxtor 1.5TB drive 3 days ago.
3. I live in Africa - and power frequently gets disrupted - even though the machine is on a "solatek" (power stabilizer and high end protector against spikes) - 2 days ago my UPS was down and for repairs - and we had three power outtages.
Lastly, as I mentioned I live in Africa - Mombasa - Apple tech support is almost non-existent here...so I am hoping I can resolve this without having to ship it abroad.
Please help and thank you...
MQ

Disk Utility Fails When Partitioning FireWire Drive

I am getting this error when attempting to partition my FireWire drive.
"Disk utility has lost its connection with the Disk Management Tool and cannot continue. Please quit and relaunch Disk Utility."
I know that Panther users have been having this same error pop up when they attempt to repair permissions. Something about the iTunes 6.0.2 update. I attempted to remove the package files, which was the fix for that issue, and then partition the drive, but it didn't help. This is a different issue. I can repair permissions fine, as well.
Booting from the Mac OS X Tiger install DVD, and using Disk Utility from there, works just fine. I want Disk Utility to work from the startup volume, however.
Has anyone else experienced this issue?
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can correct it?
Thanks!

10.4.6 Combo Update has fixed the issue.
Thanks so much! I'm glad you happened to be awake and reading this board. I think something strange happened with the 10.4.6 update in the first place, because my Dock is always restored to the default look (I customize it with TransparentDock) every time Apple updates the OS. Also (maybe I shouldn't say this on an Apple board), my iBook is running Front Row, and it wasn't broken after the update, but it is now, which is fine, as long as Disk Utility works.
Thanks again for your help!

Help! Disk Utility failed to restore my 750gb Mac HD

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