TS1440 If disk utility cannot identify any hard drive

if disk utility can't identify the hard drive(i changed three different),then what?

It could be a hardware failure. If Disk Utility can't see the drive, usually the directory is so badly damaged that it doesn't show up, or it could be hardware. I usually turn to a 3rd party utility called Disk Warrior. Its saved me a bunch of times. I have seen it bring drives back to life that I was pretty sure were gone. http://www.alsoft.com
Can you verify that the drive is running? Can you hear it spin up?
Its not clear to me if you are saying that you tried 3 different hard drives, is that correct? Internal or external?

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HT1782 disk utility wont fix my hard drive please help!!! it has assignments on it

hey i usually use disk utility to fix my hard drive problems of been invisible, but lately, doing disk utility and repairing the disk doesn't seem to work anymore? do you guys have any other suggestions, its a seagate go flex hard drive

You need to boot to recovery mode to repair the boot drive (partition containing the operating system). Hold cmd+r on boot up, or hold the alt key and select recovery when you are given the options of what partition to boot to.

G4 disk utility does not see hard drive

I am helping someone with a G4 Quicksilver. She is running 10.4 but only has disks for 10.1 and 10.2. When I boot with the 10.2 CD, disk utility does not see the hard drive. I was thinking of connecting her computer to my MacBookPro (Intel, 10.5) via target disk mode and then running Disk Utility. Is that crazy? She is suffering from slow startup and grey screen. I've disconnected the periferals, safe booted, reset PRAM. She really needs Disk Utility.

with the 10.2 CD, disk utility does not see the hard drive.
Disk Utility from 10.2 should see the hard drive (the drive name should appear in the left box). If it does not, the drive is malfunctioning or has a loose cable.
If you attempt to Verify, it will complain that there are illegal values in reserved fields in several different record types. Using this older Disk Utility to repair a 10.4 disk may cause more problems than it solves.
As Tom \[Texas Mac Man] says, you should only repair 10.4 and later disks with 10.4 and later Disk Utility:
HT2648- Only use Mac OS X 10.4-compatible disk utilities with Mac OS X 10.4 volumes
• If you boot the regular Hard Drive (no CD/DVD required) while holding down the Shift key, it will do a quick check of the Hard Drive, then boot up in "Safe Mode". This will fix any simple Disk problems.
• 10.4.3 and later can do a Disk Utility Verify of the Boot drive, "live" (but cannot Repair "live").

Disk Utility cannot verify External Hard Disc

Hi,
Trying to get Disk Utility to Verify and repair an external Hard Disc, which is seen but only as 'disk1s1' not it's proper name. On plugging in it asks if I want to initialise the disk - obviously No.
DU sees the HD in the side bar but it's grey'd out, I can't mount it, Verify is greyed out.
Running diskutil in Terminal (which I'm not confident in) brings back the following - disk0 is my OS, disk1 is an install disk of Disk Warrior and disk2 is the external one I'm trying to sort out, as you can see it's got an FDisk_partition_scheme, which I think is the problem.
(BTW Disk Warrior doesn't recognise the disks either, however as this is an Apple Forum, I've not asked for advice on that here, unless someone wants to chime in on that software!)
I'm running OS 10.9.5, and it happens on multiple external disks, running in USB caddies of different manufacture, I've tried different cables, ports, restarts etc.
MBP 2.5GHz, i7, 16Gb, 500Gb SSD HD
Any advice would be most welcome as how get correct this
localhost:~ anthonyupton$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            499.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            DW                     *67.6 MB    disk1
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk2
   1:                       0xEE                         375.1 GB   disk2s1
localhost:~ anthonyupton$ sudo gpt recover /dev/disk2
Password:
gpt recover: /dev/disk2: no primary or secondary GPT headers, can't recover
localhost:~ anthonyupton$ diskutil repairDisk /dev/disk2
Unable to repair this whole disk: A GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning scheme is required (-69773)
localhost:~ anthonyupton$

That is just a statement of optimization. It is not stating that there IS or IS NOT any errors on the disk. DiskWarrior does not actually have a separate "error detector" function. You basically let it run its disk directory data optimization routine on the volume. If it finds problems, it will attempt to fix them as it goes.
When it finishes, it will let you review its findings and results, and then you get to choose to apply the changes or not. Until you apply the changes, you are safe; if you do not apply the changes, the drive is not changed. If you apply the changes, DiskWarrior will replace the existing disk directory data with the optimized (and repaired if there was damage) version.
You should make backups of your valuable data before making repairs, in case something bad happens during your attempt to repair.
Be sure your copy of Disk Warrior is compatible with the Mac OS X release. Version 3.0.3 or later is compatible with Tiger.

Disk Utility -- order of internal hard drives in drive list?

I just upgraded my Mac Pro with two additional hard drives, installed in Bay 2 and Bay 3. Both drives are the same, Western Digital 250GB model WD2500KS. The stock drive is a 250GB Seagate.
My question is in regards to the order in which the drives appear in the list of drives (left-column) of Disk Utility. In other Macs I've owned, the drive installed into the first, or "main" internal drive bay would show up at the top of the list, with subsequent drives ordered below.
On my Mac Pro, with the drives installed as described above, the WD drive installed in Bay 2 shows up first in the list (at the top), then the Seagate (Bay 1) second, then the WD drive in Bay 3 third.
Now admittedly, this is not really an issue, as the drives work fine and I can manage them in Disk Utility without problems. I'm just curious as to why they are lining up out of the usual "order"? Is there a way to rearrange them in the list? I'd actually prefer to have my startup drive (Bay 1) listed first, with the other two BELOW that drive. Is there a preference file I can alter, or some other way of manually ordering them?
I tried zapping PRAM, which did not help. I also tried uninstalling the drive in Bay 2 and then reinstalling it. This actually worked temporarily. When I rebooted, the Bay 2 (WD) drive showed up in the list below the Bay 1 drive (Seagate) as desired. But upon another restart, it showed up at the top of the list again! Strange behavior.
Any thoughts?
I am running Tiger 10.4.10 on a Mac Pro 2.66 GHz Quad.
Best,
Alan

Rick,
I've tried playing around with renaming drives (and partitions), and changing the Finder's view options with respect to the order in which drives are listed (either by name or otherwise), but it doesn't have any effect on the ordering of drives in Disk Utility. Seems like it's a separate deal. I think it does have something to do with which physical drive is seen first by the computer as it boots up (pretty much what was said in the first response), and the order in which disk ID's are assigned. Again, the strange thing is that sometimes it does list the Seagate (Bay 1) first, followed by Bay 2 and 3. But usually not. Most of the time, it lists the drive in Bay 2 (and its respective partitions) first, and then Bay 1 with its partitions, then Bay 3. Odd.
If you have any other ideas I'm all ears!
Best,
Alan

Disk Utility tells me my hard drive is gone.

I then booted from the Tiger disk, and it told me the same thing - can't repair and to back up and install a new hard drive. This all happened after I accidently unplugged a USB hub from the iBook. I went brain dead and was thinking my digital camera was plugged into that USP port. This happened several hours ago, and the iBook is still working as normal except for Disk Utility.

Just got it today, and now DU is showing everything normal. It saved my rear end a few times back in the OS 8.6 and 9.1 days, and now does it again with 10.4.11. Can't say enough about DW. For some reason, I had to run it twice before everything showed up normal on Disk Utility. Any ideas?

Disk Utility stuck whilst wiping hard drive?

Hey everyone,
I'm getting ready to sell my old Powerbook G4 so booted up from the installation CD, and ran Disk Utility to do a 8 Way Random Write pass on the Mac hard drive before I did a clean install (the disc is Mac OS X 10.3.7).
I selected the top option in the drive panel of Disk Utility (the one saying 92.2GB Hitatchi blablabla) rather than the indented disk beneath it.
All went fine doing the overwrite, however it seems to have become stuck on "Creating Partition Map" - it's been like that for half a day now. Any thoughts? Should I have chosen the indented drive underneath the main description?
All help appreciated!

You're welcome, Simon.
Yes I'm pretty confident it was wiped as the Partition map is created at the end when it hung.
If you have any doubts you could erase it again, but just simply zero all data, that 8 way random write is overkill, but I don't think you need to do it again. You are also going to lay a new OS over a lot of the disk soon too.
There is no indented volume now because you erased it.
Yes reformat it, which will create a new volume, and make sure it is called Macintosh HD.
A very comprehensive guide by Cornelius can be found below, though many of the steps you can skip because they won't be relevant to you, but it covers almost everything.
Formatting, Partitioning, Zeroing a Hard Disk Drive step by step by Cornelius
Also once you have done that you might like to present to the new owner the brand new installation, when they start it up and are presented with the Welcome screen, to which they set up their accounts.
+After installing the new operating system, At the point your registration process starts, abandon the registration, quit and eject the disk and switch of the computer.+
+This will allow the new user a freshly installed system, whereby they can complete the registration process themselves. Make sure you hand on the disks.+
With an erased HD and a newly installed OS, you will be passing a clean bright button!

Boots to flashing question mark folder and disc utility cannot locate internal hard drive

Bottling my MacBook Pro I end up with a flashing question mark folder. I reboot holding the option key to select discs and there were no options at all. I plug in an Ethernet cable and it shows a internet recovery option. I click and it downloaded a temporary recovery mode. From there I open disc utility but it doesn't find any internal hard drives. I reset the pram and I still get the flashing question mark folder. Thinking it was my internal hard drive that failed I bought and replaced the internal hd with a new one and repeated all the processes and still no internal hard drive was found. I'm stuck with the flashing question mark folder. Therefore I've concluded that it was my MacBook pros internal hard drive CABLE that had failed. Does anyone know of any other possible problems that is causing this for my MacBook Pro or know of any solutions? Or is replacing my internal hd cable the only solution? Please help!

It was the internal HD cable. I replaced it and now my MacBook Pro works

Can I Use Disk Utility from an External Hard Drive?

I would like to use Disk Utility to verify and/or repair my hard drive. I am too lazy to run this from my install disk. Can I merely copy the application to my external hard drive and launch it from there? Would this work successfully? Could it damage anything? Thanks!

Hi! You can't repair a disk that you are booted from so you could run the repair disk function IF you are booted from another volume such as a bootable internal or external drive or the install disc. You'll have to clone your boot drive and repair from the clone after booting to it. Tom

Disk Utility stats vs. Hard Drive "get info"

Trying to backup my hard drive and running into some frustrating issues!
Recent hard drive crash -- used Applejack (Snow Leopard version) to clean up Lion. Bad decision.
Recently moved my iTunes library to external drive.
Wanting to backup internal hard drive using Time Machine but...
DISK UTILITY SAYS...
capacity = 499.25 GB
available = 152.92 GB
used = 346.33 GB
and "GET INFO" ON HARD DRIVE SAYS...
used = 99.95 GB
External is 250 GB capacity and there is NOT 346 gigs of stuff on the internal after having just moved iTunes to a separate 1TB HD...
WHAT IS WRONG?!?!?!?

Heh, heh, even computers get konfuzzed every now and then...

Disk utility used up my hard drive space?

I recently had a hard drive crash and was trying to repair it with disk utilities. I had the bad drive in an external drive case hooked up to my Macbook Pro via usb. During the process Disk Utility used about 20 GB of drive space on the internal drive on the laptop. I'm not sure what it was doing, but as it ran I could watch my available space go down. When the process was done, it said it couldn't repair the disk. Now I can't figure out how to get my drive space back in the internal drive of my Macbook Pro. I have rebooted, repaired permissions and used the Yasu system utility. There is nothing in the trash to be emptied. I can't thnk of anything else. Has anyone else come across this happening?

Use a disk inventory utility like OmniDiskSweeper to find out what is taking the space.

Cannot Identify External Hard Drive

hi,
my imac has an usb 2.0 linked external hard drive. i used the diskutility to format the hdd and stored files on it.
but sometimes when i boot into mac, a pop-up message says that the "hardware cannot be identified"
so i have to unplug the hard drive and reboot, then in mac, plug the external hard drive.
so what went wrong?
thanks.

So a hint as to which external hard drive you have please. Have you contacted the manufacturer? Have you checked the usb cable? Have you checked the power source for the hard drive? Why are you posting a hardware problem in the "Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard > Using Mac OS X Leopard"
discussion forum area?

Can I move old video footage from Disk Utility to an external hard drive, to free up space?

I have a lot of old videos of my students located on Disk Utility.
I need to free up memory, so am wondering if I can move these videos to an external hard drive.
From time to time, I need to access these old videos, either to show to a new choreographer or to pull out a clip for a grant proposal, so I don't want to totally lose access to them.
Thanks so very much!!!

What's the file extension of the DVD in question located in Disk Utility? That's why I was asking for a screenshot. Is that .cdr? Can you do a File>Save As? If it's .cdr can you try dragging it to the external. Doesn't have to go to Disk Utility. Can just be to a folder there. As you drag it does it show with a + inside a green circle? That will mean it's copying it, but leaving the original in place. If it can be moved successfully, you can then remove the original from Disk Utility.
Or just copy (drag) it to your Desktop, then move it over to a folder on the external.
Message was edited by: WZZZ

Finder and Disk Utility not "seeing" 3rd hard drive...

I've rebooted multiple times and "command, option, p, r" ; tried putting my hard drive from slot 3 to slot 4 in mac pro, it is not being read.
J

What drive? make/model/size etc
Normally an unformatted drive will cause a dialogue on startup (eject, ignore, initialize)
Moving isn't going to help.
Look inside to see the drive will slide in and you don't have any issue.
Then run Apple Hardware Test
More likely if anything is drive is DOA; logicboard; 'foreign' format that DU can't mount.
Putting in a FW case might be handy.

Using Mac Disk Utility to format external hard drive

Now that I’ve got the LaCie d2 Quadra and am ready to use it, I’m looking for a little guide to using the Mac Disk Utility to format it.
Can anybody point me in the right direction?
many thanks
BAC
iMac 27'/5750/SD
2.8GHZ QUAD-CORE INTEL CORE I5
8GB 1333MHZ DDR3 SDRAM - 2X4GB
1TB SERIAL ATA DRIVE+256GB SSD
ATI RADEON HD 5750 1GB GDDR5
8X DOUBLE-LAYER SUPERDRIVE
Message was edited by: BAC

Roger and captfred are correct, you will still need to reset both the _Partition Map Scheme_ to GUID Partition Table and the Format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Connect the External HD and open Disk Utility in your Utilities Folder.
2. Highlight the External HD in the list of drives and select the Partition tab.
3. Under Volume Scheme select _1 Partition_ and click on the Options... button.
4. Select GUID Partition Table in the drop down window and click OK.
5. Set the Format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), name it and click the Apply button.

TS1440 If disk utility cannot identify any hard drive

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