Unresponsive iMac - disk utility repair unsuccessful

My iMac has been running slow for several months, but it got ridiculously slow recently, and now it will not start up - stuck on the screen with the spinning clock. So I stuck in the INstall Disk and did a 'hardware check' - it said all was ok. I tried the First Aid disk utility to repair it, and it said "Error: THe underlying task reported failure on exit". Before that, it said "Incorrect number of thread records", "invalid node structure" and "volume check failed".
Do I need to re-install the OS? I have a backup of the hard disk, but I haven't backed it up in about 2 months, so I would hate to lose 2 months worth of files.
Any ideas?

Hello es:
Welcome to Apple discussions.
If Apple's disk utility fails to fix problems you have two choices:
1. Use a robust third party utility. I have DiskWarrior (pricey at about $90 from Alsoft). DW is the +"gold standard"+ of directory repair.
2. Do an archive and install. Erase and install should be reserved for disasters. An archive and install will preserve your files, programs, and settings while installing a fresh OS X (you would, of course, need to run software update to bring everything to current levels).
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710
barry

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Hi, i have tryed to install os x leopard, (its a old imac) , disk utility is greyed out , my install dvd cant find any hdd to install on , my only way to format and configure is through terminal but dont know what commands to execute

hi, i have tryed to install os x leopard, (its a old imac) , disk utility is greyed out , my install dvd cant find any hdd to install on , my only way to format and configure is through terminal but dont know what commands to execute...
i tryed diffrent commands such as diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ Disk1
diskutil list , wont show up my harddrive , i now its functionally cause it shows up in disk utility with name and i can get info about it , but everything is greyed out can only switch between "erase , partition , recover , Raid ,....
when i click the apple in the top left corner the whole menu is greyed out... what to do ? help me please
Sincerly AppleNoob92
p.s i have no experience in apple imac's at all never used before, but im kinda windows nerd so computers i understand but this imac make my insane, cant seem to find any solutions anywhere on the WWW....

Your HD may be crashed, so you probably should use the oringinal install discs to run Apple Hardware Test in extended mode. If error codes appear this confirms a hardware failure. In addition you cannnot repair the HD using Disk Utility from the startup disk, you have to use the origninal Install discs that shipped with the computer or the most up-to-date version of OS X on a disc that you have.

Disk Utility repairs permissions; 1 hour later they're un-repaired again.

(March 2009 24" iMac. Lion 10.7.3)
I repair permissions on Macitosh HD (boot volume) every-other week. I've noticed that the same permissions seem to need repair each time. Here are the last seven lines from the Disk Utility window from the May 19 run:
One hour later, I repeated the operation. Here are the last seven lines:
I might be overly sensitive, but I detect certain similarities between these results. In fact, it looks like Disk Utility repairs exactly the same permissions every time and those permissions are corrupted shortly after they are repaired.
What's going on here? Should I be alarmed? Or should I panic?

I'd like to delete this post (if I knew how). There are several other threads on this topic, and other contributors report exactly what I observe. It turns out it's a harmless artifact of upgrading from 10.5 to 10.6 to 10.7, rather than doing a clean install of Lion. This article is reassuring: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448
I shoulda searched more thoroughly before posting.

HT4790 My Mac OS Lion 10.7 FileVaulted HD does not boot, prohibitory sign, stop sign appears some minutes after boot starts. Disk Utility repair shows four error messages: Unable to bootstrap transaction group 2517: inconsistent crosscheck (the same with

My Mac OS Lion 10.7 FileVaulted HD does not boot, prohibitory sign, stop sign appears some minutes after boot starts. Disk Utility repair shows four error messages:
Unable to bootstrap transaction group 2517: inconsistent crosscheck
No valid commit checkpoint found
The volume xxxxxxxxxxxxxx(here it shows physical volume number) was found corrupt and can not be repaired.
Problems were encountered during repair of the partition map
Error: Storage system verify or repair failed.
(the same with 2518, 2519 and 2520 transaction group)
I suppose it is serious bug in Mac OS Lion managing FileVault and wonder what the help could be?

Most likely culprit is your Lacie drives which are notorious for flaky power supplies which cause just the sort of erratic behaviour that you describe. Have had similar issues myself. Lacie has been good about replacing my power converter-- twice. If you have seven of them, good luck finding the bad one or more. Like I said, the behaviour is erratic. Sometimes it'll work sometimes not. I can't comment on Samsung drives because I've never used them and have never heard anything about them. Same with Softraid. Why not just use Disk Utility. Sounds like you're ready for an external hardware raid. This will be much faster, much more reliable, and may even be cheaper than seven firewire drives. Check out G Tech, and Maxx Digital for starters.
Best of luck
Terry

Disk Utility/Repair Help Please...

Hi
I have been having some issues with a Kernel Panic on my MBP. I am trying to solve them with the help of the X-Lab, but when I do the disk utility>repair permissions I get the following messages:
Repairing permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent" has been modified and will not be repaired.
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DesktopServicesPriv.framework/Versions/A/Reso urces/Locum" has been modified and will not be repaired.
Permissions repair complete
Does anyone think this may be a contributory factor. If it is unlikely that these are not to do with the Kernel Panic, any ideas as to what they are and what I should do.
many thanks in advance
Rob

Those messages are normal and may be ignored.
This article is for Leopard, but still holds true for Snow Leopard:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448

Does disk utility repair delete any files on external hard drive?

Does disk utility repair disk delete any files on the external hard drive?

diskutil list
Last login: Sun Dec 21 16:07:46 on console
Justins-MacBook-Pro:~ justinmontoya$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         749.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *748.9 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 4A646B29-3794-4A34-AC98-C0FB505D402B
                                 Unlocked Encrypted
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk2
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 500HDD WD               500.1 GB   disk2s1
Justins-MacBook-Pro:~ justinmontoya$

Can Disk Utility repair FAT32?

hi, folks:
I'm jammed up. I need to repair the drive in my PS3. It's FAT32-formatted. Im a Mac user, obviously. Can Disk Utility repair it, or does it only do Mac discs?
Please say "yes" (and mean it!). (Barring, of course, hardware problems, I mean. I understand that if the platter is scratched or the controller's no good, I've had the radish.)
BInky

Grf. This wasn't the answer I wanted, but it's what I needed. Thanks, Kurt. I'm now off on a quest to find a Windows laptop. I appreciate the quick response.
BInky

Ibook G4 - won't start up, spins, and shuts down... disk utility repair...

ibook G4 - won't start up, spins, and shuts down... disk utility repair quits. says "invalid sibling link" "volume check failed" "1 volume could not be repaired because of an error" "the underlying task reported failure on exit"
any ideas about how to start and/or recover data ??
thanks

Hi chesterday, and a warm welcome to the forums!
You must repair the HD, your best bet is DiskWarrior from Alsoft...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
You'll need the CD though.
Unfortunately, Disk Utility can't fix all that much, and the only other Apple Options are erasing the HD, or installing OSX to a second drive, then using Migration Assistant to move stuff over to the new HD.

Disk utility repair permissions stops altogether

I tried running Disk Utility Repair permissions and received a grey message box saying it stopped repairing permissions because of the following error:
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit.
This same error message was repeated in the usual information box that disk utility uses to provide detail about what it is doing.
I believe the problem occurred because I selected Macintosh HD and added another user (myself) to read/write in the disk permission section of the information window, and I also applied that to all enclosed items. I did this in the first place because of repeated attempts and failuire to install the latest version of skype into my applications folder (being told that I didn't have enough permissions to complete the overwrite task). When I tried verifying the disk I received the error message "ERROR: could not freeze volume permissions denied"
I switched users to a specific administrator account that I reserve for troubleshooting, but got the same result when I tried running disk utility.
As a not unrelated issue when I attach my ipod touch, itunes says that it cannot recognize this ipod, then after about the third time simply doesn't acknowledge my itouch exists.
everything was working well until i did this large change permissions operation.
So does anyone have any idea what I have done (wrong) and how I can fix it?
thanks
John

John Fountain wrote:
I believe the problem occurred because I selected Macintosh HD and added another user (myself) to read/write in the disk permission section of the information window, and I also applied that to all enclosed items.
Uh-oh. You completely trashed your whole system by doing that. Boot up from your Leopard DVD and restore that last Time Machine backup that was made before you made that mistake. If you don't have any backups you will have to reinstall Leopard.
I did this in the first place because of repeated attempts and failuire to install the latest version of skype into my applications folder (being told that I didn't have enough permissions to complete the overwrite task).
When that happens, just trash the old application first, then drag in the new one.
When I tried verifying the disk I received the error message "ERROR: could not freeze volume permissions denied"
I switched users to a specific administrator account that I reserve for troubleshooting, but got the same result when I tried running disk utility.
Changing permissions on the HD and applying to enclosed items hosed your whole system. That's what's causing all your problems. It's doubtful that you will be able to repair it. Restore your system from backup, or reinstall.

Disk Utility: "Repairing disk failed with error Could not unmount disk"

Disk Utility: “Repairing disk failed with error Could not unmount disk”
Hi. I’ve been experiencing some mildly squirrelly behaviour with my system (vide infra) so decided to repair the two internal hard drives on my computer. The primary hard drive is a 74.53 GB ST380013AS that came with the system; its S.M.A.R.T. Status is “verified” and Disk Utility repairs permissions just fine. However, the second internal drive (Maxtor 6L250S0, 233.76 GB, lower Bay, Journaled HFS+), despite being verified by S.M.A.R.T. status and apparently running OK, fails to unmount when I ask Disk Utility to repair it- I get the above error message in red. I have repaired this disk with DiskWarrior (v3.03) and all appears to run AOK. Can anyone tell me why I cannot get Disk Utility to run on this secondary (eg, non-startup) disk? I have tried many times and the error is reproducible. Thank you!
G5 1.6GHz PPC, 1 GB RAM, running OS 10.4.6

Thank you for these useful links!
For others who have this issue, I also found very helpful advice given to this question on the MacFixIt forums by MicroMat Tech3 at
http://www.macfixitforums.com/php/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=tiger&Number=76265 1
He said: "Use the lsof command to find the open files on a volume that does not unmount or eject. Open Terminal, located in /Applications/Utilities. Type: sudo lsof | grep Leave a space after the p in grep, then drag the icon of the problem volume to the Terminal window. The pathname for the volume is pasted in for you; press Return. Then enter your administrative password at the prompt, and press Return."
At this point, one now has a list of the open files/processes on the volume that will not unmount. You can use Activity Monitor to terminate these processes if you wish, and then the volume will unmount as it should.

My MacBook Pro started running very slow. I did disk utility/repair

My MacBook Pro started running very slow. I did disk utility/repair and it helped but still very slow. Repair gave me this message, "SUID file 'System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent has been modified and will not be repaired." Any suggestions on this message and/or what else I can do to get my computer back to the way it used to run? Thank you!

It says 199.15 GB free of 499.25 GB. Can I remove the Remote Management program to solve the other unrepairable problem?

Disk Utility repair problem

I am running Yosemite on an mid-2011 iMac. I ran the Disk Utility and got this message after running Verify:
<< Error: This disk needs to be repaired using the Recovery HD. Restart your computer, holding down the Command key and the R key until you see the Apple logo. When the OS X Utilities window appears, choose Disk Utility. >>
I followed the instructions, but when the Utilities window appeared, I was unable to start the Disk Utility from the menu. There was a dialog saying that OS X had not been successfully installed.
What could be causing this problem?

The startup drive may be failing, or there is some other internal hardware fault.
Back up all data on the drive immediately if you don't already have a current backup. There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional—ask if you need guidance.
Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store, or go to another authorized service provider.
If privacy is a concern, erase the data partition(s) with the option to write zeros* (do this only if you have at least two complete, independent backups, and you know how to restore to an empty drive from any of them.) Don’t erase the recovery partition, if present.
Keeping your confidential data secure during hardware repair
Apple also recommends that you deauthorize a device in the iTunes Store before having it serviced.
*An SSD doesn't need to be zeroed.

Disk utility/repair question - "keys not in order"

I connected my 4G iPod to my computer via firewire when the battery was very low yesterday. For the first time, it wouldn't mount and now doesn't show up in system profiler when it is connected via firewire (even in disk mode). It shows up when it is connected via USB.
It shows up via firewire in disk utility, though. I verified the disk and repaired the disk and got a message "keys not in order". I tried to mount it through disk utility and it still wouldn't show up. I was able to eject it through disk utility though.
It is charging and playing fine.
Any ideas on how to fix "keys not in order" or how to do a full restore when it won't mount?
Thanks for your help.
iMac G4 Mac OS X (10.2.x) iTunes 6

We were able to get it fixed. First, I tried erasing it in disk utility. That just succeeded in getting the file with an exclamation mark and no way to restore it. It also wouldn't turn off at that point.
We took it to a PC and were able to reformat it on a PC and now it seems to be working at least initially again with my Mac.

IMac Disk Utility Prob/Reinstalling OSX?

Hi guys,
I would have been most grateful to you if you could give me some tips on the following situation.
I have got some sort of a bug in my iMac G5 Ambient Light Sensor: it turned off 2 times, and the Disk Utility said I had to repair the volume, well, the usual stuff, you know: 'The underlying task reported failure...' and blablabla... I have tried to startup from the OSX DVD from my MacBook, since it was the closest version to what I have on the iMac [10.4.8], but it gave me the Kernel Panic and asked to restart. Now I am thinking of reinstalling the whole system, since what I've got on my iMac isn't that vitally important and I can backup some files on my Book, but I would like to know what you could advise me. Maybe there's some way round? Is it normal to reinstall the OSX from my MacBook DVD? Will it be fine? The problem is that I don't have an original CD that came with the iMac. :-/
I can also try to startup from another person's MacBookPro and try to fix the problem with the Disk Utility, but perhaps it won't work? Can it be that I'll have more bugs in the future? Probably it's better to reinstall and all the bugs will be erased? Anyone had anything of a kind?
Oh, yes, and I would like to know if the Archieve option in the OSX Install does actually save the programs the way they are, and if they'd need any kind of installation afterwards, after the OSX installation.
Thanx for any possible assistance!
MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Welcome to Discussions - no, you cannot start up from your MacBook install disc, it has a totally different structure. You need an install disc for the G5 ambient light, Apple will sell you one, or perhaps you can find it on eBay, but it must be for the ambient light, and no other model.
You can start in target disk mode using your MacBook.
If you do an archive and install, and check "preserve user settings and preferences, all your apps and settings (well, most of them) will be saved, here are the instructions.
Pplease let us know how you make out,
Miriam

Disk Utility & Repair Disk Permissions & Unknown User on External Seagate

I have a new iMac running Leopard and don't do stupid things to my mac. I have a couple external Seagate Freeagent drives but 1 of them is giving me a little trouble. So I figure, I'll try to repair disk permissions on it but the problem is when I go into Disk Utility, the Repair Disk Permissions option is NOT available. It's there, I just can't select it; it's grayed out. Why? I'm an admin! The other externals have this option available but not this one, so I'm not really sure what to do. I've about 300gb of family movies on it that I'd rather not wipe out just to be able to do a disk permission repair.
Whenever I do a command+i on the drive I do see an UNKNOWN user but this article, http://www.pcworld.com/article/145425-1/quickand_easy_folder_sharing_in105.html, leads me to believe that Apple hasn't done jack squat to allow us to fix the problem.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks in advance!

mrpeepers wrote:
I don't think that statement is true.
I have 3 externals and can repair disk permission on all but 2. All my externals are for storage purposes and non have OSX installed, so that fact that I can repair disk permissions on them sort of contradicts what you say, however, the effectiveness of running a repair disk permission on a drive that doesn't have OSX may be nothing.
I don't know how you manage to repair permissions on externals without system files on them but what I said is quite true. Repair permissions ONLY checks permissions of system files against the database of correct permissions. It wouldn't know what to do with any other files and never touches them. It should also not be possible on non OS X drives. I've never seen it enabled on any of my external or secondary drives. I really wonder why and how it was enabled on your external drives.
I did have Tiger installed for 3 months before I got Leopard, but my externals have known nothing but Leopard.
That doesn't matter. the ownership of files on your external were set in Tiger and it remains in leopard. that's what causes the "unknown" user to show up.
The problem I'm having with one of the drives is that starting yesterday it's having difficulties mounting. Sometimes I restart the computer and the drive doesn't show. So in order to get it to show, I have to power down the external (which is and appears to be running) and then power it back up, and if that doesn't work, usually reseating the USB works.
Then again... My problems started happening after I installed CandyBar and applied some folder changes. I have since dumped it.
whatever problems you have with that external they have absolutely nothing to do with Candy bar. all candy bar does is change a few icon files on your main hard drive. that can have no effect on mountability of anything.
This sounds to me like a hardware problem with your external. the drive could be failing. the USB bus could be failing either on the drive or on the computer. One thing you could do is check to see if there are any firmware upgrades for that drive. Look at the manufacturer's website. also try testing the drive with another computer if you can.
On another note... Anyone use CandyBar and NOT have any problems or really like it? Maybe it was just a coincidence.
yes, I use it and REALLY like it. no problems whatsoever.

Unresponsive iMac - disk utility repair unsuccessful

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