External HD Problem in Snow Leopard

Just ran into POSIX errors with my 1TB Seagate FreeAgent XTreme Media drive. I'm running MAC OS X 10.6.8.

I read through a lot of this thread and tried some solutions. Switching between USB and Firewire did not work. Booting into safe mode and trying Disk Utility did not work. I did not have access to a pre 10.6 machine but I did have access to a Windows 7.

**Luckily this was my Time Machine drive so I did not even attemp to copy files off of the drive. The drive seemed to mount ok. I could navigate the directories but I could not write to the disk.

So this is what worked:

On windows Machine, formatting drive to NTFS in "Disk Management" application. Fist I had to delete the (HFS) volume and the create a new NTFS volume.

Then on the iMac, Formatting to HFS(journaled) using Disk Utility.

Disk seems to be fine again. I can read and write to it normally again.

Hope this is useful.

-Luis

wondering if the disk utility problems are solved within Lion..

I actually just ran into this problem while trying to install Lion. I was attempting to install it onto my external boot drive, which is a Newer V2 connected by FW and running the latest Snow Leopard.

I got the error screen stating that the Lion install failed because a recovery system can't be created. After that when I clicked to restart Snow Leopard, I got only an empty gray screen.

Luckily, I had used SuperDuper to clone the system to another drive before installing Lion. I thought I would erase the now non-functional Newer drive and simply clone Snow Leopard back over. It was then I got the POSIX error from disk utility.

My fix: I switched the toggle on the back of the Newer drive from "Auto" to "1394a" For some reason, this allowed Disk Utility to erase and format the drive.

No solution, add me to the list of failed efforts. Four GB flash drive inserted directly into USB port. It once worked, but is now not recognized. In disk utility I tried to erase/partition/format using all available formatting options in OS 10.6 (e.g. exfat). All failed, most with the POSIX error. Phil

Same POSIX error report; can not allocate memory, Disk has become complete brick. No Wireware updates could be found on WD site.

Western Digital 500GB

WDC WD50 00BEVT-00A0RT0 Media

😟

Haven't heard much on this ongoing issue from people with Lion - but my error message in Disk Utility is a new one, and a google search returns only one result:

Partition failed with the error:

Wiping volume data to prevent future accidental probing failed.

Needless to say, I have tried just about every single thing in this thread, but alas, the problem persists - oddly enough, I did get one POSIX: I/O error, but wasnt able to replicate it - the above error is perhaps consistent with OSX Lion I wonder?

The drive i'm trying to initialise / partition is an OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSD (120GB) which is brand new as of today on a MacBook Pro 15" early 2011 model.

Hi, quick question, everytime I try to do anything with my disk in Disk Utility or Drive Genius it says that it can't unmount the disk. Everytime i try to unmount the disk it tells me the disk is in use and some kind program is using the disk.

is there a way in terminal to kill all references to the disk, or terminate any applications which might be refering to the disk?

Maybe then i can finally unmount the disk and reformat it.

Thanks in advance.

____________

MacBookPro5,5

2.53 GHz

OS X 10.6.8

Western Digital 500GB

WDC WD50 00BEVT-00A0RT0 Media

It that disk allowed to be indexed by spotlight? Spotlight could be "holding on" to it for a while updating the spotlight indices.

Regarding aforementioned post with error:

"Partition failed with the error: Wiping volume data to prevent future accidental probing failed."

I managed to resolve this problem by simply swapping the SSD from where the optical drive used to sit to the HDD space.

Disk utility then accepted my previous failed attempts at partitioning and formatting.

Hope this helps someone.

It doesn't seem that Spotlight is updating it's indices.

Also i failed to mention earlier; this is a completely newly formated disk. trouble started when I tried to reinstall SL on the disk after Lion had turned it into a brick.

so with that being said, the disk is practically emtpy, there's nothing really to index in it.

... But i've found some one with a PC, i'm gonna try to Format it using a PC or a tiger, and then reformat using SL. I'm hoping that should solve my problem! i'll let you guys know what the out come is.

cheers

my experience with this problem is extensive. It happened to me through my mobile me account. Someone remotely backed up my time machine, and everytime i try to install the snow leopard, the system falls back to remote install from back up. It literally under install log refuses to load default operating system. If you notice network is allways on when you install. you can disable airport when the leopard disk is booting. It won't help though, the remote disk can use 3g, 6to4, modem, and if you have a dvr the thing can even use infared. which makes it worse, if you have comcast, it will use your modem to dial up. all systems on comcast, phone internet Tv, are all through one modem. it can even use active directory and use wireless printers neighbors routers, and even some rf signals from cordless phones. Those of you that think your rid of the remote drive, i'm happy for you if you are, but i highly doubt it. Go to your advanced settings in your account login options, under group youll find that even a disabled user account will have a shadowed uuid number and same staff group. Also universal access youll find follow cursor, sounds enabled for keyboard typing, and more. language and text will have chinese extra boxes that can't even be checked or unchecked in light grey. theres plenty more, I have a ten chapter apple security manual that describes all these vulnerabilities, i was lucky enough to "get it" but theres so many open back doors... it cant be fixed for me so far. the best way to check is network preferences, password click add network then choose modem, 6to4, 3g, dial up, or remote network. Youll find one or more will will say not connected, instead of not configured. the catch is you have to be in a place that has no local access to networks, even your rf signal from some microwaves can be used. oh and don't be near your car that has bluetooth, thats the easiest way i've found out it connects. good luck anyone thinks i'm crazy email me. I have lots of proof, or if you have any ideas, let me know kaylee91299@comcast.net. I don't think apple knows how to fix this problem, and probably won't for a while, now that windows applications can get in so easy, i think its pay back for our lack of viruses, we just have lack of privacy...

Same issue for me.

Bandaid solution: Disk Utility -> Security Options , select to Zero Out Data, then erase.

That worked for me with no error (though took a couple hours, but worked).

Whoops, spoke too soon. Same error.

Ok. Got the fix.

(from here: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10430235-263.html)

Use the "diskutil" command (in Terminal)

To format the drive with the diskutil command, enter the following command in the Terminal, replacing "NAME" with the desired name of the drive, and "IDENTIFIER" with the drive's ID found in Disk Utility (click 'info'):

diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ NAME IDENTIFIER

Works.

@TylerDCA You can try another partition manager tool called Stellar Partition Manager which costs $39. The software can create, resize, delete, format, reveal or shift a partition

Vist here and get more information if you wish to try

http://www.stellarpartitionmanager.com

This thread is very old and i suppose you may got the solution for your query earlier.

Hi

I just ran into this problem trying to install Snow Leopard on a 2008 macbook. Using offcourse internal hard drive.

And i had the same POSIX error with no memory located etc.

In 10.6 it told me that no memory was located and in 10.5 it told me that there where i/o errors.

In my case the problem was in a faulty SATA cable. Changed the cable and everything worked fine.