Need help it disk utility!!

when i try to erase the HD macintosh, it doesn't give me the option to erase. The erase button is transparent and I can't click on it. what do I do?

well, that's not what you asked...
by the way, if you have an installation dvd you could be able to restart your mac WITH it (i mean that the dvd must be the startUp disk).
You can do that in many way, as via system preferences -> startup disk , then choose the dvd inserted
then restart your mac and now search for the utility "disk utility" in the dvd (usually it is available in the main menu of a dvd-system)
with that now you should be able to erase your HD with lion installed (loosing all the data in your HD, of course...)
and then you can install a new (or older, but it depends on the hardware of your Mac, read the system requirements of the system you want to install, it could be incompatible) system in your HD
luca

Similar Messages

NEED HELP! Disk Utility mixed up HD and erased 2TB of data!

I just encountered a disaster thanks to disk utility and am asking for your help. PLEASEEEEEEE
Details: MacBook Pro using Lion OSX
Here is the short story. Like any semi-computer nerd, I have a lot of external harddrives for all my work. One was having issues and showed symptoms of a break down. So I backed-up everything on the drive and tried to reformat it. Half-way through, disk utility seemed to get stuck or something. The bar did not progress, and the estimated time to complete continued to go up. After about two hours, I needed to grab some files off another harddrive. No big deal. I left the harddrive being reformatted still plugged in, so the process would continue undisturbed. In the second USB port, I plugged in an expansion port with 2 other external harddrives connected to it. ...Within seconds, literally seconds, diskutility erased one of the new harddrives and renamed it. I'm not kidding. It happened so fast, I couldn't stop it. It worked faster then I've ever seen DiskUtility erase a drive…10…20 seconds max. I lost 2 terrabits of files. Information, files and personal documents that cannot be replaced. This is a huge disaster!
Is there anyway to fix this? Is the restore image feature in disk utility bring back files? Worst of all, there is no reasonable argument for why disk utility mixed it up. I never unplugged the drive it was reformating. I never touched the program or clicked anything. And how did it mix them up? You have to select the drive explicitly that you want to erase. One was a Western Digital HD and the other aSeagate, both with different names, models and serial numbers. Computers don't simply mix up drives. It's coded. Second, how could it erase the drive so fast? It never even mounted. By the time the new drive appeared, it was already erased and renamed.
This is huge. I cannot replace these files. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Hello HB3, and a warm welcome to the forums!
8) Attempted to restart with literature saying that you can restart Disk Utility as though it would delete temp files and start again. System could not be found (folder/face/folder/face showed on the screen)
You really shouldn't use a lower OSes DU to work on a higher one.
2) Used Disk Warrior to rebuild directory on disk, but I believe that there is NO space at all. Disk Warrior took a very long time...more than an hour.
What version of DW?
Anyone know of a utility that can help?
If DiskWarrior can't fix it, you might try Data Rescue II...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
(Has a Free Demo to see if it could or not, but you'll need another drive to recover to).
Or FileSalvage...
http://www.subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?%20mainpage=product_info&productsid=1
to recover what you can, both can work when Disks are unmountable.

Why are Java files listed as needing repair in Disk Utility?

Why are Java files always listed as needing repair in Disk Utility?

FrenchToast wrote:
Baltwo, bull's eye, as always!
X423424X's question is pertinent too: you usually need to repair permissions after some major upgrade or update, not on a regular basis. Is there a particular reason why you'd often try to repair permissions? Here's more on the subject.
Repairing permissions after an update or upgrade is harmless, but I would question the need to do it even there. The Apple update itself should set the correct Permissions. I still do this, really as a hangover from Tiger days -- not certain it was really ever needed there either -- and because it's a habit that's hard to kick, but it's never found anything to repair...but for one buggy exception, which was the 10.5.8 Combo update. Running it once and then repairing Permissions created a real error. It was discovered the Combo needed to be run twice back to back and then Permissions repair. In fact, one would have been better off not running Permissions for that update to begin with. There it wasn't harnless.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/9968141#9968141
BTW, even Flash updates, which always used to set incorrect Permissions, are coming in clean these days.
Exercises in Futility: Permissions Repair

Need to run Disk Utility from OSX Disk to fix my hard drive.. help!

I have a newish early 2010 Macbook Pro. The standard 10.6 DVD will NOT boot my computer and yet I need to boot to DVD to use Disk Utility..
I'm nowhere near my restore disk so using that is not an option. Is there anything I can do to boot to "single user" mode and run Disk Utility so it can repair my HD?
Thanks,
Ricardo

Without your discs you're really out of luck. The 10.6 SL DVD contains too early a version to boot your computer. You would need a retail disc with a version of SL later than the one that came installed on it. If it came with 10.6.3 or earlier then the latest retail copies of SL should be 10.6.4 and would boot the computer.
Meanwhile if the computer is functional download and install AppleJack - CNet Downloads or MacUpdate. Read the documentation then run the utility.
If your computer is not functional then you can try this:
Boot into single-user mode. After startup is completed you will be in command line mode and should see a prompt with a cursor positioned after it. At the prompt enter the following then press RETURN:
/sbin/fsck -fy
If you receive a message that says "*** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED ***" then re-run the command until you receive a message that says "** The volume (nameofvolume) appears to be OK." If you re-run the command more than seven times and do not get the OK message, then the drive cannot be repaired this way.
If you were successful then enter:
reboot
and press RETURN to restart the computer.

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.

Help with Disk Utility

I have a removable usb flash drive that I've been using for a while. Occasionally I need to erase it with disk utility to remove all of the past information it has held. This time around though the drive doesn't seem to be created (I'm not sure if I'm saying that the right way or not).
I've included a photo here:
http://northeasternxposure.com/help/drive.png
Normally there is the "983.0 MB VBTM . . ." drive with the "UNTITLED" one below it. As you can see the "UNTITLED" drive doesn't look like a drive, but has the icon of a document. And at the bottom it shows the capacity, yet none of it is available. This is why it won't mount. I've tried to redo it multiple times with no luck. Hopefully someone knows a setting or something that I should change to repair this problem.

I went into Finder and it could still see the drive, yet not access it for some reason. So what I did was log out and then back in and everything was working fine again. I've got no idea why that problem had occurred, but thanks for the quick responses.
And I always do remember to mark helpful and solved. Thanks!

Need help restoring disk image

I recently backed up my HDD to an image and stored it on an external USB hard drive. I just put a new hard drive in my macbook and so far am unable to restore from the image. I used a bootable mountain lion USB, opened the disk utility, partitioned the drive, and tried to restore using the image as the source and the partition as the destination. It scans the image for a while and eventually gives a "unable to scan, internal error". I can't seem to get past this. I have tried mounting the .dmg before restoring as well.
I went ahead and installed a new copy of os x and that works fine. I tried creating a second partition after booting into os x and restoring the image that way and no luck. I also tried SuperDuper but after it says it copied the contents of the image to the other partition, I browse to that drive and it seems to be blank. I am not sure what to do here. Any help?

Well that is the problem. Not sure why you can open the BC partition but Mac can't make a image of a Windows system, llet alone restore it. OS X can't write NTFS. If it could no one would ever need a program like Win Clone to clone the BC partition on their Mac
GCM707 wrote:
The image has 2 partitions in it, one of them (a bootcamp partition) i can open. the other (my mac os partition) i can't open.

Help with Disk Utility and disk repair

I just ran disk utility to verify my hard drive and the report says this:
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 The volume sh HD needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
After saying that HFS volume needs repair, it won't let me repair the disk. That button is grayed out in disk utility. If I boot the computer from my OSX install cd and repair it that way, will it erase all of my data on my hard drive? Any ideas?
20" iMac 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.9) 60 GB iPod Video

To repair a startup volume you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc:
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
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.) 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. Now shutdown the computer for a couple of minutes and then restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.5.2 for Tiger) 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.
Why reward points?(Quoted from Discussions Terms of Use.)
The reward system helps to increase community participation. When a community member gives you (or another member) a reward for providing helpful advice or a solution to their question, your accumulated points will increase your status level within the community.
Members may reward you with 5 points if they deem that your reply is helpful and 10 points if you post a solution to their issue. Likewise, when you mark a reply as Helpful or Solved in your own created topic, you will be awarding the respondent with the same point values.

Need to run disk utility on iMac G4 with OSX 10.3.9/Hardware disk 10.2.7

I have an iMac G4 currently running with OS X 10.3.9, which was installed on it after it crashed a few years ago. I don't have any retail disks that match OS X 10.3.9, but I have the original manufacturer's hardware disk that came with the computer, which contains Mac OS version 10.2.7.
My question: In order to run disk utility and repair errors on this computer, do I need to purchase a retail version of the OS X 10.3 disk, or is there some way to run disk utility without the proper OSX disk? I read about checking for possible file system issues using fsck with OS X 10.3 or earlier—is fsck a viable option for me?
My computer is not having any substantial problems, but I want to avoid any by running Disk Utility now ...
Thanks in advance for any and all advice!

Welcome To  Discussions poptartsheart!
"...OS X 10.3.9, which was installed on it..."
How was it installed, and by whom?
You should have been provided a set of the Full Retail Version, of the Panther Install CDs, at that time.
"I read about checking for possible file system issues using fsck with OS X 10.3 or earlier—is fsck a viable option for me?"
You can run fsck, as instructed in this KB Article Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck, but you really need to have a set of the Panther 10.3.x Full Retail discs.
If you know what to look for, a Full Retail Version, of the Panther Install CDs, can be purchased, sometimes inexpensively, at some online Apple retailers, Amazon, eBay, FastMac, HardCore Mac, AllMac, etc.
ali b

Please help. Disk Utility Failure.

I just ran my disk utility function and received this error:
Disk Utility stopped verifying “Untitled 1” because the following error was encountered:
Filesystem verify or repair failed.
Does this mean that my hard drive is compromised? I've tried to run the first aid function several times and keep getting a failure message. Any and all help and input would be appreciated! Thanks!

If you get the Disk Utility message "Failure on exit", or the one's you received, it means there is an issue that Disk Utility can't fix. In many cases, either Disk Warrior or TechTools Pro can be used to fix it, with Disk Warrior being the more popular program. However, if Disk Warrior/TechTool Pro can't fix it, then you may be looking at a new hard drive (although you can erase the hard drive and try with a restore to keep using it). Curiously, a new drive may be less expensive than the repair software.
Smart Utility can give you a view of the SMART sensors to gain more information on the hardware health of your drive. Download with a trial license from http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php

* Help! Disk Utility is Telling Me...

"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 Mac OS X Utilities window appears, choose Disk Utility."
Does this mean that I will lose all data on my HD?
How should I go about backing up my HD?
Thanks in advance!
BTW, running OS 10.7.3

Hold Command and r keys and boot into Lion Recovery and use Disk Utility to repair the drive, if it's fixed then no problem.
If Disk Utility can't fix the drive, there are ways to get the data off as long as the drive is operational.
Easiest is to boot directly and transfer User files manually to a storage drive as quickly as possible,
 Most commonly used backup methods explained
but if OS X isn't booting, you can employ these Data Recovery steps
another Mac via Firewire Target Disk Mode, OS X installed on a external drive, etc. etc.
 Data recovery efforts explained
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents
Right from Lion Recovery you can Zero Erase and format a external powered blank hard drive GUID, OS X Extended
then install Lion on it from Apple's servers, reboot holding the option key down and choose the external to boot from
then setup with the same name and access your internal drive to recover files.
If that fails, there is always DataRescue $99 to read the 1's and 0's of any files on the drive (no filevault of course)

Needs help earsing disk!

so today after i did the upgrade i found my self unable to turn on my mac (stuck on the booting screen with the apple logo and the spinning wheel) i tried to repair the disk in disk utility but was unable to do so(could not be fixed back up as many files as possible and reformat) but when i try to erase the HD the message :unable to unmount disk was displayed what should i do? please help!!!

Boot into your Recovery partition (holding down the Command and R keys whilst booting) and you should be able to use Disk Utility to erase and format your boot partition. You're then going to want to install (I hope) a clean version of OS X onto the drive. Just be aware that you will lose all data on the drive.
Or is that what you tried? And got the message that the disk could not be repaired? If so, you're just going to have to take your machine to your local Apple Store or an AASP and have them replace the drive.
Clinton

Please Help My Disk Utility is Gone!

I Used an app called app cleaner and it deleted my disk utility is there a way i can get it back

Delete App Cleaner and never use it again. Reinstall your OS.
Ciao.
If you have a backup, you might be able to resurrect it from there.
Message was edited by: OGELTHORPE

Help with Disk Utility error message.

I just ran the repair utility via the installation disk, and at first I got this:
Checking HFS Plus Volume
Invalid node structure
Invalid node structure
Volume Check Failed
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS Volume
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error.
I ran it for a second time, and got the same message, only my Macintosh HD, which is listed at the side, had been renamed to disk1s2.
I then ran it for a third time and got this.
Checking HFS Plus Volume
Checking Extents Overflow
Checking Catalog File
Invalid Node Stucture
Rebuilding Catalog B-tree
The Volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired
Error underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS Volume Check
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error.
What does all his mean? How can I repair my disk? My computer is acting up. The cursor turns into the coloured busy symbol at the slightest thing. It can stay busy for really long, preventing me from doing anything. I then have to shut down and restart. I've also received the flashing question mark when trying to restart.

Paul Rybarczyk1 wrote:
First of all, Dale, you gotta change your closing to these messages! "Cheers!" doesn't quite do it!
I'm open to suggestions! I am tired of it now too!
Anyway, why would everything be working OK before the update if my computer was so bad?
That happens. Applying an update sometimes makes the problems more noticeable.
Luckily, I managed do back up everything on my two external HDs with no problems.
What kind of backup? If it's a clone, it will have the same serious error you have now; unless it was done a while back, before any issues were there.
things seem to freeze up when I'm doing lots of multitasking.
Because you have serious directory corruption.
But maybe it's time for a new machine sooner than I planned?
This is repairable by you. It's possible a piece of hardware, think bad RAM, could cause this directory corruption.
Try running your Apple Hardware Test to see if it flags anything.
Cheers! DALE

Help with Disk Utility Report

Hi there.I recently had to replace my hard disk due to failure.I had posted then at the time of failure looking for some help and I got some.Cool....But there seems to be a new problem.Just the other day I got a software update reminder pop up.So I clicked on install..It updated with new Java and a few other things.The last time I did an update I had a suspicion it had something to do with Java crashing my disk.Low and behold I did a disk repair tonight and Im looking at very similar errors again that I saw just before the last hard disk failure.These errors only appeared with the first hard disk after I updated Java and the same again after this update..Co-incidence?
Can some one translate these for me please.And also advise on what to do to correct it if it is cause for more concern.Thank You.
Ps.If this is on the way to failure again Im not buying a new hard disk.No way.Im sorry.If theres a connection between the hard-disk failure this and last time its up to Apple.
Thanks in advance.
Repairing permissions for “Untitled”
Reading permissions database.
Reading the permissions database can take several minutes.
Permissions differ on "Library/Application Support/ProApps/Internal Plug-Ins/BrowserKit/iLife.bkplugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are lrw-rw-r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BrowserKit.framework/Versions/A/CodeResources ", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ProKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Leopard Panels.bundle/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Warning: SUID file "Applications/Utilities/ODBC Administrator.app/Contents/Resources/iodbcadmintool" has been modified and will not be repaired.
Group differs on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/CodeResources", should be 80, group is 0.
Permissions differ on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are lrwxr-xr-x .
Group differs on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Info.plist", should be 80, group is 0.
Permissions differ on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Info.plist", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r-- .
Group differs on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/MacOS/JavaPluginCocoa", should be 80, group is 0.
Permissions differ on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/MacOS/JavaPluginCocoa", should be -rwxrwxr-x , they are -rwxr-xr-x .
Group differs on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/MacOS", should be 80, group is 0.
Permissions differ on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/MacOS", should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxr-xr-x .
Group differs on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Resources/Localizable.strings", should be 80, group is 0.
Permissions differ on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Resources/Localizable.strings", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r-- .
Group differs on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Resources", should be 80, group is 0.
Permissions differ on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/Resources", should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxr-xr-x .
Group differs on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/version.plist", should be 80, group is 0.
Permissions differ on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents/version.plist", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r-- .
Group differs on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents", should be 80, group is 0.
Permissions differ on "Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaPluginCocoa.bundle/Contents", should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxr-xr-x .
Permissions repair complete

Thank You Clio...My paranoid detective work was the only thing that failed...
Cheers....

Need help it disk utility!!

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