antdude
Level 1 (33 points)
Mac OS X

Q: Disk Utility was unable to repair external USB2 HDD's Time Machine partition?

Hello.

 

My client is having problem with his USB2 500 GB Seagate FreeAgent Go from early 2010. It has 2 partitions: FAT32 and encrypted HFS (mostly Time Machine's backups). After connecting and entering his valid password successfully, it takes a minute to mount and then a message that said "OS X can't repair the '...' You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can't save changes to files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can."   I ran Disk Utility with their verifications. Both found issues with "Invalid sibling link" and said to repair option. However, that repair option is greyed out.  So, is it not possible to fix it with free disk softwares except to reformat it?

 

I used two different 15" MacBook Pros (mid-2012's Mac OS X v10.8.5/Mt. Lion and early 2013's v10.10.5/Yosemite) with the same results so it is not the MacBook Pros. http://imgur.com/a/OW0s6 for a couple screen
(shot/capture)s from Mac OS X v10.10.5/Yosemite. I also tried disk verifications on its FAT32 partition, and it found minor issues. They were repairable too unlike the encrypted HFS partition.

 

Thank you in advance.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), 13.3" (9,2; MD102ll/A)

Posted on Aug 18, 2016 5:57 PM

Close
antdude

Q: Disk Utility was unable to repair external USB2 HDD's Time Machine partition?

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by Kappy,Helpful

    Kappy Kappy Aug 18, 2016 6:38 PM in response to antdude
    Level 10 (270,423 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 18, 2016 6:38 PM in response to antdude

    Disk Utility cannot repair an invalid sibling link error. You would need to use Disk Warrior for that assuming the drive is still good. Otherwise, you will need to backup what you can then reformat the drive. Just what the error message says.

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,Helpful

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Aug 18, 2016 6:38 PM in response to antdude
    Level 9 (60,774 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 18, 2016 6:38 PM in response to antdude

    Drive corruption beyond what Disk Utility can repair can be anything from extremely minor directory corruption, to Bad blocks, to dead drive.

     

    The classic way to determine that is to write Zeroes to the drive, which places new data in every block. Some Bad blocks may come clean. The ones that do not can have a nearby spare block substituted for them during this process. Writing every block takes all afternoon or more.

     

    My recommendation when facing this issue is to NOT face it. Replace the drive FIRST, get back in business, THEN deal with any salvage that may be needed. You can spend several days fiddling with this to rescue a drive that can be replaced for under US$100.

     

    case 1) everything dies when you try the write zeroes, you cannot re-use the drive.

    case 2) everything works, the drive is cleared and you have a good spare drive going forward.

     

    --------

    If this were mine, I would not allow two different file systems to write to my encrypted Trusted Backup drive.

  • by antdude,

    antdude antdude Aug 18, 2016 6:38 PM in response to Kappy
    Level 1 (33 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 18, 2016 6:38 PM in response to Kappy

    Kappy wrote:

     

    Disk Utility cannot repair an invalid sibling link error. You would need to use Disk Warrior for that assuming the drive is still good. Otherwise, you will need to backup what you can then reformat the drive. Just what the error message says.

    Ah. Hmm, Disk Warrior isn't free. Is there a free software similiar to it?

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Aug 18, 2016 6:48 PM in response to antdude
    Level 9 (60,774 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 18, 2016 6:48 PM in response to antdude

    If you need it, Disk Warrior is worth its price. No there is no well know, trusted equivalent, and certainly not one that is free.

     

    But you do not need it. The data on that drive is Backups. Get a new drive and start a new Backup set immediately. Once you have a full Backup (half a day to overnight) you can walk away from the Backups on that drive.