Invalid key length, disk repair fails

i am getting this disk error after macbookpro locks up, repeatable.
invalid key length
volume check failed
error: filesystem verify or repair failed.
this is the boot volume of the macbookpro running os 10.5.6. been running well for months, used everyday all day, then this am the finder and all other apps lock up, no application crash, just all hanging one after another. hard reset gets system back but it recurs in short order.
i ran diskutil from the software restore dvdrom, three times. same results (error text above) each time. only option barring other solutions is to reinstall the system and restore data from a time machine bu.
never seen this before. any ideas?
thanks.

thanks for hint on diskwarrior. i am running it but it is encountering quite a pile, i've never seen a problem like this. the sys log on the system that's running dw is full of:
App: disk14s2: Read I/O error for block range 324751 to 324751
Jan 27 00:49:29 server [0x0-0xba4ba4].com.alsoft.diskwarrior[9656]: DiskWarrior App: Disk sector 324751 is bad. (JSC)
Jan 27 00:49:29 server [0x0-0xba4ba4].com.alsoft.diskwarrior[9656]: DiskWarrior App: disk14s2: Read I/O error for block range 324752 to 324752
Jan 27 00:49:29 server [0x0-0xba4ba4].com.alsoft.diskwarrior[9656]: DiskWarrior App: Disk sector 324752 is bad. (JSC)
Jan 27 00:49:29 server [0x0-0xba4ba4].com.alsoft.diskwarrior[9656]: DiskWarrior App: disk14s2: Read I/O error for block range 324753 to 324753
Jan 27 00:49:29 server [0x0-0xba4ba4].com.alsoft.diskwarrior[9656]: DiskWarrior App: Disk sector 324753 is bad. (JSC)
Jan 27 00:49:29 server [0x0-0xba4ba4].com.alsoft.diskwarrior[9656]: DiskWarrior App: disk14s2: Read I/O error for block range 324754 to 324754
Jan 27 00:49:29 server [0x0-0xba4ba4].com.alsoft.diskwarrior[9656]: DiskWarrior App: Disk sector 324754 is bad. (JSC)
Jan 27 00:49:29 server [0x0-0xba4ba4].com.alsoft.diskwarrior[9656]: DiskWarrior App: disk14s2: Read I/O error for block range 324755 to 324755
Jan 27 00:49:29 server [0x0-0xba4ba4].com.alsoft.diskwarrior[9656]: DiskWarrior App: Disk sector 324755 is bad. (JSC)
Jan 27 00:49:29 server [0x0-0xba4ba4].com.alsoft.diskwarrior[9656]: DiskWarrior App: disk14s2: Read I/O error for block range 324756 to 324756
Jan 27 00:49:29 server [0x0-0xba4ba4].com.alsoft.diskwarrior[9656]: DiskWarrior App: Disk sector
this does not bode well. i have no idea what has caused this disk to totally dump on me. almost feels like a virus -- it was such a sudden and complete meltdown with no precursor whatsoever. i am running dw on it in target mode but seems like i might have to frag it. crazy.
thanks for further thoughts if anyone has any.
Message was edited by: dtich

Similar Messages

Invalid Key Length - Volume Check Failed

This is an iMac/INTEL 2.16 w/10.4.11 and 1 GIG RAM
Full error msg while trying to repair disk with boot up DVD:
Invalid Key Length - Volume Check Failed
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
Is this repairable or are we due for a new computer for 90/91 year old heavy users?
If I buy DW, do I use it the same as the boot disk -- start from it and run the repair or do I have to install something?
I do have the Tech Tool disk from the AppleCare... never looked inside it.
I used to use Tech Tool a lot with my older Macs, but have never done so with X or X/INTEL
THANKS!

I suppose I will be backing up the files on a DVD or CD anyway, so I might as well try to reinstall first.
Then if that fails, new computer.
This computer was practically rebuilt after it underwent the recall for the burning problem. Now the screen is faded making it hard for 90 year old eyes to see.
It had bad ram too, and this is a new HD.
<sigh>
It's from 2007 right? Isn't that when 10.4 came out? I have set up so many since then I lost track... I'd say if it's more than 4 it needs to be replaced.

Invalid Key Length Volume check failure

I have a G4 with 768 Mb of Ram and originally ran as a dual boot system with OS9.2.2 and OSX 10.2. I attempted to upgrade to Tiger. The install kicked out twice. I then re-formatted the hard drive and installed again. I have tried running Disk First Aid, re-booting on Tiger CD, and it gives me an error message.
Invalid Key Length
Volume Check Failed
ERROR: The underlying task reported failure on exit.
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error.
HELP!!!
Tried booting on a Norton Utilities disk but it repeatedly also locked on an error.
Erased disk and attempted again, still no good.
Finally went back to OS10.2.8 and am up but with still the same error if I run Disk First Aid.

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Norton Utilities is not compatible with Mac OS X 10.2, and will actually cause these Invalid Keylength issues. They stopped supporting Mac OS X nearly two years ago, and even when they did it was Russian Roulette using their software.
Remove it.
The first utility software you should always use is a backup utility. Other utilities can supplement backups but should never be used instead of having a backup:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
If erasing your hard drive and not installing any third party software upgrading back to 10.2.8 and not having any third party devices connected yielded an invalid keylength, either your 10.2 installation disk is damaged, or is the wrong 10.2 installation disk to use, or the hard drive or its connectors are bad. Try to determine which it is by process of elimination.
Disclaimer: Reference to links I make to my Macmaps.com website are a for your information only type reference. I do not get any profit from this page, and it is open to the public.

Invalid key length? Continue lengthy disk repair or wipe drive and back up?

Does Disk Repair address an invalid key length? Or should I wipe the hard drive and restore from Time Machine? Are third party disk repair apps worth considering — and the time and money?

Use Disk Warrior if you cannot repair the drive with Disk Utility.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions - Lion
Boot from your Lion Recovery HD. When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. 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 main menu.
To boot from the Recovery HD restart the computer. After the chime hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

Sparseimage Fails Verification with Invalid Key Length error.

I recently have been having some trouble with my computer. Every time I log out of my account, all of my preferences reset. This just now started happening. It was working fine, then all of a sudden it started to do this. This only happens on my account and doesnt with the root account. On looking up solutions, I discovered that I should verify my home directory image. I logged in as a different user (root) and used disk utility to verify it. However it failed saying "invalid key length" and "Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit". When I try to repair it, it gives me the same error. I backed up my system using superduper to an external drive a while back and verified the sparseimage file that I backed up. It failed with the same error.
When I verify my harddrive it passes with no problem. Only my sparseimage file is corrupted. I would try diskwarrior but I cant afford it right now.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Macbook Mac OS X (10.4.9) 100gb hd; 1gb ram; Triple-Boot(OSX-Linux-Vista)

Would that mean that I can't turn off filevault? Way I see it is that since the image file is corrupted, I would try to have filevault unencrypt it and see if it somehow fixes it. (Since there will be no longer a filevaut image to be corrupted). All of my data in the image file seems to be fine. Everything is still there and I can access everything.
I was also thinking that I might be able to just copy everything in the image to my external, then deleting the account and create a new one, coping everything back over when im done.
I know I probably sound like a noob, but im really not. Ive had a lot of experience with my computer, just not this sorta thing. Thanks for your help.

Powerbook won't start - Disk Utility error "Invalid Key Length" - help plz!

Hello
I am having problem with my Titanium powerbook. Since it was refurbished I have only been using it for internet browsing and email and I don't know why it suddenly started freezing. After a couple of freezes it stopped starting up. I don't know why, as I wasn't doing anything unusual. I have run a few checks and don't know how to proceed. Please help.
This is what I have done so far:
1. Tried to start up in Safemode. Made the startup sound but then went dead.
2. I tried Single User Mode and did fsck -fy and the results were:
** /dev/rdisk0s10
** Root file system
** Checking HFS Plus volume
** Checking Extents Overflow file.
** Checking catalogue file
Invalid key length
(4, 135)
** volume check failed
localhost:/ root# Firewire (OHCI) Apple ID 18 built-in: no valid self IDs for more than 2 minutes after bus reset.
3. No problems were detected by the Hardware Test disk.
But the powerbook still won't start up properly. I can't get past the blue screen with the 'thinking' (rotating) circle icon (pinwheel?).
4. When I try to access the computer using a firewire cable the hard disk doesn't appear on the host computer.
5. I tried Disk repair Utility from startup using a disk but got the same result as with fsck -fy.
Any ideas?

Hi, Can't. Your hard drive's directory is damaged in a way that exceeds the limited repair capabilities of Disk Utility or fsck. DiskWarrior can fix "invalid key length" errors, as this short FAQ explains. If you have DiskWarrior, use it to make the repair. If you don't, you can either buy DW, or reformat the hard drive with Disk Utility and start over. Note that reformatting the drive will erase everything on it, so if there's any important, un-backed-up data on it that you can't afford to lose, buying DW will be the better option for you.
Message was edited by: eww

Invalid key length on hard drive. Can this be fixed?

Hello,
I have a question about an error I am receiving with a hard drive I have been using for a few months on an imac G3 (the slot loading version). I bought this used 80 GIG hard drive on ebay for a friend of mine and I helped him transfer all his data from his older 9 GIG drive to this newer 80 GIG drive that I bought for him on ebay. I simply cloned the 9 GIG drive onto the new drive using Carbon Copy Cloner. There is not a lot of data on the drive - only about 3 GIGs of data.
The drive is the only drive in the computer (an imac G3) and therefore it is the startup drive. The operating system on the drive is OS9. All was working fine for a few months until just last week. Now I am receiving this following error:
error message:
The disk "Macintosh HD" appears to be damaged. Use a disk repair utility to repair the disk.
And so I used the disk utility built into OS9 to see if I could repair the problem. (I think OS9's disk utility is called "Disk First Aid")
When using OS9s disk utility (I think it is called "Disk First Aid") the following report is issued:
Problem: Invalid key length, 4,943
Test done. Problems were found but Disk First Aid cannot repair them.
My questions are:
What is an "Invalid key length"?
How serious is this?
What would cause this?
Could this have been caused by the physical condition of the disk or possibly by the software on the disk?
Would re-formatting the drive fix it? (Of course I would try to save any data first onto another disk)
Or is it risky to continue to use this disk even after reformatting it?
I guess I have a lot of questions here and if anyone could make any suggestions or comment on why "Invalid key length" errors happen I would really appreciate it. Thanks:)
Here are some details:
When I bought the 80 GIG hard drive from ebay the first steps I took were to format the drive using OS9's "drive setup", load the OS9 drivers and then I verifed the disk. The disk seemed to be fine. Then I cloned his old drive onto this 80 GIG drive using Corbon Copy Cloner. I was sure the 80 GIG drive was in a healthy state at that time and I trusted it enough to give it to my friend for his startup drive. Now that the drive has failed with his data and programs, I feel pretty bad. How could this "Invalid key length" error occur?
Should I go back to the person who sold me the drive on ebay and ask for a refund? Or are "Invalid key length" errors a common occurance with hard drives that should just be accepted? Or might it possibly be the contents (data) on my friend's disk that caused this error.
It has been suggested to me to use "Tech Tools Pro" or "Disk Warrior" to repair the disk. Hopefully that might repair the disk. Unfortunately these programs are too expensive for this purpose because they would cost more than the computer actually costs (its an old imac G3 computer). I found a service that would run Disk Warrior on the disk to repair it for a $50 fee. Still, that is also not worth it as the computer may not even be worth $50.
Here are some specifications:
80 GIG drive specs: SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.7 80GB hard drive
computer: imac G3 (slot loading version)
OS: Mac OS9
Thank you for any suggestions especially as to whether I should attempt to return the hard drive or look for a refund for this hard drive or attempt to reformat the drive and try again (backing up the data first).
I also question the source of all the data on my friends computer. If he had the original operating system disks (which he said didn't come with his computer when he purchased it second-hand), I could have easily re-installed the OS and the applications. But he doesn't have any disks. That serves me right for having to deal with trying to help out someone who has software from a questionable source. I'm never doing that again. I guess that makes me guilty too as an accomplice. I don't feel very good about this
I didn't know for sure - but I guess I should have assumed his software was illegal if he didn't have the disks - I was afraid to ask. I'm never putting myself in this possibly illegal situation again. Never again will I try to help someone out who doesn't clearly have the legal disks. Please forgive me and everyone else who reads this post. I feel shameful about this but somehow I must get myself out of this problem. I've learned a good lesson. Should I attempt to fix his computer? Or should I tell him to first buy a legal OS and software before I can help him out? You see I feel further guilt because I was the one who gave him the 80 GIG problematic hard drive that failed and I feel I should have to fix it. Can anyone offer me a bit of advice? What do I do?
What's the right thing to do?

Thank you Jim and Apple2Freak,
I appreciate your comments. I am now suggesting to my friend to buy a legal OS and if that is the case I am suggesting to him to move to OSX instead of OS9. Luckily he let me know there wasn't much data on that drive that he needed to save. I am still trying to determine if I could still use this hard drive with the keylength errors if I erase it or if the hard drive has permanent damage. I am hoping that I could install OSX on it and erase the hard drive to start again.
This imac (slot loading version) can support up to OS 10.3.9 however I might consider Xpostfacto to try to run 10.4. But then I would need to buy 10.3.9 as well as 10.4 and that would double my OS cost. I think I might just look for OS 10.3.9 only. Its not worth it for me to buy two OSes for it.
Jim, your post was very interesting because it also pointed out that it could be an issue of bad RAM. A few months ago we installed some new second-hand RAM and I wonder if that is the cause of all these problems. I will have to check that first.
Thanks again!

Invalid key length - options

A couple months ago I had issues installing Lion on my MBP. Upon installing, I was not able to mount the hard drive because of multiple errors. Disk repair eventually worked, I used my Time Machine backup to restore, and got Lion installed. After the installation, I went to make another TM backup and my external hard drive was corrupted to the point where I had to wipe everything on it - not sure what happened with it. Because I had so much trouble getting Lion installed, I didn't mess with creating a new TM backup and wanted to wait until I wasn't so busy at work to attempt it. I did however create a bootable Lion USB drive for emergencies.
Long story short, the MBP froze the other day and would not boot properly. Clearing the PRAM/VRAM did not help, and when I try disk utility with the bootable USB drive, it is able to verify the drive itself, but unable to mount the startup volume. When I try to verify that volume, it stops and says to repair it. When I try to repair it, it stops and tells me the volume cannot be repaired and I need to back up my files.
However, when I go into single user mode (running fsck gives me an invalid key length error), I can see the file structure of the drive, and all of my files in read only mode. My questions is, are those files recoverable? If so, how?
Many thanks for an thoughts

You have a failing internal hard drive, or some other hardware fault in the mass-storage subsystem. You must replace the drive, or otherwise determine the cause of the fault, immediately. But first you need to back up your data, if it's still possible.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to fully boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
1. Boot from your recovery partition (10.7 or later), a local Time Machine backup volume (10.7.2 or later), or your installation disc (10.6.8 or earlier.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in the support article linked below, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
How to back up and restore your files
2. If you have a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode by holding down the key combination command-T at the startup chime. Connect the two Macs with a FireWire cable. The internal drive of the machine running in target mode will mount as an external drive on the other machine. Copy the data to another drive.
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode
3. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

Invalid Key Length error after 10.4.3 install/10.4.4 update

After installing Mac OS X, version 10.4.3 from CD, and upgrading to version 10.4.4 via Software Update, ran Disk Utility, verify disk, from DU on startup disk and got following message: "...Invalid key length...The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired. Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit...1 HFS volume checked...Volume needs repair." Tried rebooting from 10.4.3 install CD and running Disk Utility, First Aid, from CD to repair startup disk. After trying 3 times, First Aid halted and could not repair problem. Purchased Disk Warrior 3.0.3 CD, booted from DW CD, and DW also could not "rebuild" startup disk. Have purchased Drive Genius 1.2 CD from Prosoft to try to repair startup disk. If that fails, is only recourse to backup software on startup disk to external hard drive, and do erase and re-install of 10.4.3/10.4.4 software to cure problem? Please provide help!
iMac G-4,800Mhz,512M Ram,60G HD Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Dear Andrew Penner, Thanks for reply. I will try re-install of 10.4.4 using the long version in Apple downloads rather than the abbreviated, tailored 10.4.4 version obtained thru Software Update. The suggestion to check Library/Receipts is useful. Since Mac OS 10.4 has been out nearly a year, I know someone must have experienced a similar error message by now (i.e. "Invalid key length") when running Disk Utility with new versions of 10.4. If only recourse is to "reinstall" the software, one wonders what is causing the "corruption" in the data in the first place. Puzzling. Will post result after reinstall and retest. I noticed the version of Disk Utility on my 10.4.3 Install CD is 10.5 whereas the version of DU on my hard drive after the 10.4.4 update is 10.5.3. Is that a problem? JaxJT
iMac G-4,800Mhz,512M Ram,60G HD Mac OS X (10.4.4)

"Invalid Key Length"

Attempting to upgrade an iBook with 10.4.6 from 10.3.9 and getting an "Invalid Key Length" error during disk repair using Disk Utility.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1042084
Is there another way to get beyond this without erasing the HD?

Yes, but you'll need DiskWarrior to fix the directory problem, since DU can't do it. Hopefully, you have a bootable backup/clone. If so, that allows you to revert to the previous good state without having to reinstall everything. Barring that, you'll have to erase the HD.
Review these
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106941
http://www.macmaps.com/upgradefaq.html
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/installswupdates.html
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/backuprecovery.html
and adopt the necessary habits to mitigate what happened to you.

Error-Invalid key length?

My G5 osx 10.4.3 keeps crashing, Cd's don't showup.
I've run various utilities on it, nothing fixes it.
When running disk utility it gives message-
Invalid key length and says volume can't be repaired.
Also tried Techtool deluxe and disk warrior.
Any ideas?
Ty

I don't see much hope knowing you tried the usual utilities. I trust you tried all the repair procedure while booted from a CD...
If you haven't done so already, backup as much as you can on an external HD (I would even try a clone)
Erase and zero your HD. Reinstall Tiger and retrieve as much as you can from the external HD.
By the way, if you don't yet have an external HD, now is the time to get one that is at least as large as your internal HD. Compared to the time lost and the anguish experienced they are cheap...
Backup regularly...

Invalid key length one partition backup drive?

One of several backup drives for my MBP is a 1 year old 2.5" 1Tb external with 3 partitions. It has functioned with no issues, backing up two laptops while traveling (superduper clones, periodic Diskwarrior scans with no errors, a few defragmentations with Drive Genius). About half each partition is empty. After a backup of the MBP, DG 3 indicated the fragmentation stats on the adjacent partition were unavailable. DW4.2 ran very slowly and suggested a hardware problem (100 recovered files, etc.). Screening the drive with Disk Utility the other two partitions passed and the damaged one reported an 'invalid key length'. Rebooting and rerunning DU gave 'invalid node structure'.
I have other recent clones, so reformatting the partition, followed by another clone, is just a matter of time. The question is how best to assess if there is a hardware issue that makes regenerating the content on this drive a waste of time. An ancient option would be to excavate a DOS copy of Spinrite and run it on the drive, but that could take a couple of days. Are there better options?
Thanks for any info,

From all of the random errors you are getting, it's probably safe to say that there's either a hardware malfunction with the external drive or the directory structure of the drive is corrupt. To fix the latter, you will have to format the drive back to one partition, then repartition the drive and migrate the data back over. If it acts wonky after that, then the drive is failing.
As far as getting the data off goes...I would use Terminal. It's in the utilities folder of your Mac. It's very powerful, but if you don't type the following command wrong, then you'll do no harm.
First off, make a new folder on the desktop of your Mac and name it what ever you would like. Then open terminal and wait for the prompt to appear. It will look like -> "Computer-name:~ username$ " when it's ready for action. Then, type: "rsync -vr" then hit the space-bar then drag the icon of the failing partition of the drive into the Terminal window and lastly, drag the folder you created on the desktop into the window and hit enter (Note: after you type "rsync -vr" then hit space, you don't need to type anything else). After that it will slowly try to migrate each file individually from the drive and onto your Mac and at the end it will tell you if it didn't get any files. It will take a while so be prepared to not use your Mac for the duration of the rsync.
Hope that helps!

Invalid Key Length - Tiger 10.4.5

Just yesterday this problem started....Iog in & try to open Safari (for example) and the desktop (not the mouse) freeze & I get the beach ball mouse.
Waited for a long time, but no unfreezing without restarting. I did run disk utility & they gave me the "Invalid Key Length, unreparable" message. From what I can tell, Disk Warrior can fix this?
Any help appreciated.
Thanks,
Sarah

In the interim, I'd update your
backup of important data and if you don't currently
maintain a backup, now is a good time to start since
it isn't a matter of if but when your hard drive has
a partial or complete failure since none last
forever.
I can't emphasize enough how important this is, and not just backing up but cloning your hard drive so you have a start up volume. That way, no matter how bad things get you can always go back to a point where your system was functioning well.
When I did the recent upgrade to 10.4.5 I started having several problems. Rather than mess around trying figure out what was wrong I simply booted from my clone and restored my system to when all was well. Then redid the update and it worked perfectly that time.
As Allan said ALL hard drives will fail, just a matter of when.

Invalid key length - basic question

Hi
I've had recurring problems with my imac where disk utility is unable to repair the HD due to invalid key length, and one or two other problems. I've erased and installed about 4 times now, zeroing the drive twice. The last time was 2 weeks ago, everything was fine and hunky dory, until today when same problem and disk utility couldn't repair permissions either. I ran disk utility thurs/fri and everything was fine.
So, basic question - is my hard drive dead/dying, and is it best to get it replaced?
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers.

Hi
I've ran disk utility over the external hard drive and it came back fine. I've dragged and dropped a couple of apps, which worked alright and ran disk utility off start up disk after and everything was alright.
No applications crash at all before it hangs. what has happened the past couple of times is that all is working fine and the computer is shut down. then on the next reboot it takes ages to boot up, and then the spinning beach ball of doom whirls around when you try to open any application from finder to firefox.
I've taken it back to the store where I got it, and they're going to check it out over the next couple of weeks, but they think it may be the hard drive too. I'm holding out for a replacement machine as I've had a few problems in general since I got it, and I bought it as a customer return.
Thanks for the help, and I'll post again when I find out what happens. Any further thoughts are always welcome:)

Invalid Key Length - Tiger 10.4.5 - eMac

Just yesterday this problem started....Iog in & try to open Safari (for example) and the desktop (not the mouse) freeze & I get the beach ball mouse.
Waited for a long time, but no unfreezing without restarting. I did run disk utility & they gave me the "Invalid Key Length, unreparable" message. From what I can tell, Disk Warrior can fix this?
Any help appreciated.
Thanks,
Sarah

Hello! Yes most likely Disk Warrior can resolve the invalid key issue. It's possible that it can't however it's your best shot and it's a good investment to keep OSX directories in good shape. Anytime you have to do a force shut down or restart the hard disks directories usually get corrupted.Tom

Invalid key length, disk repair fails

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for