My mac keeps freezing, the disk utility states the hardrive is failing
Hi. My desktop was upgraded to the snow leopard and has had increasing problems with freezing. Now it wont start up at all, so I have to open it with the Disk 1 OS.. then I went to the disk utility to try and repair it. But it says the hard drive is failing. When I did the hard drive test, it passed without any issues. I am confused and cannot restart my computer.
If by the "hard drive test" you mean the Apple Hardware Test (AHT) that you run by starting up the Mac into it, it is possible (but not very likely) that reformatting the HD using Disk Utility while booted from the installer DVD & then reinstalling the OS from the same source will set things right.
To do the reformat, select the entire HD & use the "Partition" tab to choose a new, single partition scheme from the popup.
But if you cannot even get that far, or the process fails, then your drive is dying, even if AHT can't detect it.
Similar Messages
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My Mac can't find the volume " Data" on Time Capsule, Also I can't find with the disk-utility program the hard disk in the Time Capusule.
So I can't format the disk in the Time Capsule
Deconnevt and then connecting the power tp the Time Capsule gives also no solution.
What can I do?
JoeI listed the commands.. that is how you manually mount the disk.. follow exactly the commands I gave you.
In finder use top menu, go, connect to server.
Type in the following.
AFP://TCname or AFP://TCIpaddress (obviously you replace with the actual name or the actual IP address).
If that fails..
try
SMB://TCname
Here is the screenshot.
tardis4 being the name of my TC.
It should then ask you for your credentials.
And it should remember them in the keychain and be able to then get TM to connect. -
Anyone clean their mac using the disk utility using the repair disk permissions??
anyone clean their mac using the disk utility using the repair disk permissions??
No. Threads don't hurt anything. If your computer is not functioning properly perhaps you need to try some basic maintenance. Let's start by having you do this:
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.
Next, try booting into Safe Mode then immediately restart normally. Safe mode is going to take a while so be patient. It's slow.
Next, create a new user account. Log out of your account then log into the new account. Try using iPhoto and the publishing button. Do they work now?
If you still have a problem, then do the following. If you don't want to go through the above then just start with the following and forget the others above.
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. -
To expand on the question, I have performed the following steps:
1 - Unplugged external drive (1TB WD MyBook) from the Time Capsule
2 - Reconnected it. At this point, AirPort utility for iOS5 reported a problem with the disk (Time Capsule light was blinking Orange)
3 - Unplugged external drive, connected it to MacBook Pro, ran Disk Utility. It found no problems (disk visible straight away on the MacBook Pro).
4 - Reconnected to Time Capsule - still doesn't show up under the "Disks" option under Air Port utility. Or rather, the hardware is visible (i.e the physical disk) but not the volume.
5 - I tried another external hard drive, and the volume also doesn't appear in the Disk section under the AirPort utility.
The WD disk is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
This is a big problem for me, as the drive houses my iTunes library.
Anyone else had a similar problem? It all worked flawlessly until last week.I love computers.
Have managed to fix this already. Been working the issue for a few days now, and a few minutes after writing the above post I decided to reset the Time Capsule to factory default settings.
After entering all my details again (used same network names, passwords etc) the Time Capsule was rebooted. When it came back on line - guess what? Yep, the MyBook WD drive is now visibile. I can connect via the network from my other machines to the drive, and iTunes is back.
So - thought I would post my resolution in case it helps others. -
I am trying to upgrad the hard drive in my mac book pro using the disk utility in an attempt to clone my old hard drive. I can only get so far throughj the process where its about to start cloing when I get a message " error 254". Any idea what that means and how do I get around this issue so I can use my new hard drive? Thanks for your input.
VinceConnect the HDD to your MBP. Open Disk Utility>Erase and drag the HDD icon inrt the Name field. The format should be Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Click on the Erase button.
Then try the clone process again. You may use Disk Utility>Restore or a third party cloning application such as Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper.
Ciao. -
When I reboot my mac it automatically launches disk utilities. i have run the utility. all clear. but each time i reboot i get the disk utility. how do i override so i can have my hard drive back?
What OSX version is it?
Does holding alt key at bootup show any boot choices?
Does holding Shift key at bootup to boot in Safe mode do the same thing? -
My laptop was running slow while in the regular mode, but in safe mode it would work fine. I deleted all of the content through the disk utility. Once I would go back to the recovery mode prompt and click on install os I go to the next page and get a prompt that says mac os x 10.7 is not available. There also is no picture to the left of the OS system like most people have on their recovery mode screen on the install option. Please help!
Thanks!cernstes wrote:
I was planning on buying one of those lens cleaners discs here soon and then see what happens.
That might do. There is the 'poor man's' alternative. Take a fine microfiber cloth (eyeglasses cleaning cloth) and wrap it around a business card. Insert it gently into the slot. Some times it works. Do not dismiss the possibility that the DVD drive is kaput.
I did purchase this laptop from my brother a couple years ago. He told me the first operating system that was on the laptop was OS X 10.6. He gave me the disc to install,
According to the information that I have, a Mid 2009 MBP came with Leopard (10.5). You will have to install Leopard (if you have the original disk) or purchase from the online store a Snow Leopard (10.6.3) retail disk.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard
This disk is a requisite in order to install and run Lion (10.7) or any other newer OSX. You have to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 before downloading and installing Lion.
Ciao. -
my mac keeps freezing when i try and print anything from preview. any ideas as to what the issue is or how to fix it?
Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a test, not a solution. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
Step 1
The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is localized to your user account.
Enable guest logins and log in as Guest. For instructions, launch the System Preferences application, select Help from the menu bar, and enter “Set up a guest account” (without the quotes) in the search box.
While logged in as Guest, you won’t have access to any of your personal files or settings. Applications will behave as if you were running them for the first time. Don’t be alarmed by this; it’s normal. If you need any passwords or other personal data in order to complete the test, memorize, print, or write them down before you begin.
Test while logged in as Guest. Same problem(s)?
After testing, log out of the guest account and, in your own account, disable it if you wish. Any files you created in the guest account will be deleted automatically when you log out of it.
Note: If you’ve activated “Find My Mac” or FileVault in Mac OS X 10.7 or later, then you can’t enable the Guest account. Create a new account in which to test, and delete it, including its home folder, after testing.
Step 2
The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Note: If FileVault is enabled under Mac OS X 10.7 or later, you can’t boot in safe mode.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem(s)?
After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of steps 1 and 2. -
I lost the hd recovery in my mac. I already erased and the hardrve using the disk utility but then if i try to install the os x using os x utility it sees that could not find installation information for this machine .. Plz help
Recovery Partition – Recreate Without Reinstalling
Recovery Partition – Recreate Without Reinstalling (Requires Installer) -
Please help me to figure out how to clean up my HD. When I run the disk utility I get the following view:
As you can se 467.79 GB are in the "Other" section, but I cannot find a way to get to that and clean it up, please anyone out there How can I clean that up?First, empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB free for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. Use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. Proceed further only if the problem hasn't been solved. ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To really see everything, you have to run it as root. Back up all data now if you haven't already done so. No matter what happens, you should be able to restore your system to the state it was in at the time of that backup. Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways: ☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.) ☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens. ☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens. After installing ODS in the Applications folder, drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. When you're done with it, quit it and also quit Terminal. -
I tried partitioning my HD to install linux, the installion was not successful and now I can't boot my mac, I tried internet recovery, it was not helpfull as the disk utility cannot delete the partition I created. It was only showing me an error message "EFI files are missing", I realized that it is trying to boot from the new partition I created for the installation of the linux I intended to do.
It sounds like you may have multiple problems, but none of them are likely to be caused by malware.
First, the internet-related issues may be related to adware or a network compromise. I tend to lean more towards the latter, based on your description of the problem. See:
http://www.adwaremedic.com/kb/baddns.php
http://www.adwaremedic.com/kb/hackedrouter.php
If investigation shows that this is not a network-specific issue, then it's probably adware. See my Adware Removal Guide for help finding and removing it. Note that you mention AdBlock as if it should have prevented this, but it's important to understand that ad blockers do not protect you against adware in any way. Neither would any kind of anti-virus software, which often doesn't detect adware.
As for the other issues, it sounds like you've got some serious corruption. I would be inclined to say it sounds like a failing drive, except it sounds like you just got it replaced. How did you get all your files back after the new drive was installed?
(Fair disclosure: I may receive compensation from links to my sites, TheSafeMac.com and AdwareMedic.com, in the form of buttons allowing for donations. Donations are not required to use my site or software.) -
How can I re-install Snow leopard having installed Lion? The disk supplied states that I cannot use the version of 'Install Mac OS X'...HELP!
None of the instructions usually given for downgrading seems to mention the fact that you will lose some data in built-in applications, including at least Mail. When you installed Lion, your Mail database was converted from the format used by Snow Leopard's Mail to that used by Lion's Mail. There is no way to reverse that conversion. Therefore, you will lose your entire Mail database. If your messages are all stored on a remote server, that may not be an insurmountable problem, but otherwise you'll have to restore from the last backup you made before the upgrade, and then you'll still lose all changes to the database made since that time.
Another fact not often mentioned is that downgrading is usually the worst possible solution to a problem with Lion. But that's the answer to a question you didn't ask. -
My mac keeps freezing...How can I uninstall lion?
My mac keeps freezing on me, particularly when Im on safari. The most annoying part is that it happens three or four times in a matter of an hour, and then Im prompted to submit a report that feels like a joke considering that we have yet to see an update for lion solving this issue, and the problem persists. How can I uninstall lion and get macs previous iOS back?
Downgrade Lion to Snow Leopard
1. 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.
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. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.
This will erase the whole drive so be sure to backup your files if you don't have a backup already. If you have performed a TM backup using Lion be aware that you cannot restore from that backup in Snow Leopard (see below.) I suggest you make a separate backup using Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.1.
If you have Snow Leopard Time Machine backups, do a full system restore per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. If you have subsequent backups from Lion, you can restore newer items selectively, via the "Star Wars" display, per #15 there, but be careful; some Snow Leopard apps may not work with the Lion files. -
HT1338 my mac keep freezing? what can i do to improve speed.
My mac pro keeps freezing what can I do to improve speed amd performance?
Things That Can Keep Your Computer From Slowing Down
If your computer seems to be running slower here are some things you can do:
Boot into Safe Mode then repair your hard drive and permissions:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions Pre-Lion
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. 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.
Repair the Hard Drive - 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, then click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Restart your computer normally and see if this has helped any. Next do some maintenance:
Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
For situations Disk Utility cannot handle the best third-party utility is Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now 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. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts was significantly reduced since Tiger. These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard or Lion and should not be installed.
OS X automatically defragments 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. For more about malware see Macintosh Virus Guide.
I would also recommend downloading a utility such as TinkerTool System, OnyX 2.4.3, or Cocktail 5.1.1 that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old log files 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 command line. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. There is no confirmation that this version also works with Lion.
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand.
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):
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
SyncTwoFolders
Synk Pro
Synk Standard
Tri-Backup
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 CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.
Additional Hints
Be sure you have an adequate amount of RAM installed for the number of applications you run concurrently. Be sure you leave a minimum of 10% of the hard drive's capacity as free space.
Add more RAM. If your computer has less than 2 GBs of RAM and you are using OS X Leopard or later, then you can do with more RAM. Snow Leopard and Lion work much better with 4 GBs of RAM than their system minimums. The more concurrent applications you tend to use the more RAM you should have.
Always maintain at least 15 GBs or 10% of your hard drive's capacity as free space, whichever is greater. OS X is frequently accessing your hard drive, so providing adequate free space will keep things from slowing down.
Check for applications that may be hogging the CPU:
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time, then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Often this problem occurs because of a corrupted cache or preferences file or an attempt to write to a corrupted log file. -
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 thoughrpignard 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
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