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Leopard Disk Utility and Input/Output error messages.

This post is describing a problem I had and how I managed to fix it. When I was researching the Input/Output error message I was getting a couple of people had mentioned this fix on the apple discussion boards, so I thought I would add my fix to support them. (Isn't google fab!) I've no idea if this is the right place for this so please bear with me.

Okay a bit of background:- over christmas we treated ourselves to leopard and as my laptop is now three years old I decided to do a complete reformat and installation. I used my 60GB iPod as an external harddrive and backed everything up. Installed Leopard no probs and was a very happy bunny.

The problem:- I then wanted to remove everything off my iPod. So I thought "I know I'll use Disk Utility".... I tried it with the 'default' setting and got an Input/Output error message straight away (irrespective of whether I did it as an extended journal or not.) When I tried it with the Zero Out option (can't remember exactly what it's called) it came up with the Input/Output error message right at the very end. Argh! iTunes and Finder no longer recognised it, but Disk Utility did.

My research:- After using google I saw some guys on here talking about formatting proper external harddrives using leopards disk utility and they were getting the same messages as me. It turns out it is a fault with Leopards Disk Utility. So I did what the guys recommended.

The solution:- (Thank god I had tiger!) I put in my tiger installation disk, clicked 'install tiger' and restarted the laptop. I clicked my my language, but then rather than going through the actual installation process I went to the top menu bars and chose Disk Utility (using tiger's disk one rather than my laptop's leopard one.) And erased the iPod there. Now when I quit the installation and opened my laptop up properly it worked, both iTunes and finder could see it!!! (I just had to restore my ipod in itunes - and now I'm happily transferring all my music back!)

I hope this helps someone in the same position as me!

1.33 GHz 12 PB, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Feb 3, 2008 3:10 AM

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3 replies

Apr 6, 2008 10:48 PM in response to Cokey

Thanks for posting this. I have a similar problem trying to reformat an external hard drive. . . unfortunately I don't have my Tiger DVD anymore. . . or at least I can't find it.

I do have Tiger running on another computer, but I get the same problem when I plug the external HD into that computer and try to use its disk utility. No Joy.

Bummer. . . anyone know of any other work around?

Apr 17, 2008 10:27 PM in response to Mitch 751

I took it to work to use my Windows PC to try and format the drive, but got the same problem. I figured either the drive (it's a 2.5" that used to be inside my AlBook) or the external housing it lives is was faulty. Only way I could test without spending more money is by putting the 2.5" drive inside my powerbook, and booting the (Ti) powerbook from a bootable firewire ipod. I successfully booted from the ipod, and had the same problem with the now internal drive: only visible in disk utility, any attempt to erase fails. Also, I plugged the small 10 GB drive that WAS in the TiBook (but which I removed to put the other, problematic drive in) into the external housing, and it connected to other machines just fine.

Turns out the problem is the hard drive itself.

So now my question becomes: If disk utility can see the hard disk when it is connected (I have it back in the external enclosure now), but gives "input/output error" messages when I try to erase/format it, is there any way I can salvage this drive? It's an 80 GB drive, and I was looking forward to making it my internal TiBook drive (replacing the old 10 GB drive that's in there now).

Leopard Disk Utility and Input/Output error messages.

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