No volumes in Disk Utility

Dear Folks:
I am working on a friend's 1 GIG 17" Powerbook with OS X 10.2.8.
My firewire drive will not mount on the desktop. No icon appears.
When I go to Disk Utility the pane which normally lists volumes is empty.
What do I do?
Thanks
Raoul

Thought you could use this info about getting FireWire to work!
First, you should always Repair Permissions in Disk Utility before and after any update; I would do that now. If you installed your update with FireWire plugged in, your Mac may not recognize it anymore.
Try resetting your FireWire ports by disconnecting all FW devices, shut down your Mac and unplug it from AC power (wall socket) for 30 minutes. plug it back in and try FW.
If that did'nt work, download the combo update from this site (yours may be corrupt), not Software Update, disconnect all firewire + USB devices except keyboard + mouse, Repair Permissions, re-install update, Repair Permissions again + try. Yours could be the 10.4.5 Combo update. Others reading, download the Combo that applies to your system.
If that still did'nt get it Zap the PRAM. While restarting Mac hold down the following key combo Command-Option-P-R. Keep holding those keys down till you hear the second start-up chime, then release.
For those of you with Macs that are not PowerBooks or iBooks, a bad internal battery can cause FireWire to not be recognized, so make sure it's good!
Good Luck!
Cheers!
DALE

Similar Messages

External HDD is seen as drive but no as volume in Disk Utility (unmountable

I've unplugged my external HDD without unmounting it and tried to hook it up via eSata to my MBP.
Now Leopard won't see the Drive neither via USB neither via eSATA (i use expresscard/34).
The drive is seen as USB device in Disk Utility, but not as Volume.
The Dtive is formatted and partitioned for OSX. Has data on it.
What can I do to make the drive appear again?
Resetting PRAM and SMC didn't help.

of course you should be aware that to run esata external drive is not hot swappable. user must power on before Mac and power off after Mac.
even though you did the smc reset did you in fact disconnect all devices, and that means the externals to the point of powering them down and removing the connecting cables from all devices.

Format External Drive for HFS+ volume and FAT32 volume with Disk Utility

I just bought a Seagate 1tb external drive from OWC and I want to partition it into a HFS+ (journaled I assume) volume and a NTFS volume. Objective: To manually backup critical folders from my wife’s Dell (running XP) to the NTFS volume and critical Mac folders from my PowerBookG4 to the HFS volume.
My plan was to have my Mac (10.4.11) do the partitioning into a 350gb FAT32 volume for Windows and a 650gb HFS+ volume for Mac – then take the external drive to the Dell and have the Dell reformat the 350gb FAT drive to NTFS.
First question – Is this possible overall?
Second question – I haven’t been able to get my Disk Utility on my Mac to do the initial partitioning into one HFS volume and one FAT32 volume the way I want it. Is this step possible?
I’m happy to be more specific about the steps I’ve taken if the basic plan is good. From what I’ve found in some forums so far, I think I’m on the right track but am unable to execute it. Thank you.

Thank you Limnos for all your help. Last night I tried again and it worked! I’ not totally sure on what I did right but:
• Both volumes on the new ext. driver were HFS (from my last attempt the other day) so I looked into a simple erase of one partition/volume into a different format, but DU did not offer a way of erasing it into MS-DOS(FAT32). But I think I did a simple HFS erase anyway of the volume I wanted to format to FAT32. There was nothing “in” that volume because this was a new external drive but I figured it could not hurt anything.
• So then, I think I went back to Partition, locked the partition/volume that I wanted to keep in HFS+ for my Mac files, and (re)partitioned the other just erased volume to MS-DOS. I think I did it under the MBR option.
• It worked! Not sure why but my Mac recognized both volumes one as HFS, the other as FAT32. Maybe someone will find this useful some day!!
• Then, I hooked up the drive to my work Dell, the Dell found only the FAT32 drive (as expected), and I executed a short simple easy command I found on ehow.com (search for ‘convert FAT32 to NTFS’) to make that volume NTFS.
Thanks again Limnos and everyone else!

Failed Volume in Disk Utility

In Disk Utility I'm getting this message, as best that I can remember: "thread count is 420 should be 0, one volume cannot be repaired." Any suggestions?

In Disk Utility I'm getting this message, as best that I can remember: "thread count is 420 should be 0, one volume cannot be repaired." Any suggestions?
When Disk Utility can't repair something, in most cases a program like Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro can make the repair. Most people use Disk Warrior.

Time Machine Volume and Disk Utility

I'm trying to figure out whether or not I can use Disk Utility's Repair Disk command on a Time Machine volume. Time machine is taking a very long time to finalize its backups. I don't know if there are directory issues that need to be addressed or if it's due to the very large size of the directory. I've been using Time Machine on this computer since last January and the Time Machine directory (the disk's catalog of files used by the OS) takes up over 7 GB of disk space! It's so large that DiskWarrior will no longer work on that volume. DiskWarrior, like all 32-bit OS X applications, has a limit of 4 GB. I can't be the only one in this situation. I don't want my Time Machine backup to get hopelessly corrupted and then have to start agin. I'm trying to be proactive about correcting any issues before they become serious.

See my reply to Steve Darden in this Topic.
You should not use Disk Utility in the normal manner. Time Machine uses hard links in a non-standard manner, which will cause normal repair utilities to complain, as Steve is finding.
If you read Time Machine: Troubleshooting backup issues you will see that it only recommends Disk Utility to "Attempt to repair the backup sparsebundle", not the actual Disk Volume itself.

Cannot Partition or Create Volume in Disk Utility

I have a 3 TB disk that I used for video files that I now want to use for backup. So I wanted to erase and partition the drive to wipe it clean. So after going into Disk Utility and "trying" to erase and partition the drive, it now only shows the drive and no volumes. The problem is everything is pretty much greyed out and I cannot create or partition volumes. I don't know what I did wrong or what to do to fix it. I tried verifying and repairing the disc but that didn't do anything. The only buttons available are Verify, Info and Burn. What do I do to use the drive again? Please help, thank you

Apple has not provided an easy way to recover from this condition. If you can connect the drive to a computer running Windows or a version of OS X older than 10.7, erase it that way. Otherwise see this thread.

How do I fix a volume if Disk utility says cannot be repaired?

Greetings all,
Am having some annoying issues with my PowerMac G5 hard drive, nothing very specific, just lots of small issues like crashes and hangs and the fan going into hyper-drive every now and then. Started up from my system disc/Disk Utility and ran repair permissions and repair disc.
On repair disk it gets to the end then says:
1 HFS volume repaired
1 volume could not be repaired
I cannot find out what this means so can anyone advise?
I also run repair permissions over and over and it never stops finding something to repair.
Any advice much appreciated.

Started up from my system disc/Disk Utility and ran repair permissions and repair disc.
Do you mean the System install DVD? - that's what you should do as you cannot repair an HD you're booted from.
On repair disk it gets to the end then says:
1 HFS volume repaired
1 volume could not be repaired
This is a little odd: is there another hard disk connected? Or possibly it was trying to repair the install disk as well?
I also run repair permissions over and over and it never stops finding something to repair.
Repairing permissions does thrown up a lot of things which can't be repaired: this is a bug arising from a system update and is harmless: you can ignore it.
You could try downloading Applejack which you run in single-user mode and provides an easy way of using the built-in disk repair procedure: this is quicker than starting from the DVD and you won't get any confusion with the DVD. It's quite safe: it doesn't do the check itself, just invokes the repair that you would get by typing arcane Linux codes. But note that you must run it only in single user mode (starting up and holding command-s while booting), never while booted normally.

Erasing Volumes using Disk Utility

I used Disk Utility to make copies of numerous cds and dvds. Doing this created a long list of volumes on my harddrive that I can not delete using erase or erase empty space (these fields are grayed out). I tried booting from the OSX disc however when I did that the volumes weren't even visibile. I also tried converting the disk images to a writeable format. All this did was make a copy of the existing volume. Does anyone know how to delete Volumes in another way, either using disk utiltiy or other software?
Thanks,
Dean
Macbook Mac OS X (10.4.7) disk utility, delete or erase volumes

If you are getting nothing for file system what has gone wrong is something in your computer/operating system, not on the iPod.
Try running Scandisk first, then formatting or, at this is not recommended generally, if that doesn't work partition the iPod and then format it.
But you might also want to consider a reload of XP. I reiterate, if it gave you nothing to select under file system this is most likely a problem with your operating system or USB chain.

Are you able to do a non destructively enlarge a volume using Disk Utility?

I have searched a number of articles in the forums, many archived, and I haven't found a clear answer to whether you can enlarge a volume non destructively using Disk Utility.
I am running a G4 PPC OSX 10.4.11 and am working with a Maxtor 300GB FireWire HDD. The volume I am trying to enlarge is the second volume on the Maxtor with free space following it.
I have followed the *Disk Utility Help file* on how to *enlarge a volume*, but cannot complete the procedure because *Step 5 refers to an Apply button*, *but there is none apparent*. There is a Partition button available but then that warns of destroying all the volumes on the disk.
Disk Utility Version 10.5.6.
Thanks for the help.

Your drive just be partitioned using GUID which is only available for Intel machines. An APM partitioned drive cannot be resized on the fly using Disk Utility on a PPC Mac. There are some third-party partitioning utilities like iPartition that may be able to do so on a PPC machine.

Cannot repair disk errors for OSX boot volume using Disk Utility while booted from different disk

I have tried three times to repair my boot volume (OSX 10.6.8 Snow Leopard) permissions using Disk Utility while booted up on a different volume (running Snow Leopard 10.6.4). After hours of Disk Utility reporting that it HAD fixed the problems, an immediate click of "Verify permissions" immediately results in the apparently same continuous stream of permission errors.

Then better luck next time around. Here are some ideas for then:
How to Install Lion Successfully - You must have Snow Leopard 10.6.7 or 10.6.8 Installed
A. 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. Then select Disk Utility from the Utilities. 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 restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.3.) if DW cannot fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall Snow Leopard.
B. Make a Bootable Backup Using Restore Option of Disk Utility:
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the backup volume. Source means the internal startup volume.
C. Important: Please read before installing:
If you have a FireWire hard drive connected, disconnect it before installing the update unless you will boot from this drive and install the update on it. Reconnect it and turn it back on after installation is complete and you've restarted.
You may experience unexpected results if you have installed third-party system software modifications, or if you have modified the operating system through other means. (This does not apply to normal application software installation.)
The installation process should not be interrupted. If a power outage or other interruption occurs during installation, use the standalone installer (see below) from Apple Downloads to update. While the installation is in progress do not use the computer.
D. To upgrade to Lion:
Purchase the Lion Installer from the Mac App Store. The download will start quickly. Lion is nearly 4 GBs so a fast internet connection is essential. Download time could run upwards of 4 hours depending upon network conditions and server demands at the time.
Boot From The Lion Installer which is located in your Applications folder.
Follow instructions for installation.

Disk Utility seems to have created a copy of a volume

A server I was asked to take a look at has empty user folders after running Disk Utility. I checked via the GUI and the files and folder see fine to the WGM paths. So, I checked permission, seemed ok...yet still user stuff was gone, yet we can see it.
So I used the Terminal, and low and behold in the /Volumes/ directory there are 3 volumes, while the GUI only shows 2. The gui shows SHD and DHD( this is an OS Server [Xserve G5] with 10.3.8), the terminal ls command yeilds DHD, DHD 1, and SHD.
When I checked, the DHD is a semi-empty copy of DHD 1, it contain the 2 folder for all the user and each folder holds the users susequent folders and subfolder but all empty as if they were brand new. Checking into DHD 1, that is the correct data, information, etc.
So, my question is, what do I need to do to get DHD 1 to be mapped to the users like it was, and how do I get rid of DHD and make DHD 1 back to DHD like it was.

This is no problem at all; in fact, the behavior is normal.
As you've noted, the Volumes directory contains an empty folder and two folders that correspond to mounted volumes. The folders in the Volumes directory are just that - folders. They serve as mount points for volumes, simply linking the contents of these volumes' filesystems to the filesystem of the startup volume.
The mount point does not have to correspond to the name of the volume (which is shown by the Finder); further, it can be any folder, not just one in the Volumes directory.
However, as you've noted, the paths of share points (including those that contain users' home directories) are created with respect to the server's startup volume's filesystem. Therefore, it is imperative to keep them intact.
When you ran the filesystem verification or repair, Disk Utility (or diskutil) had to unmount the volume in question. Unmounting the volume would have unlinked the /Volumes/DHD folder from the actual DHD volume. Normally, the operating system have deleted the /Volumes/DHD folder automatically, so that name could be used for a new folder (mount point) when the volume would be remounted. However, if you were to perform the check while certain services (such as File Services) were running, the old mount point /Volumes/DHD would not be deleted. Apparently, this is what happened.
To avoid this problem in the future: Stop all file and print services before running Disk Utility.
To make the DHD volume remount at /Volumes/DHD:
1. Unmount the DHD volume using Disk Utility.
2. In Terminal, delete the /Volumes/DHD folders with this command: rm -rf /Volumes/DHD*
3. Remount the DHD volume using Disk Utility (or simply reboot your server).
--Gerrit

Disk Utility: Backup to partition on external drive?

Hi people. Would be glad of an answer and any comments on this.
I have 3 Macs at home, a new G5 dual core and 2 G4 imacs, networked wirelessly. At this point I only backup my G5 to a second internal HD, by using Disk Utility's 'Restore' function.
My preferred plan is to get an external Firewire 400 drive, make 3 partitions on it, and do the Disk Utility 'Restore' for the 3 respective Macs. That way it's not only a backup, but a bootable solution if one of the machines dies.
My second choice is to add one of those generic network hard drives to the router and try to back up to that(essentially as an FTP/Samba disk), but it would be slow and not bootable at all.
Question: Will disk utility allow a partition, either on a firewire drive or network drive, to be the destination for a 'restore'? Or will it only recognise whole volumes?

Hi, Daniel.
You wrote: "Question: Will disk utility allow a partition, either on a firewire drive or network drive, to be the destination for a 'restore'? Or will it only recognise whole volumes? "Disk Utility will recognize a volume (partition) on a FireWire drive as the destination for a Restore.
Using the Restore function for backup is quite time-consuming as it has to backup everything every time you perform a backup. You will get much faster results by using a proper Backup and Recovery solution that supports incremental backups, i.e. backing up just the changes from the source to the destination (backup) so that the two are synchronized. For advice on the backup and recovery solution I employ, see my "Backup and Recovery" FAQ.
People have had mixed results using NAS (Network-attached Storage) for backups. I frankly think that it's still a bit early to try that route. Using an external FireWire drive has always given be good results.
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.

DIsk Utility doesn't allow creating a partition

Hi all,
I just bought a new MacBookPro and installed Mountain Lion yesterday. I decided to use a encrypted file system (File Vault). So far everything worked fine.
This morning I decided to do a clean install, as Migration Assistent carried over some data I do not need.
So I booted into Recovery Mode, selected the harddisk and chose "Erase". As I wanted an encrypted volume again, Disk utility asked me for a password which I specified. Immediately after clicking ok, Disk Utility said "Not enough RAM to complete this request". After clicking OK, my partition went and since then I am strugglign to find out how to activate it (data not important, as everythign backed up).
Apple Care also doesn't knwo what to recommend anymore.
Here's what I tried:
1) Command+R boot and Disk Utility
2) Boot from external HD and Disk Utility
3) Internet Recovery (ends with error)
4) Delete PR
The strange thing is that Disk Utility shows Macintosh HD on the top level with the option to partition (it doesn't show any indended partitions) but all options are grayed out. It's like Disk Utility somehow confused Parttion with physical drive and now gets confused.
Any other idea other than sending the macbookPro back to Apple?
Thanks
Matt

You should of taken the encryption off before you started that proccess. That is one thing they don't tell you. Never try to modify an encrypted partition.
You may have to boot to the Internet (Online) Recovery HD system lto Re-Partition the drive as one partition.
Hold down Command+Option+r keys at boot and keep them held down until you see a spinning globe in the center of the screen, then you can let them up. Have the computer WIRED to your unternet router.
Once that loads open disk utility and select the Drive Name (Not volume name, IE Macintosh HD) and then the partition tab and select One partition from the Partition Layout drop down.
If that doesn't work then the drive is FUBAR.

Disk Utility "Backup Failure"

Hi all -
I have a 500GB iMac running 10.6.8. I am trying to save a bootable backup on my new WD MyBook Desktop 1TB hard drive using Disk Utility (11.5.2). I have formatted the WD with 2 volumes, one of which (named "Boot2") is to be my bootable backup. But when I try to duplicate my "Macintosh HD" volume into Boot2 using Disk Utility's "Restore" function, I get an error message stating "Restore Failed - Operation not permitted" (or words to that effect).
I did the following:
1 - Formatted the WD drive into 2 500GB volumes using Disk Utility with Mac OS Extended (journaled) format.
2 - Selected "Macintosh HD" volume in DU's left hand column, and clicked the "Restore" buttton up top.
3 - Draged "Macintosh HD" (the volume) into the Source window, and draged "Boot2" (my WD backup volume) into the Destination window.
4 - Clicked the "Restore" button in DU's lower right corner.
At first, the operation seemed to be going normally. But after copying "Appleworks 6 Updater Log", the "Applications" folder (with all the apps), and a "Backups.backupdb" folder, it stopped and gave me the error message.
Any thoughts as to what's going on? What kind of operation would be 'not permitted'? Did I do something wrong? Or am I missing something?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
- The OldFart

Try it this way:
A. 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.
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.
B. Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
2. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
3. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag
it to the Destination entry field.
4. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
the Source entry field.
5. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external drive volume. Source means the internal startup drive.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

Can anyone help me?Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to... An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk. What is the problem? I've made no changes.

I recently starting receiving the error message "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to... An erro occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk. I have had no problems backing up my MacBook Pro 2011 to my Western Digital My Book Live through a Linksys EA4500 router until recently. I've made no major changes. I've ran a diagnosis on my back up drive with no problems. The Time Machine back up starts, but about after about 5 to 10 minutes I get the error message. I can see the shared drive in Finder. The light on the drive blinks while it starts the back up. I can see the shared folders on the networked drive. The backup process starts but for some reason it just stops. Can anyone help?

You can't repair a network volume in Disk Utility.
Backing up to a third-party NAS with Time Machine is risky, and unacceptably risky if it's your only backup. I know this isn't the answer you want, and I also know that the manufacturer says the device will work with Time Machine, and that it usually seems to work. Except when you try to restore, and find that you can't.
If you want network backup with Time Machine, use as the destination either an Apple Time Capsule or an external hard drive connected to another Mac or to an 802.11ac AirPort base station. Only the 802.11ac base stations support Time Machine, not any older model.
If you're determined to keep using the NAS for backup, your only recourse for any problems that result is to the manufacturer (which will blame Apple.)

No volumes in Disk Utility

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