Semi Functional Disc Drive/Disk Utility Useless

Ok, the other day I got some new DVD-R (memorex)s and tried to burn a copy of a home movie I made onto the DVD-R. Initially, I put in the DVD and began burning the movie, and about half way through the "write" process it cancels out and says "ERROR INCOMPATIBLE DISC", and spits out the DVD. So now, I try again, only now I put in the DVD, in about a second it makes this rough sounding noise, and then spits the DVD out again. The DVD is not misshapen or anything. What I thought was strange was that it was burning CD's fine, and playing regular DVD's with no trouble. Until last night, I put in a real DVD and it just spit it out. Won't accept it. So I check out Disk Utility, and it says that my HARD DRIVE, not my Pioneer disc 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." It also labels my "S.M.A.R.T." status, as "failing". My computer is working perfectly besides this DVD-R issue, so I don't see why my hard drive is reporting a fatal hardware error, when it's the disc drive that seems to be having troubles. Any thoughts?

Daryl, Welcome to the discussion area!
This is the discussion area for the iMac G3 CRT.
Is that what you have?
In your system information you list an Intel based iMac. If that is what you are discussing you should post in the Intel based iMac discussion area.

Similar Messages

Data recovery from semi-partioned external drive - Disk Utility

In a hurry to erase a DVD-RW over the weekend I stupidly started to erase an external HD!
In DU's disk list I selected my main external USB HD and clicked erase... I noticed when the progress bar said 'Partitioning' and realised that this wasn't an optical disk. I quit DU as quickly as I could (about 2 seconds into the erase) but fear now that my data is not recoverable.
Can anyone explain the erase process when this command is executed?
I have Disk Warrior and Tech Tool to help recover data but I'd like to know a bit more about what I'm doing. Opening a Finder window and the HD is empty. Showing hidden files through Onyx only shows hidden OS files. Does DU start by erasing the directory file? If so is my data likely to be intact and recoverable?
It is a Barracuda 500gb disk, which contains around 210gb of movies, music, photos, letters, website masters, and other important stuff. I was planning to get a 2nd HD to start backing up but thought it was pretty safe for now as it's a new disk and I wouldn't do anything as stupid as to accidentally erase it...
Any help or tips you can give would be greatly appreciated.

Follow-up and further headaches...
I used Data Rescue 2 to thoroughly scan the hard disk and identify the vast majority of files on the disk, despite the absence of the directory (I didn't use Disk Warrior until after the scan/salvage, DW couldn't successfully replace the directory to reflect the data on the disk). I have salvaged everything I could to other external HDs.
DR2 identified 2 groups of data: CBR content, with files organised by type, and the folder hierarchy as it was originally.
I salvaged the original hierarchy, only to find out later that the files were in fact 'ghosts' (filename intact, file icon present, and file size as it should be) which can't be opened by any associated app.
So, I have gone back to salvage the data by CBR content, which is all intact and openable, but virtually unusable: Generic file types like JPEG, MP3, AVI etc are fine to an extent, but I have no idea where to find my website master (domain.sites2) for example! Plus all of these files by type have been given sequential file-type names which makes sorting through a near-impossible task.
Is there any way I can merge the two lots of data to have my original hierarchy with the data of CBR?

TS2570 Question re: "Start from your Mac OS X Install disc; use Disk Utility"

I've worked my way through the step-by-step trouble shooting in the TS2570 article up to "Start from your Mac OS X Install disc; use Disk Utility". So far, every step results in the same outcome - my formerly trusty 2007 Intel duo core iMac (24") will not start up, freezing on a grey screen with a blinking question mark on a folder. I don't completely understand this next step. I have both a Leopard and a Snow Leopard disc. I'm not positive whether these were for the iMac, or my old Macbook Pro. I assume this makes a difference.

Question (?) Mark, Blinking Folder, or Gray Screen at Startup
These are related but not identical issues. Their causes are outlined in Intel-based Mac- Startup sequence and error codes, symbols. Solutions may be found in:
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
A flashing question mark or globe appears when you start your Mac
Mac OS X- Gray screen appears during startup
In most cases the problems may be caused by one or more of these:
a. Problem with the computer's PRAM - See Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM.
b. Boot drive's directory has been corrupted - Repair with Disk Utility.
c. Critical system files are damaged or deleted - Reinstall OS X.
d. The disk drive is physically non-functional - Replace the hard drive.
Note that the information I have provided is what Apple recommends, If other users suggest different solutions than found here, then be sure what they recommend does not impact on your warranty, if any, or ability to get continuing Apple service.
Please don't start removing drives or changing cables unless you know what you are doing and have exhausted other non-invasive alternatives outlined here. If you perform any work yourself that is unapproved by Apple, then you will void any warranty you may have and lose all further Apple Support.
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, then quit DU and return to the installer.
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.
The main difference if you are using Lion or Mountain Lion is that you must first boot from the Recovery HD. Simply boot from the Recovery HD to perform the above.
Reinstall Snow Leopard Without Erasing The drive
1. 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, then quit DU and return to the installer.
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.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
Reinstalling Lion/Mountain Lion Without Erasing The Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. 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 main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Trouble with Fantom drive / Disk Utility won't erase it

Until a few days ago, i had no problems with my Fantom 160 GB titanium drive. Then when i connected it to a freind's Mac, it started out OK fora few minutes, when my brother was playing around with creating an air network between the friend's computer, to which my fantom drive was attached, and my laptop. When i tried to activate the network, the Mac semi froze for a few minutes and just didn't do anything. when it started to move again, the fantom drive was showing 0 files in the finder window, and wouldn't eject.
So i turned it off and back on, which was probably a mistake; then the drive gave a message that it was unreadable.
Since i wouldn't lose too much data, i had no problem reinitializing the drive, but Disk Utility kept telling me that the erase failed.
When i try to verify the drive in Disk Utility, i get the error -9972: "Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)"
This is the same text i get when i try to erase the drive, but without the error number.
I see at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302411 that this message this is bad, as Disk Utility cannot fix it.
Currently, the drive does not show up on the desktop, but it does show up in Disk Utilities. It stopped telling me the drive is unreadable.
Is this drive beyond help?

Dale,
that post is helpful, but I'm not sure how much it applies to me. My ibook shows no problems when not connected to the firewire drive, while the firewire drive started acting up when connected to another computer. i have also not been able to get the firewire drive to work on two other macs. The Fantom drive showed up as unreadable on all three, and Disk Utilities on all 3 computers failed to erase the firewire drive. By brother's had Disk Warrior & it wasn't able to do anything for the fantom drive, either.

Internal Hard Drive Disk Utility Repair Problem

Hello all! I'm really hoping someone can help me out because I'm in a bit of a panic right now about all of this.
For starters, I have a Mid-2007 20" Intel based iMac.
The other day, I turned on my computer and got a flashing question mark and the computer would not boot. Luckily, I have an external hard drive, so I went through the process of using the Install Discs to use the Hard Drive to start up my computer. Everything worked out and once the computer turned on, I was able to access my Hard Drive and had full access to my files. I powered down my computer as I had to run out the door for school and was planning on backing all of my files up on my external hard drive tonight.
Unfortunately, when I turned on my computer, my internal hard drive had disappeared. I can only start the computer with my external drive plugged in.
I accessed the Disk Utility, and it was the first place I was able to locate my Hard Drive. On the left hand side, underneath the external drive, it simply says "Media". I cannot click on ANY of the options under First Aid and the only thing it seems I can do is Erase the drive.
I would REALLY like to avoid this option, as there are nearly 5 years worth of documents on this computer.
My S.M.A.R.T. Status says Not Supported, and it's saying that the Total Capacity is 0 Bytes.
I suppose I should also mention that with the disc I used I am now running OS X 10.4.11, but previously, I was running 10.5. I can't remember the last decimal place. I don't know why there was a difference, as I used the same disk...
I have NO IDEA where to go from this point besides taking it somewhere to see if my files can be recovered.
Can anyone help me out here?
If you need any more details about my computer/the actions I took, just let me know.
Thanks so much!!

If you cannot access the internal HD then it may have crashed, I am getting you may not have been backing up either so if it has crashed and you don't have a backup then your data is probably gone. If you can get the internal HD to show up again before you do ANYTHING else back it up using Time Machine (assuming you use 10.5.x or above) or create a clone on an external HD using either SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner.
My recommendation at this point is to take the machine into and an Apple Store or AASP to have it looked at.

Fix my hard drive - Disk Utility won't repair

I have a powerbook g4 1.5 17" 1.5 gig ram
it has annnn 80gig hard drive
it's only about a year or 2 old
now recently i've been having hard drive trouble
when i play movies off the hard drive they kinda freeze up and stuff, not cos of the file but the hard drive it's like they're copied onto a bad sector or something.
i have files such as pictures and movies that i try to move or copy but they wont let me, or they get half way and cant copy the rest....
oh i was using bit-torrent to download some big files and it kept stuffing up with a hard drive read/write error
now the 1.7 gig i just downloaded wont open or copy to somewhere else to open it
and thats not good
so i've tried Disk Utility and got it to Verify the hard drive and it recognises some errors and stops scanning and says you need to fix it
i think one of them is a checksum/table error or something or.... i will have to get the exact error message off it later. but it tells me to fix it but i can't press the 'repair' button cos it's not available to be clicked! so that's a bugger
is there another program i can get off version tracker to help fix this or something else i can do? any way to try and recover that huge file too?
let me know what you think and i'll give u any more info that you need cos i definately dont wanna replace the hard drive!

is that just the 2 dvd set that came with the computer?
it's like a system restore disc or something
i dont have an actual OSX disc cos it came with OSX 10.4 loaded
i'm worried that my dvd restore discs will have 10.3 on them and it wont be compatible.. although i'm not sure, does anyone know what it originally shipped with?
apple-history doesn't seem to know
and the other thing
IF i do need a new hard drive what size can i upgrade to? it's 80gig now, i know they went up to 100gig at the time but can i put anything bigger in it or will it crack it?
and what kind of hard drive do i need, i'll probly buy one off ebay - so some kind of bits that help me identify it would help heaps
THEN should i pay for someone to repair it and put it in or open her up and do it myself? i'm not worried about the changing it over part it's more how do i then format it and get it ready to go into the computer
any help will be deemed HELPFUL
thanks heaps

Problem burning disc with Disk Utility

I made a DVD in iDVD. I checked to see how big the project was and I had only used 1.2G or the 4G available. I then did "save as disc image" to my desktop. After that was completed, which took over 2 hours, I tried to use Disk Utility to burn a DVD. When I insert the DVD it says there is not enough space available. I then check my project in iDVD and the line that tells the amount of space used is completely red (all used up and over). I completely shut down iDVD and reopen and the project is back at the 1.2G size. It's a relatively small project so I'm fairly sure that it really is 1.2 and not over the limit.
I tried this procedure twice to make sure there was enough space when I start the whole process.
In the very beginning I tried to burn the project within iDVD. It burned and ejected but the screen didn't reflect that it had finished and did not ask if I wanted to burn another disc. The screen said it was still finishing the burn. The disc had ejected and it played just fine on my t.v. The only problem with this way is that I need to make lots of copies of this and having to force quit and start again makes every disc take approx. 2-1/2 hours each.

Evidently I'm not understanding what you are asking.
When I'm in iDVD I go under Project and click
"Project Info". Project Duration is 36:01 minutes.
In DVD Capacity it says 1.0 GB of 4.2 GB is being
used. I thought that was what you were wanting.
Thank you for your help. If you could tell me where
to look for the info you want I will do it promptly.
The Project Information probably doesn't include the DVD-ROM contents you want to include (and it's only a poor guess at what will be actually needed).
If your project is 36 minutes, I would expect it to actually require over 2 GB of DVD space with either 'Best Performance' or 'Best Quality' selected.
It was my understanding at the start that you HAD created a disk image file on your hard drive of your iDVD project. Is this true? This WOULD include the DVD-ROM area if things went well. I am asking you to tell me the actual size of this disk image file (click on it to select it and then select File>Get Info).
I suspect the size of the DVD-ROM area you want to create is causing your problems. Are all the digital images you want to include in the DVD-ROM area in one folder? If so, what is the size of this folder (click on it to select it and then select File>Get Info)?

Lost boot drive, Disk Util on boot CD sees but won't mount

1. My boot drive stopped booting (running Tiger)
2. Booted to 10.2 install disc, Disc Util found "keys out of order" problem, couldn't fix.
3. On extra HD, installed 10.2, boots fine
4. Now, following master/slave jumper directions on
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=111769, I can't get the boot drive to act as a slave. ID conflict?
5. The goal is to try Norton Utilities (I have version 7, hope that's late enough) to repair the keys problem or at least recover data from the drive to the new boot drive, so I need them both up simultaneously
6. What am I missing here?
thanks

Apple (MIcroMat etc) warn to never use an older
version of any disk utility, including Apple's, on a
newer system. There is a TIL if you look for it.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301269
Hatter, thanks for that. I was explaining the forward compatibility thing to my wife last night. My hope HAD been to use Norton to recover files, but after what was posted above I'm glad it didn't boot!
The other is that some systems won't boot OS X from
slave drives, probably more so with 10.2 (can you say
"beta?").
Actually, I'm not trying to boot from a slave, instead I'm trying to get to the OLD Tiger boot drive (Keys out of order) AS a slave now. Can't get a jumper setting combo to work, no matter whose documentation I use. New, 10.2 boot drive is a Maxtor 90000 model, old boot (new slave) is Quantum Fireball EX.
you should be using your Tiger DVD; and you shouldn't
be using NUM 7 or 8 on Tiger. The first thing to try
is always fsck or a clone of the current/latest
system.
Um, if I had a Tiger DVD that would be great. If I had a DVD drive, even better! I'm having to scrounge here.
I don't think B&W will support Cable Select. I would
invest in a SATA/ATA controller for 2nd drive (and
better I/O).
See above on scrounging. I've been aware of the controller issue since the B/W rev 1, they came out the first time I worked at Apple. Which reminds me, I was an assassin there, had one of the best First Call Resolution numbers. Now, three, four years later, with a computer that has run flawlessly all that time, I've forgotten more than I ever knew!
Thanks.
David

The Tale of the Beeping Macbook - AKA- My Macbook Pro keeps beeping when trying to boot into Snow Leopard Disc's disk utility

Quick back story: about a month ago my macbook was falling and I caught it quickly, I had a game controller in my hand and it lightly hit it whilst I was catching it; the laptop made no contact with the floor, couch etc. Upon reveling in my epic matrix esque catch I noticed it was beeping and the screen was completely black - Horrified I held down the power button for a forced power down and then turned it back on to see that it was fine, along with no visible scars, dents etc to the chassis. Now flash forward to present day, and the macbook pro is only two months old (bought may 4th 2011) and I notice it's got some slightly irregular slow loading points when loading a browser, photoshop, etc. I do the standard disk utility to verify the disc and it says
"Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Invalid volume file count
(It should be 537095 instead of 537096)
Invalid volume directory count
(It should be 161641 instead of 161640)
The volume Macintosh HD was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Start up your computer with another disk (such as your Mac OS X installation disc), and then use Disk Utility to repair this disk."
So I put in the snow leopard disc to go to the disk utility within, reboot the laptop, and it goes to the gray boot screen with the dark gray apple logo and stays there whilst doing the aforementioned beep from my spider-sense catch. Does anyone happen to know what is wrong? Would that tiny tap from my controller when catching it have caused this problem I have now? Is there anything I can do at home to fix this since I can't get to the disk utility on the snow leopard disk? Will Batman ever get out of the Joker's trap? Or am I better off just making a genius bar appointment? Thanks in advance.
-ZRS

Are you using the Snow Leopard disc that came with that Mac? A gray disc that came with a different Mac won't boot yours, and a Retail (white) disc with a version of OSX earlier than the one your Mac came with won't boot it, either.
If you don't have the right disc, do you have an external HD, or can you borrow one?
(By the way, your post shows you're running Tiger; you might want to update that.)

Unable to write to External Hard Drive, Disk Utility options don't work.

I am a recent new user of Apple Mac from when I bought this Macbook Air 3 months ago.
Nice machine, but difficult to get the hang of.
Specific problem I'd like help with please is to enable me to write to my Samsung S2 Portable Hard Drive (500GB)
I can see it and read files, but can't save to the EHD.
In Disk Utility, all options to verify and repair the EHD are greyed out. So, most of the friendly suggestions on other threads don't help me.
I don't know how big the hard drive is on my Macbook (nor how to find out), or how much remaining space there is, but there is over 400GB of data on the EHD.
The EHD is in NTFS format, all data on it was from Windows computers. There isn't space on my Windows laptop for all this data.
I don't have another EHD, so have nowhere to move the data to if I have to reformat the EHD.
On another thread I saw a suggestion to uninstall something or other before reformatting the EHD, but I don't even know how to uninstall programs on a Macbook.
I don't know why Apple have to spoil such a great machine by making it so difficult for non-afficionados to use (sorry, frustrated).
I say "great" because it's so light it makes work much easier. I can carry it around all day with little effort and don't have to take the charger to work.
Any help anyone could offer with the EHD will be appreciated.
Thanks...........

Hi Limnos,
Yes, I'm new to Mac, having bought this Macbook 3 months ago after years of Windows (as stated in my original post).
I still have a Windows laptop and all my work colleagues currently use Windows, so I need compatibility with both.
Paragon sounds like a good option, and I don't mind a bit of cost if it sorts the problem.
Hopefully I'll get feedback from someone who has used Paragon and can report how effective it is and whether or not there are any problems asociated with it.
Good tip thanks about the Disk Utility, I'll look into that.
Thanks........

Reformatting External Hard drive: Disk Utility crashes near the end

I recently updated to Leopard and emptied off my external hard drive and then wanted to (zero out data &) reformat it and start fresh so as to use it with the new Time Machine feature.
However, near the end of reformatting it with Disk Utility the progress just stopped and after giving it some time I did a force quit and sure enough it came to light that it had crashed. Since then I've tried again several times to the same result. I even tried doing it of the Disk Utility on the install CD and it crashed with one minute left!!
Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated!

Use a more powerful utility such as DiskWarrior, or a product such as those listed here.
(108710)

External Hard Drive Disk Utility Can't Repair the Disk

Hi,
I have a Seagate 1 TB Backup Plus Drive which was working perfectly fine until I plugged it into a USB hub. It detected it while in the hub and I was able to get files off of it, but when I ejected it from the hub and put it back into the USB slot on the computer it was not detected by finder. It shows up in the disk utility and I clicked verify and repair and it says:
Verify and Repair volume “Seagate Backup Plus Drive”
Checking file system
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
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.
Is there any way to get this to work properly again? Or if not is there a way for me to recover my files on the external hard drive?
Thanks
I have a Macbook PRO late 2011 running OS X Mavericks.

Use a more powerful utility such as DiskWarrior, or a product such as those listed here.
(108710)

External drive - disk utility won't display long - can't repair

Long time mac user --- this one has me stumped.
I have an external disk that I'm using for time machine. USB3.
Sometimes I'm in a hurry and I don't disconnect it properly. Looks like that's messed up the drive - I get "disk not ejected properly" now. Fine. That happens. Reformat, repair, apply journal, whatever.
But the drive doesn't show up in disk utility or `diskutil list`. Or, it does show up, for almost exactly 10 seconds. Although, now, it seems to show up for only about 2 seconds. Too little time to click on it and try to repair it.
I see the drive pop in, 'disk1', and in diskutil list, then vanishes. In the diskutil GUI, it shows up for less time than that, maybe only a second or two. Then the dreaded "Disk not ejected properly" dialog shows up. Every once in a while, OSX seems to retry and the disk pops up. When it does, it's read enough volume information to see that there is a controller, it's found a disk of the right size, it knows about the old volume, and then it vanishes. again.
Any tips? How do I "nuke from orbit" if disk utility keeps vanishing the disk before I can click on it. Lay in wait and hope a click hits it?
There must be a better way.....

Love the resounding silence here.
The problem was hardware. Even though putting in a different disk to the dock seemed to work, that would detach after about 3 minutes.
Buying a new dock and switching to it solved the problem.
I wish I knew which system log would have helped me trouble shoot this without having to buy another doc, but at least it's not a software problem.

Backup startup external drives, disk utility, dmgs

Dear All,
I am trying to backup my Mac Mini to a Firewire drive with an image file (dmg) using Disk Utility. But I get this error: "Unable to create dmg. Resource busy." That is due to my startup disk being my Mini which I'd like to backup. So I've tried to make a backup drive with a working system 10.4.10 folder, but found that my Mini did not come with install disks. Dragging and dropping the files from the Mini to an external disk does not result in a hard disk that can be used as a startup disk. Is this normal? When I opened the Mac Mini package it did not indicate that I was due to find install disks.
So how can I make an external backup FWire drive that I can start from, and then do a backup using Disk Utility of my Mini's internal hard drive?
Thanks for any advice.

Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disk. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.
How to Clone Using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the startup or source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
8. Select the destination drive on the Desktop and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. At the bottom in the Ownership and Permissions section be sure the box labeled "Ignore Permissions on this Volume" is unchecked. Verify the settings for Ownership and Permissions as follows: Owner=system with read/write; Group=admin with read/write; Other with read-only. If they are not correct then reset them.

IMac not booting from HD, cannot repair disc in Disk Utility

First the problem:
I've had the imac G5 for nearly two years and its been running without a problem, now it suddenly wouldn't start up. Firstly I get two or three grey screens in succession looking as if being drawn from top to bottom very quickly, then the apple logo and timer, after a minute or so the fans start up to full power and it stays that way.
What I've tried:
Reading around discussions I tried rebooting from DVD installer and using disk utility. Result: error message: The underlying task reported failure on exit. 1 volume could not be repaired because of an error.
Because I want to sell the imac I had backed up all of my important data so I zero-wrote the hard drive in preferrence to buying a third party repair package. Reinstalled from DVD. Shut down and restarted. Everything worked except those banding grey screens appeared that were never there before. Something looks wrong. Then when i tried to reinstall microsoft office (as a test) the OS seemed to freeze and I had to shut it down again. Now it won't boot up as before. This looks like a very serious problem.
I hesitate to buy tech tool pro in case that doesn't solve it either.
Can't think if I did something to cause this. All I've been doing is transferring some data via ethernet to a newer mac. There was also a Lacie firewire drive linked to both computers as i was backing up stuff. One night I shut the iMac down and the next day it started with this problem.
Well... any educated suggestions would be most welcome,
thanks.
By the way, the memory in the mac was purchsed from a third party and installed ages ago by myself. Never been a problem with it and have been running Final Cut Studio no trouble.
iMac G5 2GHz Mac OS X (10.4.7) RAM 2GB

Long story short, I had the same problem last week, just after installing the latest software updates. I went through all the resets and disk utility verification (multiple times with phone support -- Apple Care), then took it to the local Apple store b/c nothing worked. They couldn't figure it out either and recommended that I try to backup my data on my bootable external drive before they started messing with my hard drive, since Apple stopped providing this service. I brought it home, could not boot from my external drive, so booted from the disk again, just for kicks I ran the same verification process (this was the 3rd or 4th time). This time something happened but it still failed. So I ran it three more times (each time something new happened and then it failed, until the third time when everything worked. The only problem now is that I seem to have lost all sound???? I did immediately make a duplicate of the Imac hard drive. Any thoughts on how to get my sound back? hope this helps....
Imac G5 20" Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Semi Functional Disc Drive/Disk Utility Useless

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