Reported Fatal Hardware Error to Disk Utility

I see the following message in my Power Book G4 Disk Utility:
"This drive has Reported Fatal Hardware Error to Disk Utility. If drive has not failed completely, back up as much data as you can and then replace it with a new drive."
I already made a back up my Home folder to my external HD. The install disk utility reports the same and has grey the repair uptions.
The spinning beachball appears constantly when using Safari and iTunes. What should I do?

If your Mac is no longer under the standard 1-yr warranty period or under the 3-yr extended warranty if you purchased the AppleCare extended warranty for your PB, you need to purchase a new internal hard drive that is compatible with your Mac model. This is something you can install yourself or take your Mac to an Apple authorized repair facility to purchase and have a new internal hard drive installed.
The repair facility should include re-installing whichever OX version and all software that was pre-installed and shipped with this Mac when purchased new. If this wasn't Tiger and you purchased a Tiger retail install package, you can re-install the Tiger upgrade yourself and then replace all data from your backup on the new hard drive.

Similar Messages

  • Disk Utility Reporting Fatal Hardware Error

    Hello all,
    I woke up this morning to the flashing folder with a question mark in it on my MacBook. I know that that means the system can't find the OS so I assumed that my hard drive had magically failed overnight. So I turned my computer off and then rebooted and everything loaded properly. I went into Disk Utility and my main hard drive that has OS X on it is highlighted in red and when I click on it, Disk Utility only displays "This drive has reported a fatal hardware error to Disk Utility. If the drive has not failed completely, back up as much data as you can and then replace it with a working drive."
    I have noticed EXTREMELY sluggish performance by my computer in these past two days which has required me to force quit programs and force shut down the system more times than I've had to in the whole time I've had this computer. Could this be a side effect of the failing drive?
    I'm backing everything up right now, but I'm wondering how accurate Disk Utility is. The drive that I have in here is a non-Apple-installed 250 GB Western Digital that's been in here for nearly a year. Is it possible that the drive is failing beyond repair already? If so, is there any way to see the full extent of the damage and attempt to repair it before I go out and buy a new hard drive to replace it with?
    Thanks for all the help and the fast responses!

    Mateo wrote:
    Hello all,
    I woke up this morning to the flashing folder with a question mark in it on my MacBook. I know that that means the system can't find the OS so I assumed that my hard drive had magically failed overnight. So I turned my computer off and then rebooted and everything loaded properly. I went into Disk Utility and my main hard drive that has OS X on it is highlighted in red and when I click on it, Disk Utility only displays "This drive has reported a fatal hardware error to Disk Utility. If the drive has not failed completely, back up as much data as you can and then replace it with a working drive."
    I have noticed EXTREMELY sluggish performance by my computer in these past two days which has required me to force quit programs and force shut down the system more times than I've had to in the whole time I've had this computer. Could this be a side effect of the failing drive?
    yes, it could.
    I'm backing everything up right now, but I'm wondering how accurate Disk Utility is. The drive that I have in here is a non-Apple-installed 250 GB Western Digital that's been in here for nearly a year. Is it possible that the drive is failing beyond repair already?
    yes, it's quite possible.
    If so, is there any way to see the full extent of the damage and attempt to repair it before I go out and buy a new hard drive to replace it with?
    check the SMART status in disk utility as suggested. if it says anything but "verified" it means that the drive is expected to fail completely and you shouldn't try to repair it. If it says "verified" It's possible that reformatting will fix it so you can try that. this will wipe all the data on it so clone it off first as gbullman suggested. BTW, most drives come with manufacturers warranty longer than a year and you should be able to replace the drive. that's what I would recommend.
    Thanks for all the help and the fast responses!

  • Is a Disk Utility "fatal hardware Error" Always fatal?

    Help!
    I'm traveling for the next four weeks and have my lap top with me to do work.
    Last night I was working fine on my computer when all of a sudden Photoshop wouldn't open files right. I quite out of Photoshop (slow)
    Then tried to quit out of everything else (slow) and finally shut down holding the Power button down. I waited a few minutes and tried to reboot.
    It was REALLY slow starting back up. (about 15 to 20 minutes). I held the Power key down to turn it off and left it overnight hoping it would figure itself out by morning.
    This am the same start up problem happened. I finally got it opened and manuvered to Disk Utility.
    IT GAVE ME THIS MESSAGE
    This drive has reported a Fatal Hardware Error to Disk utility.
    If the drive has not failed completely, Back up as much as you can and
    then replace it with a working drive.
    HERE IS WHAT I DID EARLIER IN THE EVENING THAT I THINK MADE IT WACKY.
    I hadn't installed SUITCASE X1 yet and was using the program Font Book that comes with the computer. It wasn't satifactory so I went ahead and installed Suitcase X1.
    FONT BOOK kept showing a ton of open faces.
    I carefully (or so I thought) went through Font Books "All fonts" window and got rid of fonts that I didn't see in the system fonts folder. (I think this is where I really may have screwed up)
    FYI I am a graphic designer and use many fonts.
    I store all the design fonts in a folder in USERS > SHARED> FONTS
    I directed SUITCASE to "Manage system fonts"
    Every thing was working fine for a few hours.
    I was working in QUARK 6 easily and listening to a Podcast. No problems.
    When I went to open PHOTOSHOP, it (Photoshop) started running very slow.
    and all the things I mentioned above started to happen.
    I have the OS10.4 install disk with me so I tried to boot from it.
    (I thought maybe it had a utility on it to help fix things or maybe I could copy any important fonts that I accidently trased
    (btw do you hold down OPTION C to boot from a CD or APPLE C?
    I tried them all)
    I couldn't get it to boot from the CD
    Have I really wrecked my computer?
    Do we think it's a font problem.
    Can I fix it. I'm at the beach in NC and there's no techys around!!!!
    I am currently typing this email on the laptop so it's not completely dead.
    Just super slow and threatening to die.
    What should I do??!!!
    Did I mention today is my birthday?
    PowerbookG4   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  

    It's either OPTION or C. Unfortunately, the Install CD doesn't give you much access to file operations (no Finder) as Mac OS 9 and earlier did.
    If you could start it in Target Disk Mode and mount the drive on another Mac, or boot it from an external drive with a Mac OS X installation on it you could try to recover files that aren't already backed up.

  • Drive has reported a fatal error to Disk Utility, HELP ME PLEASE!!!

    I'm a little worried my Macbook Pro has become an overpriced paperweight.
    Here's what happened:
    I had a spare 512MB RAM, which was taken out of my 24" iMac Intel Core 2 Duo when I replced it with a 1GB RAM and, after checking several sources on the web, successfully installed the extra RAM in the MBP.
    I restarted the MBP and the new RAM was registered after checking in About this Mac. I then began using the MBP as normal and wrote and saved a Word document. I clicked on the email and Safari icons in the dock and they just kept bouncing in the dock without launching. Pressed Power button - nothing. Took out the battery and replaced it after 30secs and pressed power button. All I got was the grey screen with the Apple logo and the winding circle which stayed like that for 20 minutes.
    First reaction was to remove the RAM and restart. Same endless grey screen and winding circle.
    Rebooted from CD, checked disk and repaired and said everything was OK. Restarted without CD still nothing.
    Tried Archive and Install and came back with an error during installation.
    Tried Erase and Install - same error.
    Tried to select startup disk and it no longer could find my HD yet Disk Utility could find it and told me everything was OK. Tried resetting PRAM nothing.
    Tried to erase the HD and nothing happened. Erasing a HD takes some time, but everytime I hit erase 10 seconds later it was back to the same point where I began
    Next tried to create one single partition and struck the message Drive has reported a fatal hardware error to disk utility. Even the lettering for the main drive is now in red.
    Do I need to replace the hard drive altogether or is there a solution to this problem. Was it the RAM that brought me undone or was that just a coincidence?
    PLEASE HELP ME!!!

    make sure that you haven't used it yet as RAM can only be used in one machine, not transferred to another one (like you did).
    Sorry, but that's completely untrue, and I don't know where you might have read or heard such a fallacy. RAM has no registration that even tells a system that it's been used, much less a key that would make it work only in one system. As long as the RAM is properly compatible and precautions are taken not to shock a system with static electricity while removing or inserting the component or causing mechanical damage, a RAM module can be swapped between systems as often as desired.

  • Disk Utility is reporting a fatal hardware error-S.M.A.R.T. status failing. Is there hope?

    OS 10.5.8 on a 1.8 GHz Power PC G5. Installed Western Digital WD1002FAEX as a second internal hard drive. I also installd the jumper needed to slow HD down for this computer. Initialized and formated the HD was able to back up a large iPhoto file and am still able to acceass the file from the new HD. Now Disk Utility is reporting a fatal hardware error-S.M.A.R.T. status failing. Is there hope?

    Is that on your first drive or the new one???
    Only experience I had with SMART warning was that in less than 48 hrs it was dead for good.

  • Disk Management Tool error in Disk Utility

    Update: (first, reviewing problem that I and others have been having, including on 10.4.x systems):
    When I attempt to repair permissions on my HD with Disk Utility, I get this specific error message: "Disk Utility internal error -- Disk Utility has lost its connection with the Disk Management Tool and cannot continue. Please quit and relaunch Disk Utility" and the repair-permissions will not proceed. It fails to get the proper "correct" permissions info for that drive to allow the repair. The error log points to a file in the Library called "DiskManagementToll" The path is ~/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DiskManagement.framework/Resources/DiskManag ementTool)
    This problem is appearing in many forums here and elsewhere, including 10.4.x systems (like mine) and persists in a few after deleting suggested files. Is there a sophisticated solution that addresses the problem through the DiskManagementTool file by replacing some values or replacing the file from a backup vis SUDO or Root?
    Previous posts have focused on Macs running 10.3.x and with iTunes 6.0x installed. Not here, so the problem is more general. None of the "delete iTunes / plists / Chess.app" suggested fixes have worked for me. Also tried running DU from my Tiger install disk; no luck! -- still fails when it tries to determine the correct permissions.
    The "DiskManagementTool" file apparently either stores the correct file permissions or handles reading them from the receipts in the Library. If I understand things right, Disk Utility is actually a (user)-permissioned graphic front end, while DiskManagementTool is a Root-user-level tool that actually does the heavy lifting. Can I replace -- and any benefit to that -- or rewrite it with proper access?
    There is a complete crash log report in Crash Reporter, by the way. Anyone want the text, and would it help figure out what's happening?
    I've tried the suggested deletion of iTunes 6.0.2 or Chess.app and their plists (these and other steps were suggested on MacFixIt at http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20060111090035797 the advice is, basically, to delete iTunes 6.0.2 and/or Chess.app and related plist files.) As I said, no luck!
    Everyone that I talk to says it MUST be the fault of some other 3rd-party disk utility software.
    For what it's worth, I HAVE run Disk Warrior -- and, the drive that's having the problem is a recent reinstall from a backup using Carbon Copy Cloner. The original disk is NOT having such a problem, only the hard drive on my iBook after the reinstall. Don't know if that gives any clues (or to how the link gets somehow disengaged between Disk Utility and the Disk Management Tool file / software).
    Any thoughts on that? What about replacing the Disk Management Tool file in the Library or forcing some kind of re-link to it? some Unix guru MUST know a fix!
    Obviously, the big worry for me is that I can't update my System to 10.4.5 or anything else without repairing permissions first. This IS a big deal. And others are having the same problem. Help?!?
    New 2 GHz dual g5 , Dual g4, & iBook G4 (recent) Mac OS X (10.4.4)

    A system problem was involved that became, briefly, a "known issue" that was solved in the next minor update. Solved, anyway, by the advice given by the last poster. Thanks! SJ

  • Errors in Disk Utility

    Hello. I was wondering for some opinions. i was having some problems with permission errors in disk utility so they wanted me to erase and install with a new disc set. So I completely erased the disc and reinstalled just the software on the mac os x discs. Now, after running typical software update and now I have 492 pages of permission errors. I ran it three times so far and it is still coming up with 492 errors on it.
    What could be causing this?

    Hi,
    *"i was having some problems with permission errors in disk utility so they wanted me to erase and install with a new disc set."*
    Who is they? Apple?
    You have 492 pages of permissions messages or 492 messages?
    It won't do any good to keep running it. Go here for information on permissions you can ignore. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448
    Carolyn

  • Endless errors on disk utility

    My 2nd internal hard drive in 2.5 years just died on my iMac G5. Apple is coming on-site to fix. During the 1st hard drive death, I installed the operating system on an external drive and was able to work from that drive. I assume this was legal since I was discussing all these things with AppleCare as the int harddrive died (over the course of a week of AppleCare calls). Doing this allowed me to save a substantial amt of data. Since then I have used this drive as a backup drive, rathern than as an operating system.
    Now, I'm trying the same thing with the 2nd internal hard drive death. After booting up to the external drive, the first thing I did was upgrade from 10.4 to 10.4.8. I restarted the computer using the exteral drive. The Mac OSX setup assistant wouldn't connect. I tried to disconnect and it wouldn't disconnect, either. I Force Quitted out of the setup assistant. The 2nd thing I did was run disk utility and verify permissions. It said I had no valid packages. I copied BaseSystem.pkg and Essentials.pkg into the Library. Now disk utility gives me absolutely endless errors, all of them "User differs on..." followed by "Group differs on..."
    Since this is mainly a backup disk, all my files are under ExtHD/ rather than a user. I don't know anything about packages--I read the above on an earlier post and it got rid of the "No valid packages" error on Disk Utility when I first ran it. I don't know anything about receipts, etc. About the only thing I know is that I have two libraries, one for the main hard drive and one for the user.
    I'd like to keep this external drive as a bootable system. I want to be able to run Disk Utility to clean it up. Any suggestions?
    iMac G5, MacBook   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  
    iMac G5, MacBook   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

    So I can do an archive and install, and then when the fresh Tiger is on there, would I upgrade to 10.4.8 right then? Then I suppose I copy all my backed up files to the correct user directories?
    How much memory do I need on that hard drive to archive and install? I'm assuming it archives on the same hard disk. Does that mean I have to have less than 1/2 of the memory used, so it can back itself up, or does it erase old data as it archives, freeing up memory space?
    Thanks for your input!

  • NetBoot image reports errors in Disk utility

    I am running all the latest greatest updates to Tiger Server. I have setup a computer just for NetBoots. I created the images properly. I can boot the images with no issue. The images were created as troubleshooting boot volumes instead of using physical hards drives when trouble comes up. When I open Disk Utility while booted in the NetBoot image, choose to Verify the actual physical disk within the computer that has problems, I get the message "Verify volume failed with error Could not unmount disk." The same message is given when you attempt to repair the disk as well, however it says Repair volume. At any rate, I have booted a known good computer and used Disk Utility on the good computer, and the same error message is given. My assumption is that I can boot via the network to a known good system, and then repair hard drives that need repair. It should work right"?
    None   Mac OS X (10.4.7)   Tiger Server 10.4.

    Is the Netboot image 'diskless'? If it isn't, the Netboot image is using the local Hard Drive to save some of the image's preferences that are always in use by the Operating System.

  • Problems with External Hard drive, will not mount and errors in disk utilit

    i have a powerbook g4 aluminum. i have an external hard drive for it. a simple tech 100gig portable drive, almost brand new. i dont know what happened to it, but one day i was starting my computer up with it attached. it wounldnt fully start up, said "waiting for local disks" so i uplugged the external hard drive. now it wont mount and will only show up in the disk utility of my friends macbook. i tried to verify and repair, and this is the message i got.
    Verify and Repair disk “UNTITLED”
    ** /dev/disk1s1
    could not read boot block (Input/output error)
    Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
    1 non HFS volume checked
    1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
    Im in mexico writing a book and so i really need help on this one guys.

    Hi, hjbugs, and welcome to Apple Discussions. Disconnecting the drive while your Powerbook was accessing it probably caused your problem. It may be repairable using DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro, but if you don't have access to one of those and aren't going to buy one, reformatting the drive with Disk Utility may be the only other way to make it usable again. If it contains data you need to recover first (i.e., data that isn't also stored on your internal HD or other storage media), download the free demo version of one of the data recovery utilities mentioned in this thread and use it to see what is recoverable. If the files you need are recoverable, buy the full version of one of the utilities and recover them.

  • No valid packages error in Disk Utility

    I have been experiencing some problems with my eMac so I thought I would get Disk Utility to check my HD over. First I started by checking Permissions to which I get the following error.
    Repairing permissions for “Macintosh HD”
    Error: No valid packages (-9997)
    I restarted using my install disk. When I ran Disk Utitlity it reported no problem with the HD. I did a repair run anyway, just in case. Then tried to repair permissions once more. Still the above error.
    I had about 10mb of free space left on my HD a couple of weeks ago. After some clearance work however it is now back to just under 10GB free space.

    There are Four Basic ways to use Pacifist..download from....
    www.charlessoft.com
    A. Drag a .pkg icon onto the Pacifist window .....proceed to step 7.
    B. Click on “Open Package ....” and navigate to package desired and click “Open” in the open/save window.....proceed to step 7.
    C. Insert Mac OS X installer CD and when it mounts, navigate to ....
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    /Volumes/disc name/System/Installation/Packages (where disc name is the name of the CD/DVD that you inserted.
    • Click "Go".....
    • Drag .pkg to Pacifist..... proceed to step 7.
    D. Insert your Mac OS X install disk 1 .... and open Pacifist.
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    2a. When loading is complete, a new window appears, click the triangle to display contents of each package...Select item and proceed to step 7.
    3b. or click the “Find” icon in the Pacifist window and type the name of the software you need.
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    20 of 20 files were present on the hard disk.
    0 of 20 files had file permissions that did not match those specified in the package.
    0 of 20 files had checksums that did not match those specified in the package.
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    8. If “Extract to...” is selected.... navigate to the location where the file will be placed, select “choose”, select “extract” in new dialog that appears,authenicate , if prompted, click “OK”.
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    Leave original alone
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  • Hardware error on disk

    Hello,
    3 weeks ago I notice the following message on a server:
    Oct 3 05:22:16 m530e scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@2,0 (sd2):
    Oct 3 05:22:16 m530e Error for Command: write(10) Error Level: Retryable
    Oct 3 05:22:16 m530e scsi: [ID 107833 kern.notice] Requested Block: 7961728 Error Block: 7961728
    Oct 3 05:22:16 m530e scsi: [ID 107833 kern.notice] Vendor: SEAGATE Serial Number: 053632G895
    Oct 3 05:22:16 m530e scsi: [ID 107833 kern.notice] Sense Key: Hardware Error
    Oct 3 05:22:16 m530e scsi: [ID 107833 kern.notice] ASC: 0x44 (internal target failure), ASCQ: 0x0, FRU: 0xb
    The error has not repeated. The scsi address corresponds to a submirror but metastat shows everything is OK.
    What happaned? Is there a way to test if the disk is ok? What about that block number on the message? Maybe it's just a bad block and has been mark as such (?)
    Any thoghts are greatly appreciated.

    The term soft doesnt mean software.
    Both hard and soft errors are being reported by the disk.
    A soft error is a retryable error. It could mean a write failed so was written to a spare failover block instead.
    A hard error is more serious.
    The counters reset when machine is rebooted.
    But if they keep appearing, its worth reporting or replacing the disk.
    I don't think I'd wait for hundreds. An recurring hard error is a problem.
    But I don't normally muck around with marking blocks bad. Modern disks should do that automatically.

  • FATAL HARDWARE ERROR

    My daughter has a new G4 that I tried to run a disk repair on after it started crashing continously. All that came up was: If the drive has not failed completely back up as much data as you can and then replace it with a working drive:....geesh!! Already...I know this is under repair still but is this really a hardware or a software problem and would something like this be under warranty still? She thought at first it might be a virus but couldn't seem to download any because we kept freezing up everytime we tried to. Any help?

    Well, first of all you don't have a virus, if you do, it would be the first reported virus for OSX (in other words its very unlikely).
    Have you tried booting from your iBooks install disk? If not do so (hold the "C" key at boot), and launch disk utility from it and try to do the repair.

  • Invalid Volume Free Block Count Error In Disk Utility

    My Ti-Book has been acting very strange lately so I decided to run the Verify Disk Option in the Disk Utility program. When I ran it, I got a series of messages in red that were:
    Volume Bit Map Needs Minor Repair
    Invalid volume free block count
    Error: The Underlying Task reported failure on exit
    When the verify disk function completed, I was asked to enter my administrator password. When I entered it and clicked on Okay, the Disk Utility program froze up and I had to restart.
    What do the two error messages mean? How do I repair my disk?

    Hi, WTM. The Verify Disk routine in Disk Utility is almost never worth running. It does the same error-detection tasks as the Repair Disk routine, but then it doesn't repair any errors that it finds.
    Start up from your Tiger installer DVD, open Disk Utility, select your hard drive, and run the Repair Disk routine. If you get the same "task reported failure on exit" message, you'll need a stronger directory-repair utility like DiskWarrior, or you'll need to erase your hard drive completely and reinstall everything on it.

  • Errors with Disk Utility

    On Verify Permissions for my one and only internal HD on my 3 year old Mac Book Pro, I am receiving this set of responses:
    Verify permissions for “MAC HD”
    Reading permissions database.
    Reading the permissions database can take several minutes.
    Permissions differ on "private/var/log/secure.log", should be -rw------- , they are -rw-r----- .
    Warning: SUID file "System/Library/Filesystems/AppleShare/afpLoad" has been modified and will not be repaired.
    Warning: SUID file "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Install.framework/Versions/A/Resources/runner " has been modified and will not be repaired.
    Warning: SUID file "usr/bin/setregion" has been modified and will not be repaired.
    Warning: SUID file "System/Library/Printers/IOMs/LPRIOM.plugin/Contents/MacOS/LPRIOMHelper" has been modified and will not be repaired.
    Group differs on "private/etc/cups", should be 0, group is 26.
    Permissions differ on "private/var/spool/cups/cache/rss", should be drwxr-xr-x , they are drwxrwxr-x .
    Permissions verification complete
    I've noticed a huge hit in performance since upgrading to Leopard and the issues mentioned above do not get repaired when trying to Repair Permissions.
    Are these two issues related? - The lagging performance of my cool MacBook Pro, and the Permissions errors?
    Is there a way to repair the issues with Permissions, AND - could the performance problem be something as simple as a bad stick of RAM?
    Many thanks for your help and advice,
    Joel

    See Mac OS X 10.5- Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions reports issues with SUID files. If you install the 10.5.6 Combo Updater - support.apple.com/downloads/ - these messages should cease. They are otherwise innocuous and have no effect on system performance.

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