S.M.A.R.T. failing in Disk Utility report

A friend is having trouble with his G4 Cube. When I run the Disk Utility program and high light the Hard Drive (not the Macintosh HD) - a red warning near the bottom right says "S.M.A.R.T. failing" - what does this mean.
Many thanks, Jim

It means there is a high probability of the hard drive becoming unusable very soon.
He should back up his most important data with all due haste.
There are two schools of thought about whether or not such a drive becomes a total loss.
The safer school says the drive is toast.
Another school says that you may be able to re-use the drive by erasing it with DiskUtility and using the zeroing option (which writes 0s everywhere on the drive and resets the error counter) and then reformatting.

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Disk utility reports "Device could not be opened" - error when trying to format a new drive in a Mac Pro 1,1

MacPro 1,1 Quadcore 3 GHz (2006 "Woodcrest")
32 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5770
OS X 10.7.5 Lion
I have encountered the following behavior when trying to format a new drive with disk utility. This description has also been send via the Mac Pro feedback as a bug report to Apple.
On searching the web and forums with this particular error message and behaviour I could not find any usful results. So maybe the following description may be helpful for some users.
Best regards.
1. Drive Bay 1 contains the original 250 GB Startupdisk. It works without errors.
2. Drive Bays 3 and 4 contain each a WD Caviar Black 2 TB SATA 3 HDD. They work without errors.
3. I have purchased a third WD Caviar Black 2 TB HDD.
4. In Drive Bay 2 there has been a Seagate 750 GB HDD, which worked in conjunction with all the other drives without error.
5. I exchanged the Seagate HDD in Drive Bay 2 with the new WD Caviar Black 2 TB HDD.
6. On starting the system, it will report to initialize the new drive.
7. On trying to initialize the new drive with disk utility it reports the error [translated from German] "Erasing of the volume has failed. The device could not be opened."
8. I thought that the drive is faulty. Thus I created an RMA-Case at WD. They exchanged the drive without problems.
9. On getting the exchanged WD Caviar Black 2 TB drive I put it in Drive Bay 2 as before.
10. On trying to erase and format the exchange drive I got the same error message "Drive could not be opened."
10.1 On selecting the physical drive in the devices list, disk utility reports all information in the bottom area of its window as usual, e. g. hard disk description, connection bus, type and place, capacity, write status, SMART-status, partition scheme.
10.1 On leaving that drive selected in the devices list and clicking the info-button, disk utility will also report additional information as usual, e. g. Name, Type, partition scheme, media-identification, media name, media type, device tree, … , number of relocated sectors, etc.. All this information appears to be valid, as can be compared to the other devices information inside the other Drive Bays. Also the disk numbering scheme appears to be standard - 4 HDDs give the numbering disk0, disk1, disk2, disk3.
10.2 From that information I conclude that the SATA-bus and connectors electrically work properly, the drive has spun up and can be accessed by the system normally.
11. I powered down the computer, took out the HDDs from Drive Bays 3 and 4 and put the caddy with the new exchange drive in Drive Bay 4 [Maybe, I could have also just left it alone in Drive Bay 2, or 3].
12. After powering on the system, disk utility will quick format the exchange drive without any error message. Also, when erasing again by selecting the option to write zeros to the drive, disk utility will finish without error.
13. After disk utility finished formatting, I put back the original drives into Drive Bay 3 and 4 and put the now newly formatted drive back into Drive Bay 2.
14. After switching on the computer the system start and login proceeds without any error message. All drives appear as expected on the desktop.

If anyone is reading this still looking for what caused the issue and how to fix it here is what I discovered.
The antivirus program our company uses, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, was causing some of the PDF files not to open. After troubleshooting the different modules and settings the culprit was..
Scan SSL in Privacy Control Settings. Turning it OFF solved the problem and all the PDF files that previously would not open now open just fine. This issue has been sent to Bitdefender for them to review. If you use a different antivirus program and are having this issue try locating the Scan SSL setting and see if turning it off solves the problem.

Disk Utility reports everything is fine but everything action is slow?

My 13in MacBook Pro has been running very slow lately. Disk Utility reports everything is fine yet the pinwheel shows up all the time and it takes forever to respond to a clicked app. What's going on?

First, back up all data immediately, as your boot drive might be failing.
Step 1
This diagnostic procedure will query the system log for messages that may indicate a hardware fault. It changes nothing, and therefore will not, in itself, solve your problem.
If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator. I've tested them only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, they may not work as described.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
syslog -k Sender kernel -k Message CReq 'Channel t|GPU D|I/O|nspace-h|n Cause: -' | tail | open -ef
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V).
The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear.
A TextEdit window will open with the output of the command. Normally the command will produce no output, and the window will be empty. If the TextEdit window (not the Terminal window) has anything in it, stop here and post it — the text, please, not a screenshot. The title of the TextEdit window doesn't matter, and you don't need to post that.
Step 2
There are a few other possible causes of generalized slow performance that you can rule out easily.
Reset the System Management Controller.
If you have many image or video files on the Desktop with preview icons, move them to another folder.
If applicable, uncheck all boxes in the iCloud preference pane.
Disconnect all non-essential wired peripherals and remove aftermarket expansion cards, if any.
Check your keychains in Keychain Access for excessively duplicated items.
Boot into Recovery mode, launch Disk Utility, and run Repair Disk.
If you're booting from an aftermarket SSD, see whether there's a firmware update for it.
If you have a MacBook Pro with dual graphics, disable automatic graphics switching in the Energy Saverpreference pane for better performance at the cost of shorter battery life.
Step 3
When you notice the problem, launch the Activity Monitor application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Activity Monitor in the icon grid.
Select the CPU tab of the Activity Monitor window.
Select All Processes from the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected.
Click the heading of the % CPU column in the process table to sort the entries by CPU usage. You may have to click it twice to get the highest value at the top. What is it, and what is the process? Also post the values for % User, % System, and % Idle at the bottom of the window.
Select the System Memory tab. What values are shown in the bottom part of the window for Page outs and Swap used?
Next, select the Disk Activity tab. Post the approximate values shown for Reads in/sec and Writes out/sec (not Reads in and Writes out.)
Step 4
If you have more than one user account, you must be logged in as an administrator to carry out this step.
Launch the Console application in the same way you launched Activity Monitor. Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Select the 50 or so most recent entries in the log. Copy them to the Clipboard (command-C). Paste into a reply to this message (command-V). You're looking for entries at the end of the log, not at the beginning.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some personal information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting. That should be easy to do if your extract is not too long.

Disk utility reporting "Microsoft Reserved"

Hello,
I have been having a problem with Disk Utility reporting a NTFS volume as a Microsoft Reserved one. I run Windows XP on the NTFS partition, and use macdrive to access my HFS+ vol, but I cant use NTFS-3G to access the other way round, as it wont mount. Does anyone know of a method to possibly rescan the hard drive? rEFIt recognizes it.
Thanks in advance.
iMac 24" Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Do you have a backup of at least your personal data on the drive? If you do, you should try reformatting (erasing) the drive using Disk Utility, before giving up on it.
Restart from your Mac OS X installation disc, for the system you have installed currently; to do so, insert disc and restart with the C key held down. When you get to the first Installer screen (after language selection), go up to the menu bar. Under Utilities, select to run Disk Utility. In the sidebar, select the internal drive. On the +First Aid+ tab, run +Repair Disk+ (not +Repair Disk Permissions+ ). Do you still get that previous error at some point in this process? Do you get some other error that Disk Utility is not able to repair?

Disk utility reports smaller hard drive size than actual

I have been using a 3tb external drive (Formatted mac osx journaled) without any problems on my mac mini. Suddenly, it no longer allows me to write to the drive and more often it does not even recognize the drive when it is in the caddy. The caddy supports USB3 and is fairly new. The hard drive is a 7200rpm seagate.
When looking at the drive in disk utility, it states that the drive is 2.2 TB while the size is 3TB.
Does anyone have similar problems? Any recommendations?
Currently on OS X version 10.8.5.
Thanks!
When I insert the drive in the caddy I get the error message that it is not readable. Disk utility reports it as 2.2tb. The drive is a 3TB Seagate.

Hi Eric,
Can't really hook it up directly to a mac mini as the mini is pretty sealed. I did connect it to a PC as I wanted to run SpinRite on it and SpinRite gave me an error message that the Drive Size reported was less than the actual physical drive size.
SpinRite recommended not to perform any actions on the drive due to this discrepancy.
Not sure where to go at this point.
I could try to re-format the 3TB with OS X Journal and see if I get the 3tb back...

Disk Utility reports 'Volume could not be repaired' Now what?

Disk Utility reports that my internal HD cannot be repaired (I tried booting to the installation CD as-well-as a Superduper image with the same result). Here is the complete dialogue:
Verify and Repair disk “iMac_HD”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Illegal name
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Repairing volume.
The volume iMac_HD could not be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
Repair attempted on 1 volume
1 volume could not be repaired
Unfortunately the backup image has the same problem, so no use restoring the internal HD from it. So what do I do now? I read on a forum that the 'illegal name' error is caused by Photoshop CS, but didn't see a solution. Help!
 20" Intel iMac (2.0GB RAM, 256MB VRAM, 500GB HD) Mac OS X (10.4.6)

I get this error occassionally too. In those cases I take my original install dvd, put it in, reboot and hold the c key.
It then starts an install (don't worry, it won't do anything). When the install screen appears, in the top menu you can select Disk Utility.
Repair the disk from there, it will probably manage now. I guess something is interfering with Disk Utility when all of OS X has loaded.
Once the disk is repaired, verify/repair permissions, exit the program and reboot (don't hold and press c this time around).
Hope this helps.
Lars.
20" iMac Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Disk Utility reports DVD disc does not have enough space

I am trying to create backup DVDs of some valuable data using my Macbook
I have used Disk Utility to create a disk image of the original DVD. When trying to burn the image to the blank DVD (4.7GB DVD-R), Disk Utility reports: 'The disc inserted does not have enough free space'. This occurs for both a disk/disc image of 4.26GB and one of a mere 451MB.
Any ideas on how can I overcome this?
PS: when is a disk a disc and vice-versa? Apple don't seem to know; the spellings above are verbatim.

If you are trying to duplicate the DVD then I suggest trying this:
Duplicate a CD or DVD
1. Insert the DVD/CD;
2. Open Disk Utility, and select the DVD/CD from the left side list (select the DVD/CD icon on top);
3. from the DU File menu select New | Disk Image from Disk 1;
4. Choose to format the disk image as DVD/CD Master, name the disk image and click Save;
5. When the .cdr file is finished select it with mouse and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info and check the box to lock the file;
6. Choose the .cdr file from the left side list, click Burn, and insert a new, blank DVD or CD.
Otherwise I would consider using backup software that can span a backup across multiple optical media such as Retrospect, Toast, etc. You can look for them at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
It's hard to offer more because you really did not provide any detail on precisely what you are doing and how you are trying to do it. More information may enable us to provide better suggestions.

Disk Utility reports a block count error for a deleted file?

I carry out a regular scan of the hard drive and on occasions disk utility reports that a file has a bad block count. It is usually a large file like a CR2 or TIFF and is also one which has been deleted? Not only put in the trash but emptied the trash as well.
The only other thing of note, which I havn't checked if it is relevent to my problem, is on occasion when I go to empty the trash it reports it can't be fully emptied as one of the files is still in use, even though it isn't? If I use secure empty trash it dletes the file.
In case its relevent:
I use Canon's DPP & ACR for CR2 files and PS CS6/CC for TIFF's. I also delete TIFFS from within Bridge CS6/CC.
Both Disk Utility and Drive Genius report the SMART status as being OK.

Hi Hollie, and welcome to the forums!
Have you created images before successfully?
Is this to/on your boot drive, or an external drive?
Have you done any Disk/OS maintenance lately?
We might see if there are some big temp files left or such...
How much free space is on the HD, where has all the space gone?
OmniDiskSweeper is now free, and likely the best/easiest...
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/
WhatSize...
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13006/
Disk Inventory X...
http://www.derlien.com/
GrandPerspective...
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

'volume check failed', and disk utility can't fix it

I was planning to create a new bootable backup today and ran 'repair disk' from an install disk before cloning.
Unfortunately I grabbed a Panther disk by mistake, and only discovered it was the wrong disk as I took it out. By then, DU had run through the 'repair' - changing quite a few things - until it showed 'volume cannot be repaired'.
I've tried to correct them using DU from the Tiger install disk, but without any luck. DU shows:
+Invalid catalogue record type+
+Volume check failed+
+Error: the underlying task reported failure on exit+
+1 Volume could not be repaired because of an error+
My iBook still appears to be running perfectly, but obviously I need to repair the disk before I can clone it. Disk Utility can't do it - could DiskWarrior?
I'd really appreciate some advice on the options open to me, and the best way to do it.

Success!
I powered down and ran DiskWarrior a 2nd time to rebuild the directory. This time I skipped the recommended Preview stage and went straight to confirming Rebuild. Everything now seems to be fine again. DU finds no faults with the disk, and the iBook feels significantly quicker and snappier.
Two things I learnt that might be helpful - the first is, it's easy to be careless for just a moment and end up in a time-consuming mess. It's the first time I've done it, and I won't be doing it again.
Second thing is, when people say DiskWarrior is slow to boot, they mean it - it took at least 10 minutes to show up on screen, which is unsettling. And the Preview stage, for me, was equally unnerving.
Still, it worked - superbly - all my data is intact, the iBook is overhauled and working faster than ever.

Disk Utility Reports Volume Check Failed

I've been having some trouble with one of my two internal hard drives, so by mistake I ran Disk Utility from the Panther install disk on my PowerPC G5 running 10.4.10...I didn't realize until after I'd run Disk Repair that it wasn't the Tiger install disk I was using.
The Disk Repair Utility from the 10.3 install disk reported an "Invalid Leaf Record Count(it should be 41 instead of 210)". It also said that "2 HFS Volumes Repaired, 1 Volume Could Not Be Repaired". This was particularly puzzling since there were only two partitions on that internal hard drive. What was this other Volume it referred to?
Upon realizing that I was using an old CD, I ran Disk Utility from the Tiger install disk, and got a report "Invalid Catalog Record Type. Volume Check Failed."
Can anyone shed any light on what this all means, and how I can fix it?
Many thanks in advance!
-Zina

Thanks, abrody, for your reply. First, I ws lucky in that there was no indication other than Retrospect reporting a problem with this, the client machine, so all data was available and the system seemed to be working fine (other than the error report).
Here's what worked for me: I ran Disk Repair (from the Tiger install disk)on all 4 partitions on my second internal HD, and came up with a clean report. I erased one of the partitions and, using SuperDuper, I cloned the system partition from the troublesome partition on the other internal HD. Then I ran Disk Repair from the install disk again, on the cloned partition, to be sure I didn't carry over the problem with the clone. It came up clean.
Then I erased the troublesome system partition and cloned the system back over from the trouble-free partition clone.
I ram Disk Repair again from the install disk, just to make sure everything came up with a clean bill of health, which it did.
But I'm going to keep a close eye on this internal HD, since I think it's possible it's failing. I always back up all my data every night, so at least I'm covered there.
Again, thanks so much for your reply and help.
Message was edited by: Zina
Message was edited by: Zina

RAID drive is listed as "failed" in disk utility - how to fix it ?

hello all. I set up a RAID with two LaCie 250GB drives about two months ago and have been using it to handle my itunes library and some back up files. It was working fine but launched disk utility the other day i looked at the mirrored raid and it said it was "degraded" and that one of the drives has failed. The first question is how do i fix the situation - do i need to "rebuild" the drive through disk utility ? and if so will i loose info or since it is mirrored, the other drive will simply overwrite it with the redundant information ? I was just intimidated by the warning after clicking the rebuild button...that my drive will be wiped. I have looked and some suggest I restart, plug unplug the firewire, etc and i have doen all of that.
Any help would be great.
thanks
-peter

See Disk Utility->Help->Disk Utility Help->A disk in a RAID set has failed or is missing.

First Aid Failed in Disk Utility

Ok, i heard it was one of those monthly things to verify and repair the disk if needed, and it won't let me, because it gets the error
The underlying task reported failure on exit.
What does that mean? and how do i just repair it, without verifying?
This is all the stuff in the text / info windows.. thing.
Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Incorrect number of thread records
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Volume Header needs minor repair
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
Verifying volume “WINDOWS HD”
** /dev/disk0s3
** Phase 1 - Read FAT
** Phase 2 - Check Cluster Chains
** Phase 3 - Checking Directories
** Phase 4 - Checking for Lost Files
46512 files, 1607024 free (725166 clusters), 8 bad (1 clusters)
Mounting Disk
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
1 non HFS volume checked
Volume passed verification

You can't repair the disk you are booted from, just verify it (and I think I've seen people report that the process sometimes gives spurious error messages). In order to repair your internal hard drive boot from the install DVD. Go to the installer menu bar and select the Disk Utility there, then select Repair Disk.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Disk utility reports failing hard drive with error code STF/8/3:2 ATA BUS 0

My imac G5 (running Tiger) suddenly decided not to boot past the grey apple screen with the spinning wheel. I ran the disk utility and received error code STF/8/3:2 ATA BUS 0 MASTER on the mass storage test. I tried to run repair and only received a message "fatal hard drive error etc... back up, recover asap... I could not access the disk so I connected my new MacBook Pro by firewire in target disk mode. My HD shows up however, "nothing" shows up under when my "user" file. All I care about saving is my iphoto library. Everything else is trivial. Can someone Please help me? Is there any way I will be able to save this file?
Message was edited by: Elizabeth Burson

Welcome to Discussions - you can try DiskWarrior and see if it can retrieve some of your data. You can also take it in to Apple with an external fire wire drive you have purchased elsewhere (cheaper) and see if they can transfer the data. You can then install the external into your computer.

Why does .dmg creation fail in Disk Utility app ?

Want to duplicate a DVD with a VIDEO_TS folder containing various video files. Inserted the DVD, started Disk Utility, selected the mounted DVD in the Disk Utility left window, and chose File>New>Disk Image from (the mounted DVD name). In the Convert Image panel, I chose a name, selected "read-only" and hit Save. The Disk Utility Progress panel states a .dmg is being created and shows a progress bar. Then it displays the following message: "Unable to create 'disk2.dmg' - No such file or directory" I'm pretty sure the DVD I wish to copy was burned on a Windows PC.
Thoughts?
iMac 2 GHzIntel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.9) w/superdrive
iMac 2 GHzIntel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Hi and welcome to Discussions,
for such an easy task as duplicating I use SimplyBurns http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19778/simplyburns
It's much easier to use than Disc Utility and/or making a DMG
first.
Regards
Stefan

Disk Utility reports minor repair required - how risky is this?

I was verifying permissions the other day and thought I'd check the hard drive as well. When running the verify hard drive it stopped with an error report as follows:
Volume Header needs minor repair
The Volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired
Error the underliying task reported failure on exit. 1HFS volume checked. Volume needs repair.
The Macbook seem to be running fine. Should I run the repair or leave it. Someone once told me that if the Disk Utility fails to repair the problem it can leave the disk unusable. Any truth in that?
Thanks
Michael
iMac G4 15" flat screen : MacBook 1.83 (Tiger) Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Directory structure issues can lead to freezing, general slowness, startup issues (computer may not startup all the way), Applications or files may not open.
It is usually suggested to repair the disk with Disk Utility that came with the computer or a disk utility that is compatible with the operating system that you are using.
Here are some articles from Apple's knowledge base. Some are technical:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302411
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=13628
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=7565
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=19516
Directory structure issues usually are not HW issues, but is the way the computer or OS, stores/sorts information on the Hard drive.

S.M.A.R.T. failing in Disk Utility report

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