Q: Macbook Pro Disk Utility Cannot Repair Disk.
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Apr 10, 2013 8:19 PMby A_Person_Who_Needs_Help,So the only way is to purchase a special piece of software not even knowing if it would work? If it's incompatable I don't have any other Mac OR even a firewire. Yeah, guess I'm screwed...Unless there is any other possible Terminal command or any other possible way that is not as risky?
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by A_Person_Who_Needs_Help,Apr 10, 2013 8:36 PM
A_Person_Who_Needs_Help
Apr 10, 2013 8:36 PM
in response to A_Person_Who_Needs_Help
Level 1
(0 points)
Strangely the "Edit" button disappeared from my post...So anyway here is the log from disk Utility:
Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking file systemChecking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Invalid key length
The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.
Verify and Repair volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking file systemChecking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Invalid key length
The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely.
Volume repair complete.Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.Error: 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.
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Apr 11, 2013 5:36 PMby CaptH,HelpfulThe index files on your drive are corrupt. Disk Warrior may be able to fix them, TechTool Pro claims it can fix them (my own experiences with TTP are not favorable)
The problems with both of those approaches are that a) they're expensive with both costing $100 and b) when you get done, you might find that your hard drive is bad, too. Bugs in software or bad shutdowns can cause index files to become corrupt, but so can bad drive sectors. If your drive has had problems, like a head crash, there may be a lot of bad sectors on the drive. In that case neither tool would help you recover because they can't recover data that can't be read.
What I would do is forget the re-creation of the index files and reformat the drive with the security option set to write a single pass of zeros over the entire drive. Doing this will force the drive to remap bad sectors to spare sectors if there are any. If the damage is too extensive this operation will fail and it's essentially telling you that the drive needs replacement. If it succeeds, then you can restore the OS and backups....this approach, of course, assumes you've been making backups. If it doesn't succeed, then you need to get a new drive...which typically costs about 2/3rds the price of TechTool Pro or Disk Warrior.
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by Grant Bennet-Alder,HelpfulApr 11, 2013 6:22 PM
Grant Bennet-Alder
Apr 11, 2013 6:22 PM
in response to A_Person_Who_Needs_Help
Level 9
(60,729 points)
DesktopsYou have major Directory corruption on that drive. You can:
• spend US$100 for a stronger Utility, it might fix things, but no guarantess of success.
• spend US$100 for a data rescue program, and copy the files that are still accessible off to another drive.
• buy a new Hard Drive, Install Mac OS X on it, and use it to copy files off the damaged drive to the new drive.
• erase and Zeros your Hard Drive, re-install Mac OS X from the Internet, and restore only your data files from your Backups.
• erase and Zero your Hard Drive and restore everything including Mac OS X from your Backups.
• spend US$1000. and up to send your drive out for data recovery.
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May 4, 2013 6:09 AMby AlMudhaf,hey man, I have the same exact problem except mines after I repair the disk, the system auto shuts down when its on gray Apple logo screen for too long and I cant safe mode it its like the harddrive isnt there but its strange because in disk Utility I can see it along with toshiba and recovery disk. I just want to know how you manage to copy all your harddrive files and back it up in external harddrive? the important files and projects still there I dont mind wipe the drive and reformaing it. but after I get my stuffs man! help the brother in need man! and thank you for reading this
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May 4, 2013 10:53 AMby A_Person_Who_Needs_Help,Right on startup hold command + R. Then select disk utility, and on one of the tabs, I think it was restore, copy all files to harddrive. Beware that it wipes your external harddrive. Then again, in one of the tabs, whipe your internal drive. No need to reformat. Then reinstall Mountain Lion, which is one of the options in the Command R (i guess it's called recovery) mode. Worked for me. Hope this helps
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May 22, 2013 7:14 AMby riverhernandez,HElp please! My startup disk wont load. I went to disk utility but it says cannot repair the drive and to back up all my files. How can I back them up if I cannot access my hard drive? All my files are there and I dont have a backup ;( help please what to do? How to get my files back?emergency!
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Jun 2, 2013 7:43 PMby A_Person_Who_Needs_Help,Do you have an external harddrive? If so, can you spare all the data on that external drive? And if the answer to the second question is positive, then:
- On startup, hold command and R
- Open disk utility.
- Select you startup disk from the menu on the left.
- Click the "restore" tab.
- Select your hard disk as the destination.
- BE AWARE, THIS WILL ERASE ALL THE DATA ON THE HARD DISK.
- After the process is complete, select the erase tab.
- Select your startup disk and erase it.
- Close disk utility and reinstall mountain lion.
- After you start the computer back up, you will be able to access all of your old files from the hard drive. That's what I did.
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Jun 27, 2014 3:22 PMby ambam91,I'm hoping that you can help me Im extremely desperate!
My MBP 17inch mid 2010 running mavericks, was running reallllly slow so i decided to restart. But now it won't boot up! I get a grey screen with the apple logo and a spiny wheel and in a few mins the apple logo with turn into the prohibited sign.
I can't get it into single user mode. It will go into recovery mode and when I look at Disk Utility it shows "Macintosh HD" but its greyed out instead of black.
When I verify disk:
When I try to repair the disk:
* I installed OSX on an external drive so I can get into my comp at least but I need to get the files from my internal HD*
I tried to do what you suggested but it gives me an error and says the drive is busy.
Im an idiot and haven't done a back up in a while and if I can't get this fixed I'm going to lose a lot of important stuff.
PLEASE SOMEONE HELP!!
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Aug 4, 2014 1:15 AMby Deutshcer,Do you mean the hard drive is mechanically broken for sure? It's not a data corruption issue that is causing a problem with starting up the Mac, but maybe not be a bad mechanism?
If the drive is definitely broken, there are businesses that specialize in recovering data from bad hard drives. For example
http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/ (I always saw their booth at MacWorld Expos...)
The cost of such services is usually high.
So that probably means the hard drive in question is the internal drive? If you don't know for sure that the hard drive is physically broken, you can try starting up using your Mac OS X installation disc. Insert disc in optical drive and start up with the C key held down. When you get to Installer's screen, go up to the menu bar and run Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Does the internal drive appear in the Disk Utility sidebar?
Alternately, if you have another Mac (that has FireWire), you can try starting the Mac with the problem in FireWire Target Disk Mode,
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
Connect the "target" Mac to the other Mac (running normally) using a FireWire cable. Run Disk Utility on that Mac. Does the hard drive of the Mac in FireWire Target Disk Mode appear in the sidebar?
If you can get the internal drive to appear in Disk Utility, you may be able to run Repair Disk on the First Aid tab. There are also third-party utilities, such as TechTool Pro (Micromat), Drive Genius (Prosoft), and Disk Warrior (Alsoft), that may be able to fix (or at least recover data from) the hard drive.
