Using Apple "Disk Utility" to partition a disk drive

I have seen some incorrect info on the forums about partitioning disks.
You CAN do this with Disk Utility.
To do this will erase the new partitions you create, so BE CAREFUL.
To partition a disk, start Disk Utility and click on the DRIVE (not Volume) you want to partition.
The DRIVEs are the icons all the way on the left side of the Disk/Volume window area.
If you click on a Drive, the PARTITION tab will appear. Click on it and it's pretty self-explanatory.
Good luck.

It looks like the mountable image option only applies to NTFS partitions. The preferences interface does not show a choice for FAT32.

Similar Messages

Disk utility not partitioning usb thumb drive

Here is the log from disk utility
Dec 15 23:49:38: Disk Utility started.
Unmount of “disk1s1” succeeded
Eject of “LEXAR JUMPDRIVE SECURE Media” succeeded
Preparing to partition disk: “LEXAR JUMPDRIVE SECURE Media”
Partition Scheme: PC Partition Scheme
1 partitions will be created
Partition 1
Name : “Untitled 1”
Size : 121.5 MB
Filesystem : MS-DOS File System
Creating Partition Map
Partition failed for disk LEXAR JUMPDRIVE SECURE Media Input/output error
Partition complete.
error with partition Input/output error
This particular drive has two partitions on it currently, one of which is a DOSFAT_16_SHidden. I have been trying to play around and get this thing to format for a few days now on Linux, windows and my Mac. Should I just give up on it or what?

Master Boot Record. Do this:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to MBR then click on the OK button. Set the format type to MSDOS. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

External Hard Drive not mounting. In Disk Utility, the partition in the drive is greyed out.

So my Seagate 500GB drive, didn't mount the other day, and I investigated a bit and tried repairing the disk and this happened... please someone give me hope! Ihad so many important and irreplaceable videos and documents on this drive!!!

Anyone? Please?

Disk Utility: "Modifying Partition Map"

Good Afternoon all. Im not sure whether this is a problem or not but i have run disk utility to partition my hard drive, and as of now it has been running for over 24 hours.
700 Gb Hdd Partitioned at 487 ( Mac OSx ) and 210 ( Windows NTFS )
The 210 was partitioned by Bootcamp and xp is installed and runs fine
I am attempting to partition the 210 by 55 to allow for the inclusion of Vista
I ran Disk utility yesterday around 9 or 10 and since then it has been saying modifying partition map.
i dont believe it's frozen or has stalled because it responds and i have burned a disk using disk utility. however if i attempt to close it it warns me of damage.
so my issue is whether or not i should just wait it out or if there is something safe i can do. Additionally if installing vista there is a bad idea i would like to be advised.
Thanks In Advance

It's most likely stuck and not going to finish. I experienced this once while creating a new partition for testing purposes. Force quiting will loose any unsaved changes including a partition that's being modified but it looks like your only option at this point. It should not affect your current Mac partition however I'm unsure if it will affect your XP partition. Boot camp works well but in general I would say it's not a good idea to try and re-size or split existing partitions that have data. To do what you want to do you could use Boot camp to create another partition but it would only take the space from your Mac volume. You would probably have to backup or make an image of your XP system then start over using Boot Camp to create the 2 partitions of the size you want.
FYI: You would probably have a better chance getting an answer for this question over in the Boot Camp forum.
George

Using Disk Utility to restore/copy disk - who is correct?

I had two long talks with two separate Apple Care people online today who both insisted what they were saying was right and the other person was wrong.
Hmm....
My question is this.
I have a MBP and the internal HD is currently empty. I've been running off of an external HD for about a year now.
I want to clone my external HD into my internal HD and use the internal HD as my system disk now.
One Apple Care person said to go into Disk Utility, select the source disk, from the tabs on the right hand side select Restore and then drag the source disk into the source field, drag the target disk into the target field and press restore. She said this will make a complete clone of the external HD in the internal HD.
The other Apple Care person said "No no no. You can't do that to clone a system disk that way." He said the best thing was to install a new system and then use the restore as a new system from Time Machine option (where I also have a backup.)
I believe the second method will work, but it's more cumbersome for me because I haven't been backing up everything in Time Machine. I have excluded items, such as podcasts and Parallels disk images.
If I could do this from the external system disk life would be easier.
But is the first Apple Support person right or wrong about this? Can I use Disk Utility to copy the system disk from one external HD to another that way?
Thanks,
doug
p.s. I am not in the market for 3rd party software to deal with this one-time issue, so if possible I would like to accomplish this using OS X included features...

The advantage is CCC has built in routines that "bless" (see the Terminal.app command "bless") the
os x installation so it will boot properly on the new volume it is being installed on.
Disk Utility simply copies (restores) files from one volume to another. Many times this works just fine.
Sometimes it won't boot afterwards. Most of the time (as long as there are no system files missing
or corrupted) a person may "bless" the drive and restore it to working condition.
CCC is not a "magical" application, it is in fact a front end to applications that already exist separately
in OS X (asr, hdiutil, diskutil, bless, etc.).
It doesn't matter to me how you do it. It's your time not mine. Everyone should spend some time
behind the command line in terminal. I do many tasks using the command line, including and not
limited to complete system restores, backing up data, disk partitioning, installing software, disk
repair, permissions repair, ACL management, restoring data, managing disk images, network
management, user management, file management, etc. Many people are fearful of the command
line. I feel just the opposite, I'm fearful without it.
Say Hello to my little friend.
http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/Command_Line_Adminv10.5.pdf
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unixopensource/clix.html
http://www.macobserver.com/tips/macosxcl101/index.html
http://www.matisse.net/OSX/darwin_commands.html
Kj

Recovery/Disk Utility/Verifying Partition

Hello and thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
My 1 year old started typing away as I booted up my laptop yesterday morning (MacBook Pro). Somehow she sent me into Recovery Mode and I can't get out. I haven't used Time Machine, I can't reinstall osx via the internet because my backup harddrive is the only one visible, and now (not initially) when I try to verify in Disk Utility so that I can back up via external drive the partition (disk0s2) has errors. I foolishly tried to find answers and terminal command fixes so I don't know if I've irreparable caused damage that way. The errors I receive when I try to verify and fix the partition: invalid content in journal; invalid b-tree node sizes; volume could not be verified completely; invalid content in journal; error: disk utility can't repair disk... M'aidez!

When I reboot this way (holding down Shift) I do get returned to Recovery Mode. In Disk Utility, here are the drives listed:
500.11 GB Apple HDD...Media
disk0s2
HL-DT-ST DVDRW
disk1
OS X Base System
disk0s2 can't be verified...I get these errors when I try to verify or repair:
Invalid content in Journal
Invalide b-tree node sizes
volume could not be verified completely
invalid content in journal
error: disk utility can't repair disk

How do I do this: "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?"

"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."

Stick the disk in, reboot holding c.
Disk Utility is a menu option about the 2 or 3rd screen in the installer. (don't install OS X!)
Because your booted form the installer disk, you can repair the disk.
Quit and exit the installer and reboot.
If your drive is not repaired, make a note of all what it says, for Apple to use.
Reboot and get your files off to a external drive,
Take the note and your comptuer to Apple for a warranty/Apple care call, they will replace the drive.

BootCamp nor' Disk Utility will Partition my Drive.

Alright, So Im back again, And this time I have a totally different topic.
Today I tried to Partition my drive to add another OS, to be specific, Windows 7 (Don't hate me! :P)
The first step I took was using BootCamp SINCE, It is for windows installation on Mac OS X.
WELL, I tried partition and BootCamp wouldn't let me, The Boot Camp Assistant will usually get stuck at the "Partitioning Disk..." stage, Or sometime it will say. "Partitioning Disk..." for about 5 minutes then a warning message will pop up saying, "Verification failed. This disk could not be partitioned. Use disk utility to repair this disk."
I hit okay, then go to Disk Utility, And try to partition my disk from there, I will select how big of a partition I want leaving about 6 gigs on my main partition. I hit "Apply" and then it starts to partition, but the only thing it does is, "Modifying the partition map" for about 5 minutes and then I get a warning message saying, "Partition failed. Partition failed with the error: Filesystem verify or repair failed." Im not really sure what this means, but after this, I try to Verify and Repair my disk. It does the "Verifying" stage for about 8 minutes and then tells me "First Aid Failed. Disk Utility stopped verifying "Macintosh HD" because the following error was encountered: Filesystem verify or repair failed." In the "Details" box, this is what it says,
"Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Performing live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Invalid volume file count
(It should be 410899 instead of 410900)
Invalid volume directory count
(It should be 117223 instead of 117222)
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.
Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed."
Can someone please help me out here, All I want to do is make one stinkin partition for Windows 7! Whats going on here?!

If you are going to repair a startup volume then you must do this:
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X 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 Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger and Leopard.) 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. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger, and 4.1 for Leopard) and/or TechTool Pro (4.6.1 for Leopard) 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.
Your error suggests some major defect with the hard drive. If it cannot be repaired you will have to re-partition the drive. This will erase everything on the drive, so be sure to backup first.
Also, you cannot install Windows on a partition your create with Disk Utility. You must use Boot Camp Assistant on a drive with a single partition/volume using GUID partition map and formatted Mac OS Extended, Journaled.

Using Disk Utility to Erase an external drive freezes Disk Utility?

When I use Disk Utility to Erase an external drive, Disk Utility freezes indefinitely and the action is not performed.
How do I fix this?

To use it on your MBP you need to set the OPTION when you partition it so that it will be the Intel GUID partition scheme, then set the partition(s) you want.
If it is hanging or failing, that can be caused by bad sectors where the partition table has to be written. You might need to zero the drive. If you have a PC, then use Maxtor's tools to reformat and test the drive.
PPC Macs use one partition/format scheme, IntelMacs use another, and Windows a 3rd.

Disk Utility stopped repairing the disk. I was instructed to backup as many of my files as possible.reformat the disk and store my backed files. I am using an I Mac 2010. I am not sure what caused this problem. I use time machine

Disk Utility stopped repairing the disk. I was instructed to backup as many of my files as possible.reformat the disk and restore my backed up files. Since I use time machine, can I assume that all my files and programs can be restored from my recent back ups?

Hi jeromefrodia,
Welcome to the Apple Support Community!
I understand that you are concerned about your data before reformatting the disk. Because you use Time Machine your information should be safe. Please refer to the attached article for information about what Time Machine backs up and how to restore from that backup.
Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac
Cheers,
Joe

I want to partition an external device for OSX and Windows. Opened Disk utility but Partition is not an option

I want to partition an external drive for OSX and PC. Went to Disk Utility but Partition is not an available option.

Why not? does the partition tab not exist?

I can't burn a dvd using any method, Idvd tells me that my super drive is missing, dvd studio pro quits when i click burn and disk utility keeps spitting the disk out when i click burn and enter the disk??? how do i repair my superdrive for imac

I can't burn a dvd using any method, idvd tells me that my super drive is missing, dvd studio pro quits when i click burn and disk utility keeps spitting the disk out when I click burn and enter the disk??? how do i repair my superdrive for imac, or how do I do whatever I need to do to get it working: I have already tried using a lens cleaning cd and also restored my nvram or something i forget what it was called but i restarted my computer holding down command+optoion+p+r and still nothing???
Free solutions are the best, although if I have to pay I will, I would prefer to not have to buy an external burner if possible and already know that is an option so please don't give me that answer... thank you for any help you can give

Unless your iMac is still covered by AppleCare, get an external DVD burner.
You can get perfectly good ones from Amazon for less than $40.

I purchased a Mac book pro in oct 2011, I restarted it after updating and it,s stuck on apple symbol, I hit command R while restarting and clicked on disk utility. It says disk can't be repaired, apple wants $249 to tell me what's wrong. Please help!

I purchased a mac book pro in oct 2011, I restarted it after updating and it,s stuck on apple symbol, I hit command R while restarting and clicked on disk utility. It says disk can't be repaired, apple wants $249 to tell me what's wrong. Please help!

What Apple store told you they wanted $249.00 to tell what is wrong?
If this is a 13" Macbook Pro then that is the cost of the Extended Applecare warranty. As you are outside the 90 days of Free Phone Support then what Apple told you is that to get Phone Support you would either need to pay $45 per phone call or pay $249.00 for the Applecare extended warranty which comes with 3 years Free Phone Support from date of purchase.
Or you can take it to a Apple Genius Bar and have them look at it for Free.
Every Mac comes with 1 year warranty and includes only 90 days of phone support. You can buy the extended Applecare warranty anytime within the first year of ownership, IE until the 1 year warranty runs out.
I suggest you have your computer looked at by either an Apple Authorized Repair Center or Genius Bar and then before the 1 year warranty runs out buying the extended warranty

Can Lion disk utility dynamically partition a drive?

Can Lion disk utility dynamically partition a drive? I see many posts that Leopard Disk utility can but nothing about Lion.

Yes. I'll post a link to instructions. Be sure to create a full reliable backup before you begin (don't just do the backup, test the backup to be sure it's good), and the only application that should be running until the process is complete is Disk Utility.
http://osxdaily.com/2009/11/20/resize-partitions-in-mac-os-x-with-disk-utility/
Some people have problems resizing partitions because of the hidden Recovery HD partition. It sometimes gets in the way because Disk Utility can move it "up" but cannot move it "down".

How to recover after performing an 'Erase' and then 'Partition' within Disk Utility of an External USB drive?

Hi - I accidently ran an 'Erase' and then 'Partition' within Disk Utility of an External USB drive (meant to run it against another drive that was plugged in). Does anyone have any suggestions on if it is possible to recover from this? It has all my family photos on it and my backup is a few months old :-(
I tried running Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery but it found what looks like basic mac folder structure (probably from the first erase). I think what messed me up was that I rain the repartition which formats the drive a 2nd time! Any help is truly appreciated!
thank you,
-Steve

Hello RalphR_MI,
Take a look at this page, which lists several articles. Please let me know if any of these help you restore your backup.
Also, take a look at this article, as well as this one.
I hope this helps. I'm not sure of a few things, so I'm sorry for sending you so much, but I'm confident it will give you something new to try.
Please let me know if this helps. Good luck!
↙-----------How do I give Kudos?| How do I mark a post as Solved? ----------------↓

Using Apple "Disk Utility" to partition a disk drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for