Problems with Disk Utility backup & restore via DMG disk images

I attempted to backup and restore a 2TB external raid storage device using the recommended Disk Utility procedure for 10.6.6. One of the HDDs in the raid enclosure had started to fail.
First step was to create a new image from the 2TB device. I accepted the defaults of compressed image format and no encryption. The image took about 15 hours to create, and when complete, I was left with 2 files:
OWC2TB.dmg (1.1TB)
OWC2TB.002.dmgpart (486GB).
To check the DMG I ran the Disk Utility "Verify Disk" on the DMG, and got the message "The volume OWC2TB appears to be OK". The DMG is described in DU as:
Description: Apple UDIF read-only compressed (zlib)
Connection Bus: Disk Image
Total Capacity: 2 TB
Disk Write Status: Read Only
Partition Map Scheme: No partition map
I then replaced the failing HDD in the enclosure, recreated a new 2TB filesystem on the device, and attempted to restore from the DMG image.
The first attempt was to use Disk Utility "Restore" function. I specified the DMG as the source and the new device as the destination, and chose "Erase Destination". This failed immediately with the error "Restore failure. Could not find any scan information. The source images needs to be imagescanned before it can be restored".
After researching this error I tried to correct it by selecting the DMG in Disk Utility and running Images => Scan Image for Restore. This failed immediately, complaining there was insufficient disk space. More research revealed it needed the same amount of spare space on the same disk to do an imagescan. So I had to free up an EXTRA 1.5TB of space in addition to the space the DMG consumed. Not very user friendly.
The next attempt to imagescan the DMG got further than the "insufficient space" error. It displayed "Scanning image OWC2TB.dmg, Block Checksum Partition #1". This ran for about 10 hours. At the end, it displayed a new error message "Unable to scan OWC2TB.dmg (internal error)".
Next I tried to mount the DMG and copy the files manually. My first attempt at this resulted in a "Verifying..." phase which looked like it will take about 10 hours, so I clicked "Skip". Soon after I got an error message "Unable to attach OWC2TB.dmg (no mountable file systems).". Now I am trying a mount with the Verify option...
Can anyone suggest what I can try next to restore the DMG?
I think the problem might be the fact the DMG is split in two parts, but the imagescan/restore software does not know how to read the second part? Is there a way to join these into a single DMG?

Similar Messages

Disk Utility: after creating the .DMG (compressed image) When "scan image for restore" finishes it displays "unable to scan (internal error)". Since the process was scanning for about 1 hr is this a fake warning?

External 500GB drive is partitioned with 400GB for Mac OS extended (journalling) and 2nd partition formatted today as "ExFAT".
Yesterday I tried to create a disk image of my HD to no avail - this was compressed on a FAT partition. I got a warning after running the <scan image for restore> saying "unable to scan (internal error)"
I rang Apple support who suggested formatting a partition as MAC OS extended (journalling) and choose to save the image as "read/write'. The image process stopped writing at about 200GB and then the file size jumped to 499GB (ie the size of the HD). But the process did nothing for about an hour so I foce quit disk utility (as suggested by apple support)
My current attempt was to format the external drive again; this time with a 400GB Mac OS extended (journal) format; plus a 100GB ExFAT format partition. The new image was created after about 2.5hrs with a compressed size of 149GB. However, after running the "scan image for restore" facility I got the warning message "unable to scan filename " (internal error). The process was scanning the image file according to the progress bar - this took about hour - thus the warning is a puzzle.
If anyone can say more about this error I would really appreciate knowing tips for using disk utility. The screen grab is below.
"unable to scan filename " (internal error)
thanks

Thanks for a quick reply <baltwo>. You’ve answered that it is not a fake message!
fyi: I thought that I would use my external Buffalo for two purposes; namely the smaller ExFAT partition for copying stuff to my win7 netbook. The larger partition was to be used as my imac image of SL. So this was my first attempt at using disk utility - the idea being to hold an image backup at another location. Plus I now have the Lion thumbdrive ready to upgrade from SL and so being cautious wanted to have a SL image backup
Anyway I followed the apple instructions using my mac 10.6.3 install DVD but it would appear from other discussions that <unable to scan (internal error)> is not unique to me.
I’ll get back to apple telephone support for further advice.
I would though be grateful for an “idiots’ guide to making an image backup of my internal HD that runs SL 10.6.8
eg should I have just one partition on the external USB drive? format it as Mac OS extended? create the image as compressed or read/write? Basically I’ll do whatever will work!!
thanks again

Disk Util wont read my .dmg backup

Hello,
Because I changed my hard drive, I thought it was wise to partition the new one with Disk Utility so it would have two partitions so I could just make a .dmg from the Mac OS parition and the Bootcamp partition over to the new ones.
While it worked for the Mac OS one, it didnt for the Bootcamp one and I couldnt boot Windows XP anymore.
When I asked the Bootcamp Assistant to setup my system it said it wasn't happy with my partitions and need a GUID disk.
Since mine was in AFM, I had to erase everything on it and put it in GUID with a single partition.
Now, before doing this I had Disk Utility erase the second partition I did on the new drive, make the Mac OS partition the whole disk and used Disk Utility to make a .dmg backup of the drive.
Since I formatted in GUID with a single partition, Disk Utility decided it doesn't like my .dmg backup anymore.
I reinstalled OS X Leopard from scratch and tried to mount it but it says no valid filesystem inside.
I tried to raw copy it with dd in terminal on a USB disk but same thing, it won't mount the drive.
When I use the restore function in Disk Utility, it says error 254 cannot validate filesystem.
I used it once successfully to check it before erasing the master drive and now the backup won't work anymore.
I am very upset, this 90 gigs backup contains all my photos, music and files.
Thanks for your help!
Pierre

I had a 320Gb drive with OS X on one partition and XP on another.
I bought a 500Gb drive, I thought I could do the same 2 partitions and just copy over the OS X and XP partitions to have everything work like before.
But it didnt work so now I have a .dmg containing my original OS X partition that I would like to copy over to the new HDD but it wont work as the dmg has not filesystem in it according to Disk Utility and gives an error 254 when I try to use it with the restore function.
However, I used this very same dmg file once yesterday to restore the drive. It was fine except that the new drive wasnt set to be a GUID drive so it would only boot so far but won't get into Leopard, hanging one line before launching the login app (I have the boot sequence set as verbose so I could see where it hung).
And now the same dmg file isn't working anymore on the GUID formatted 500Gb drive.

Can I fix a disk with this message?-Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.

Can I fix a disk with this message?
Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.

Some problems can indeed be fixed this way. But working from Recovery_HD or Disk Warrior DVDs and working in the restricted environment those provide can be difficult. You can literally spend days working on this problem (while your regular work is unavailable) only to discover the old drive is unsalvageable.
There is no way to know up front whether you are facing a major Hardware failure or a minor software glitch, or something in between. Often you are forced to work from the drive you no longer trust. I continue to recommend you do this work from a different, fully functioning Mac OS X booted from a different drive.
If you have had the foresight to (as The hatter often recommends) clone your virgin install onto another drive for use in such situations, you will be able to recover from such problems in record time. If not, my previous recommendations stands:
Buy a new Drive. Or two. Install Mac OS X from scratch on a new drive, and get your Mac running again. Later, you can use the full power of Mac OS X to attempt to rescue your data, if needed. Then Zero the old drive, to see if it can hold data again reliably.
If the old drive eventually provides some needed data, and is salvageable, Merry Christmas.

Disk Utility can't repair this disk...disk, and restore your backuped-up file.

Computer got uber slow.
I started to worry.
Now computer won't start.
VERY worried.
Tried to repair disk. Received error message above.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

sulaver wrote:
Computer got uber slow.
I started to worry.
Now computer won't start.
VERY worried.
Tried to repair disk. Received error message above.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
You can't have received an error message "Disk Utility can't repair this disk...disk, and restore your backuped-up file." since that is pure gobbledegook and isn't even good English.
What may have happened is that
(a) your hard drive has become so full that the operating system can't find any space in which to.... operate.
(b) as macjack says, it has crashed - possibly as a result of (a).
(c) you have been allowing Time Machine to back up to your internal hard drive instead of to a backup disk, which has caused (a) to happen.

Problem with online split backup, database oracle

Hello,
we use for backup our SAP system online split backup, our database is almost 3TB big. Backup is functional but sometimes (4x-5x per month) backup fail with error bellow. If i understant this problem correctly brbackup lost connection to oracle after split disk system and cant stop backup mode in database and backup failed. How can i solve this problem? Exist some parameter for brbackup for reconnect to db when brbackup lost connection? Thanks for your help!
BR0051I BRBACKUP 7.00 (25)
BR0262I Enter database user name[/password]:
BR0055I Start of database backup: bebnhrzd.anf 2009-09-22 14.52.25
BR0484I BRBACKUP log file: /oracle/BP1/sapbackup/bebnhrzd.anf
BR0351I Restoring /oracle/BP1/sapbackup/cntrlBP1.dbf
BR0355I from /oracle/BP1/sapbackup/cntrlBP1.dbf ...
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 14.53.10
BR0319I Control file copy created: /oracle/BP1/sapbackup/cntrlBP1.dbf 21676032
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 14.53.13
BR0315I 'Alter database begin backup' successful
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 14.53.14
BR0295I Splitting mirror disks...
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.07.43
BR0296I Split of mirror disks successful
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0301E SQL error -3135 at location BrBackAlter-3, SQL statement:
'/* BRBACKUP */ ALTER DATABASE END BACKUP'
ORA-03135: connection lost contact
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0318E 'Alter database end backup' failed
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0301E SQL error -3114 at location BrBackAlter-3, SQL statement:
'/* BRBACKUP */ ALTER DATABASE END BACKUP'
ORA-03114: not connected to ORACLE
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0318E 'Alter database end backup' failed
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0301W SQL error -3114 at location BrbDbLogClose-1, SQL statement:
'UPDATE SAP_SDBAH SET RC = '0005', ENDE = '20090922161744', OBJ = ' ', LINE = '# 224     0     0     81358       7817759352        0                0 ALL          online_split    util_file        -
7.00 (25)' WHERE BEG = '20090922145225' AND FUNCT = 'anf' AND SYSID = 'BP1''
ORA-03114: not connected to ORACLE
BR0326W Update of database log header failed
BR0056I End of database backup: bebnhrzd.anf 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0054I BRBACKUP terminated with errors
Backup utility finished with returncode 5
Backup FAILED

Hello,
in note 534729 is nothing about ORA-03135: connection lost contact only error ORA-03114 which refer to the note 335199 and in this note in nothing about ORA-03114 I want to say two things: this two oracle errors (ORA-03135 and ORA-03114) are not in alertSID.log on db server or in syslog on backup server. This error are only reported from brbackup which is running on backup server which is "client side". We don't have problem with connection from work processes on all instances to db server, we have only problem with brbackup which lost connection after split disk system. How i say this problem occurs only sometimes. I was tested network connection from backup server to db server via niping a this is result:
(root@hytti) #./niping -c -H kiuru -B 30000
Sat Sep 26 14:10:58 2009
connect to server o.k.
send and receive 10 messages (len 30000)
times -
avg      7305 usecs
max     46234 usecs
min      2168 usecs
bw    8020.50 kb/sec
excluding max and min:
av2      3081 usecs
bw2 19013.91 kb/sec
do you have any idea?? Thanks!

After getting the dreaded gray/blue screen, I tried to run disk repair on the internal disk. I got an error message saying "Disk Utility can't repair this disk and restore your backed-up files. The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely

After getting the dreaded gray/blue screen, I tried to run disk repair on the internal disk. I got an error message saying "Disk Utility can't repair this disk and restore your backed-up files. The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely." What do I do now? This is an iMac and I'm running 10.6.8.

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it. See below for how to clone a drive.
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. 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 the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
You may be able to backup your data if you have an erased external drive you can use. Before you do the above but after you have opened Disk Utility you can try to clone your drive:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag
       it to the Destination entry field.
5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
      the Source entry field.
6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Now this will only work if the drive is accessible and can be cloned by Disk Utility. Otherwise, you would need to access your drive from another Mac that you can connect via Firewire - Target Disk Mode.

"Disk Utility can't repair this disk...and restore the backed up files"

Hello, my macbook crashed a few days a go as well and after going to the recovery drive and OX Utilities tried to verify and repair disk it gives me this error "Disk Utility can't repair this disk...and restore the backed up files" is the second time that occurs after replacing the hard drive for a new SSD, i thought my problem was solved and is not. Any Ideas? the only other thing i can think of is the logic board?

Backup your files and arrange for an appointment at an Apple store genius bar for a free evaluation.
Ciao.

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 "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.

Macbook pro won't boot and when I tried to back up the hard drive I got "disk utility can't repair this disk backup as many of your files as possible"

My macbook pro froze and initially would not even recognize the power chord. Now it charges, but will not load up. I opened in in disk utility to try and back it up so that I could take it to apple to have it fixed but I got the message that said "disk utility can't repair this disk backup as many of your files as possible". How do I back up the files???

Nichelle215,
you can try the method described on this Apple page, in the “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility” section. (You can skip step 6, since you already know that your disk is irreparable.) Note, however, that this method is not guaranteed to work. Once you get your disk straightened out, you might consider purchasing an external hard disk for use as a Time Machine backup destination, so that a similar problem in the future won’t wipe out the only copy of your files.

Using Disk Utility to restore/copy disk - who is correct?

I had two long talks with two separate Apple Care people online today who both insisted what they were saying was right and the other person was wrong.
Hmm....
My question is this.
I have a MBP and the internal HD is currently empty. I've been running off of an external HD for about a year now.
I want to clone my external HD into my internal HD and use the internal HD as my system disk now.
One Apple Care person said to go into Disk Utility, select the source disk, from the tabs on the right hand side select Restore and then drag the source disk into the source field, drag the target disk into the target field and press restore. She said this will make a complete clone of the external HD in the internal HD.
The other Apple Care person said "No no no. You can't do that to clone a system disk that way." He said the best thing was to install a new system and then use the restore as a new system from Time Machine option (where I also have a backup.)
I believe the second method will work, but it's more cumbersome for me because I haven't been backing up everything in Time Machine. I have excluded items, such as podcasts and Parallels disk images.
If I could do this from the external system disk life would be easier.
But is the first Apple Support person right or wrong about this? Can I use Disk Utility to copy the system disk from one external HD to another that way?
Thanks,
doug
p.s. I am not in the market for 3rd party software to deal with this one-time issue, so if possible I would like to accomplish this using OS X included features...

The advantage is CCC has built in routines that "bless" (see the Terminal.app command "bless") the
os x installation so it will boot properly on the new volume it is being installed on.
Disk Utility simply copies (restores) files from one volume to another. Many times this works just fine.
Sometimes it won't boot afterwards. Most of the time (as long as there are no system files missing
or corrupted) a person may "bless" the drive and restore it to working condition.
CCC is not a "magical" application, it is in fact a front end to applications that already exist separately
in OS X (asr, hdiutil, diskutil, bless, etc.).
It doesn't matter to me how you do it. It's your time not mine. Everyone should spend some time
behind the command line in terminal. I do many tasks using the command line, including and not
limited to complete system restores, backing up data, disk partitioning, installing software, disk
repair, permissions repair, ACL management, restoring data, managing disk images, network
management, user management, file management, etc. Many people are fearful of the command
line. I feel just the opposite, I'm fearful without it.
Say Hello to my little friend.
http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/Command_Line_Adminv10.5.pdf
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unixopensource/clix.html
http://www.macobserver.com/tips/macosxcl101/index.html
http://www.matisse.net/OSX/darwin_commands.html
Kj

Problem with Time Capsule backup

My Time Capsule is a first gen (500 GB), and I recently upgraded to Lion on my iMac. It seems like right around the time I upgraded that I started having problems with Time Machine backups. They will complete, but then the disk does not eject from my desktop. I am running the Time Capsule buddy widget, and here's the log file:
Starting standard backup
Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/TimeCapsule
QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
Disk image /Volumes/TimeCapsule/Stefano.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
100.0 MB required (including padding), 174.27 GB available
Copied 2353 files (2.0 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
100.0 MB required (including padding), 174.27 GB available
Copied 1656 files (718 KB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.
Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Stopping backup to allow backup destination disk to be unmounted or ejected.
Backup failed because the destination disk was ejected or disconnected unexpectedly!
You can see at the end where I ejected the disk manually.

I finally resolved this. However, I had to erase the entire backup on my 3tb and start with a new backup. I connected via hardwire to make it go faster. No problems now.

Hi, I have a hard disk failure so to recover my data I am using disk utility to restore the data on an external drive while booting from a second external hard drive. When I perform the operation it gives me an input/output error and stops. Any tips?

Hi, I have a hard disk failure so to recover my data I am using disk utility to restore the data on an external drive while booting from a second external hard drive. When I perform the operation and after having selected both my destination and source drives, the operation begins but soon fails due to input/output error. If I try to create an image of the drive it gives me the same error message. Any help would be much appreciated.

Disk Utility only creates a image of the drive, so it's no help getting exactly what you want, which is your files. If the file structure is messed up or the drive is failing then it's no help.
If you have a external boot drive and you can't access the internal non-booting drive though the typical Finder and windows to transfer your files via drag and drop methods, then you need to install Data Rescue on the external boot drive and it will do as best as it can to recover your files. (works on non-encrypted/non-Filevaulted drives only)
.Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
Are you sure you have hard drive failure, or that OS X isn't merely not booting?
Because if the drive is working physically, then there is a host of fixes
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents#/

Error disk utility can't repair this disk...disk and restore your backed-up files

I have been working on a project using an external hard disk. I used my Macbook Pro (2010) to create this project and files (about 31 GB). Now I am trying to open the disk on my iMac (2014) and it doesn't show up. I can see the HDD when I use disk utility but get this message when I try to repair/restore the disc:
"error disk utility can't repair this disk...disk and restore your backed-up files"
The funny thing is that the disk works absolutely fine with my Macbook Pro. What am I missing?
Imac :OSX 10.9.4 , 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 Gb Ram.

Nico,
Did you find a way?
This just happened to me too.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5981446
-John

Problems with Disk Utility backup & restore via DMG disk images

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