'Invalid Volume Header' - Repair - is drive safe?

Hi there.
Failure to mount external firewire 1TB Maxtor
error was 'Invalid Volume Header"
Data Rescue II recovered files to another drive.
Diskwarrior COULD create another Directory, but could NOT exchange it for the faulty one ?!
I ended up using Disk Utility to Reformat the Drive.
Question is, can I trust this drive or do I need to ditch it?...

Simple answer: No drive is safe.
An error like the one you saw doesn't necessarily have to be indicative of a failing drive and could have been the result of some other system error, a power fluctuation, whatever. Still, if your data is that valuable you should have it all backed up on a second drive too. You can never trust any drive 100% as they can fail at any time. This isn't just referring to mechanical failure but a recurrence of the kind of thing you just saw.

Similar Messages

Invalid Volume Header

Hi everyone, I have a Power G4 running Tiger and is unable to boot.
These are the messages I'm getting while running Disk Utility on the Installation Disk.
Unable to boot
Invalid Volume header
Invalid sibling link
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit.
1 HFS Volume checked
Volume needs repair
I ran it 4 or 5 times with the same resolt.
The next step was to boot in single user mode
and rand fsck -y and also fsck -fy and got
the same result as above Invalid volume header.."
In single user mode I'm able to see all files and directories but they are in read-only mode.
Nothing can be deleted in read-only mode we only
can see whats out there.
Did a df -k
root device / is 92%
devfs is 100% of is capacity 0 available
fdesc is 100% of it capacity 0 available
Need help, waited over an hour for apple support,
they were very busy.
Is there anything that can be done before
we go to the last resort "format and re-install"
Thanks in advance.
Stablerock.
Power G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Hi, Stablerock.
See the "Disk Utility cannot repair the disk" section of my "Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption" FAQ.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Hard drive error: Invalid Volume Header @ 0: I/O error

The hard drive I was using in my 2010 MacBook Pro suddenly stopped working. There wasn't any early warnings like clicking or other weird sounds coming from the hard drive, it just suddenly stopped working.
I was using my MacBook Pro normally, when it happened. I was listening to music, then the music stream stopped and it couldn't play any files. Then the spinning beach ball came in and slowly everything else stopped working. Eventually the whole system froze. I waited for about 10 minutes, but it still didn't respond and I forced my MacBook Pro to shutdown. Then I tried to boot it up again, but nothing happened for several minutes, it just showed a grey blank screen. Then, after several minutes, a flashing folder with a question mark appeared on the screen. I googled what that means and I know that the Mac isn't able to find the drive to boot. I tried OS X Recovery, which used to work perfectly, but now it went straight to Internet Recovery, and I figured that the Mac wasn't even able to find the Recovery disk, indicating that something is really wrong. I tried Internet Recovery and it worked, and I was able to use tools like Disk Utility from it. Disk Utility didn't even recognize my drive at that time.
Then I decided to take the hard drive out of my 2010 MacBook Pro, put it in an empty external hard drive case and connect it in my other Mac. Finder didn't recognize this drive but Disk Utility did recognize it, but it didn't recognize any partitions. I ran "repair disk" and then it gave me the errors in the screenshot.
The hard drive in question is a 1Tb Western Digital drive and it was about 1.5 years old.
So my question is that has anyone got a solution for my problem or is my hard drive officially dead?

And if I click "Repair Disk" again, Disk Utility gives the following error: "Error: Some information was unavailable during an internal lookup."

Volume needs repair message for second hard drive

I am getting the following message on my second hard drive (This hard drive just has data. OS is on the main HD)
Verifying volume “Mac Second HD”
Invalid Volume Header
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Invalid number of allocation blocks
The volume needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
Any advice on what to do? Can I save my data?
G4 Silverline Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Hi Ketan,
Welcome to the Discussions.
If Disk Utility can't repair it try DiskWarrior. It can repair most drive directory problems.
John

Invalid file header - pink noise on audio recording

Hi I sometimes get pink noise on a recorded audio region.. when i reload the song Logic alerts me: invalid file header repair? it fixes it, but it *****

LpGroove,
Take a look at the Movie Creation Guide (in your product and also at: http://www.soundblaster.com/products...ationGuide.pdf) chapter 7, and page 7-6 in particular. Make sure your audio source is connected to the correct audio inputs (near the video inputs) and the Creative Mixer settings are correct.
-Chris

Volume needs repair..Invalid volume Free block count..

When I did a scan on the HD through Disk Utilty I got this error..."Volume needs repair...Invalid volume Free block count,,,Should be 65607....instead od 65606."
Is there any application that I can get to fix that error..so that I don't have to Reinstall with the start up disks.. I don't feel like reinstalling everything all over again. Please help or if you can direct me to the area so that I can change the numbers myself...Thank you

Hi Nvrdan1de, and a warm welcome to the forums!
You cannot repair the HD you're booted from, "Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Tiger Mac OS X Install disc , then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, *you must select your language first.)*
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
Then Safe Boot , (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it finishes.
Safe Boot... holding Shift key down at bootup. Safe Boot is a special way to start Mac OS X 10.2 or later when troubleshooting.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107392
Though this seems like a simple one for DU to fix, unfortunately DU can't fix all that much,So, if it fails your best bet is DiskWarrior, you need the CD though.
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

Recurring invalid volume file count (I repair, it comes back)

On my desktop system (10.6.8), every once in a while Disk Utility says there is an invalid volume file count (off by 2) and an invalid volume directory count (also off by 2). I boot off the DVD, use Disk Utility to repair the file system, and a couple of weeks later, it recurs. Any way to figure out what's causing this and put an end to it?

A Cortez wrote:
I generally don't post here unless a problems has become a REAL problem. I upgraded a few months back to MacOS10.6.8 and have experienced some pretty strange behavior. It starts with horizontal lines across the screen and these can appear for several hours and then hang or within 10-15 minutes of starting up. The obvious check for me is to run disk utility because it looks to me like something is getting overwritten - virtual memory maybe. When I run disk verify I get:
Performing live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Invalid volume file count
(It should be 759557 instead of 759584)
Invalid volume directory count
(It should be 157930 instead of 157903)
I then have to repair the disk by starting up from original install disks...
I'm getting the horizontal lines right now and I just ran disk repair!
I can't run/find/access Apple Hardware test - seems to have disappeared from this release!
Any ideas as to how to fix/stop it from happening. It seems to be happening daily, today it has happened at least 3 times....
making me nuts!
Appears you have directory damage & need a stronger 3rd party utility to fix. You should not use your computer until the damage has been repaired to avoid damaging your directory any further.
Utilities are best run from the CDs to avoid system interference & false readings/reports. You must use the versions that are compatible w/your OS system & keep the utilities updated to avoid damaging/harming/trashing your system.
You need to make your own decision on which to purchase. Read up on them on their websites because each do something a little different.
DiskWarrior (Highly Recommended for Directory Damage Repair)
Techtool Pro
Drive Genius
================
Check out:
Apple Hardware Test

Volume needs repair AND hard drive problem...

OK so I have an Intel Based iMac and its about 1 year old. Randomly I got a message saying that the hard drive disc space is almost full, which makes NO sense. I have a 250 hard drive and I use it mainly for video editing. Before I got this message, I had about 100 GB left on my hard drive. I have NO CLUE where 100 GB went to, and i know it was not from video. Also I went to the disk utility and it said "Volume needs repair" and it gave me an "The underlying task reported failure,". Im not sure what to do and I'm hoping you guys will.....if this has been asked before, I apologize.

Yes, you can delete it, but it indicates a bigger concern namely your maintenance scripts aren't running regularly to clean up the logs or you have a problem in the system or an application that is writing huge amounts of information constantly into the log file. You should check the log using the Console application (Utilities folder) and examine its content to see if this is the case.
You should also read the following for information on installing utilities that can assure the maintenance scripts are run as well as other information on system maintenance that can help keep your computer running better.
Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utilities are: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.0 is now Intel Mac compatible. TechTool Pro provides additional repair options including file repair and recovery, system diagnostics, and disk defragmentation. TechTool Pro 4.6.1 is Leopard compatible; Drive Genius is similar to TechTool Pro in terms of the various repair services provided. The current version, 1.5.1, is Intel Mac compatible.
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep.
OS X automatically defrags files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems.
I would also recommend downloading the shareware utility TinkerTool System that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old logfiles and archives, clearing caches, etc.
For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the commandline. Note that presently AppleJack is not compatible with Leopard.
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Get an external Firewire 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):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. PsynchX 2.1.1 and RsyncX 2.1 (Freeware)
6. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware - 3.0 is a Universal Binary)
7. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
8. Data Backup (Commercial)
The following utilities can also be used for backup, but cannot create bootable clones:
1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
2. Toast
3. Impression
4. arRSync
Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of also backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility as are the other two.
Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.
Referenced software can be found at www.versiontracker.com and www.macupdate.com.

Repairing Volume Header - DiskWarrior or DiskUtility?

DiskWarrior or Disk Utility?
I am about to embark on repairing the Volume Header after I got the message of Volume Header needs minor repair on a verification check using Disk Utility.
Question is should I use Disk Utility at first attempt to repair, or should I just go ahead and purchase DiskWarrior or some product like that? Am I taking a RISK by using Disk Utility at first attempt?
Regards,
Max
Power MAC G5 Dual 2.0, 30" ACD, RADEON X8000XT card Mac OS X (10.4.4) I also have a IMAC G5

Hello Max.
Am I taking a RISK by using Disk Utility at first attempt?
No and what makes you think so?
I've been using Macs for a very long time. I installed OS X when first introduced and I've never had any reason to purchase or use DW - knock on wood. I've always used nothing but Disk First Aid repair to check the hard drive for directory problems before installing a major OS update such as 10.4.8, etc. and I always use Repair Disk and not Verify Disk when checking the hard drive.
If there is a hard drive directory problem that DFA repair cannot successfully repair after running it several times, the problem is significant and will require a more substantial disk repair utility such as DW. Although DW has been known to work miracles when others have failed, there is no guarantee with DW which is why maintaining a regular backup is so important.
Check this link for system troubleshooting procedures regarding the use of DFA repair.
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/repairprocess.html

Mac Disk util did repair my volume header error but why....

I was wondering what might have caused the Volume header error that I just had to repair? Macheine was never downed... good power.. I am perplexed.

If it happens once in a while, then it's most likely something "glitched" in the memory. Even good memory can have a bad nanosecond occasionally.
If it starts happening fairly often then it's usually either bad memory or bad blocks on the hard drive.
There are third party memory tests and hard drive tests you can purchase or download that will check these things out. What I usually recommend as a starting point for memory tests, though, is the Apple Hardware Test (AHT) that came with your computer.
For your Mac Pro, I believe it is on the first install disk, Here's how you would run it:
1. Insert install disk 1 into the computer and then shut down the computer.
2. Once the computer is shut down, start it up and immediately press and hold down the D key. Don't let go until you see the AHT logo.
3. Eventually you'll get to a screen with a Test button. Before clicking it put a check mark beside Run Extended Test. This could take quite awhile, especially if you have lots of RAM (the memory test takes the longest). And expect the screen to go all sorts of colors and stuff when it tests the video RAM.
4. If there are error messages then write them down and call Applecare because it's guaranteed they'll say it needs a repair of some sort.
If there are no error messages it's not a guarantee there's no hardware problem. If it's an intermittent memory issue, the AHT may not catch it. In that case I recommend running it overnight in "looping mode". This will run the tests over and over and over until you stop it (using Ctrl-C I think) or until it comes up with an error message. To turn on looping mode follow the instructions above but before you click the Test button press Command-L.
Once again, if there are error messages call Applecare.
For the hard drive, one thing you can do if you suspect bad blocks (and this is a pain) is to back up all your data and then zero out your hard drive and then reinstall OS X. This will erase everything on the hard drive which is why you want to back up your data first.
Essentially what that does is writes zeros across the whole hard drive. If it finds a bad block then it marks it as bad and the computer won't store data in that block anymore. A few bad blocks isn't going to take up much space. Blocks are usually measured in KB so it takes a lot to equal even a GB.
For the hard drive, it's usually best to find software that can scan and test the blocks without erasing anything, though.

Cannot Repair Volume Header! Help!

I attempted to install Window XP for the 2nd time, after the removal of my last partion. But this time around on Boot Camp, I got a message telling me to do a repair for the Disk. And so I did.....
After a couple of search around, I boot up my Install CD and did a Disk Repair, but it shows that there was no problem. When I boot up my iMac regularly I opened Disk Utility and Verify the disk. I received a "Volume Header needs Minor Repair".
Help!

Are you booting from your Leopard DVD or an Intel Tiger DVD? You will need to boot from your Leopard DVD to repair the drive.

Hard Drive Volume Needs Repair...........Please Help

My Power/PC G4 with dual 1.25g processors with OS 10.4.11, is running very slow. I get the spinning beach ball whenever it tries to load anything from disk. I used disk utility to verify the hard drive. I got the following message;
Volume Header needs minor repair
The Volume needs to be repaired
1HFS Volume Checked
Volume needs repair.
I followed the instructions in Disk Utility to start my computer from my OS 10 install disk. The Disk Utility instructions gave the following instructions;
1. Insert OS 10 Disk
2. Hold down option key and start computer
3. Select Install and click arrow
4. Open Disk Utility
5. click install
6. open disk utility and click to repair
I followed the above but once I did step 3, I was on my way to do a new install.
Followed everything asked for on the screen, the next click was to start install.
Never once anywhere did I have the option for #4 above (open disk utility). I dont know what I am doing, just following directions. I aborted the operation as I did not want to clobber my installed 10.4.11.
Please tell me what I did wrong or how to get Disk Utility running from my OS10
install disk so I can run disk utility repair.
Thanks
Paul

Click here and follow the instructions. If there's no Disk Utility option in the Installer menu, use fsck.
(53195)

Invalid volume directory count/unable to repair

My computer (iMac G5, OS 10.5.5) has been running slowly. When I run Disk Utility, I get an "invalid volume file count" and "invalid volume directory count" message, and an error message that the volume HD needs to be repaired. I can run Verify Disk Permissions, Repair Disk Permissions, and Verify Disk, but the Repair Disk button isn't available. Therefore, I followed instructions to start up from the install disk, then go to Disk Utility, all with the same outcome. In other words, I'm stuck, with Repair Disk never being available. What can I do? Many thanks for any helpful suggestions!

Disk Warrior fixes this.

Repair Permissions - Drive or Volume?

Promise not to laugh, OK?
When one occasionally performs Repair Permissions, should you perform it on the drive, or the volume?
Is anything possibly "missed" by performing it on the volume only? Or vice versa?

That's normal. The partition map takes up some of the space on the drive, so a single volume that fills the drive will never be as large as the drive itself. Similarly, a volume has all kinds of data structures for keeping track of files, so it will never have as much free space as the size of the volume's partition.
Note that repairing permissions only repairs the permissions of system files and applications with known permissions. All that extra stuff is completely irrelevant. If you need to repair the disk structures, you need to use Repair Disk instead of Repair Permissions.

Volume Header needs minor repair

The last two days, when I start my laptop, it hangs with the message to reststart, so I do. THen I get a message to look at the logs and I can't. My system was also running slow so I thought it might be a good idea to run utilities. I did. Utility program stopped with this message and I can't pick repair disk:
Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Volume Header needs minor repair
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
Disk Utility stopped verifying “Macintosh HD” because the following error was encountered:
The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
Help! Any ideas?
Thanks
Amy

Hi Amy;
The only way you can repair the system disk is if you booted from another disk or CD. The easiest way to do this is to boot from the install media that came with your Mac and run Disk Utility from there.
Allan

'Invalid Volume Header' - Repair - is drive safe?

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