You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Disk utility stuck (MacOS Catalina)

Hi guys,


Disk utility in macOS Catalina has been stuck at this screen now for 12+ hours:



Do I reboot the Mac? Can't think of any other options... any better suggestions? Obviously would rather not corrupt the hard disk.


Backdrop: this is an old iMac with Fusion drive, and one of the user accounts disappears. As first step towards a fix I ran Disk Utility. The HD's within the Contain Disk 3 ran without problems; then it got stuck when running on the disk yesterday... and the beach ball has been spinning relentlessly since.


Thanks, Philipp

Posted on Feb 16, 2022 6:09 AM

Reply

Similar questions

3 replies

Feb 16, 2022 7:22 AM in response to PMaier1971

Sorry, you are in deep trouble.

1] First lowest impact attempt:

hit [⌘]+[⌥]+[esc], select Disk Utility. then [Force Quit]

then shutdown the Mac.

2] If this 1st approach fail, then force a shutdown of the Mac with 5 seconds on the power button.


3] Boot in recovery mode: power on your Mac and immediately jump on [⌘]+[r].

4] Select "Disk Utility" from the macOS Utilities.

5] Select your core storage "Container disk3" and fire "First Aid" as you did previously, but now from a safer

environment. Plausible explanation: your "Container disk3" damages touched either system library used by Disk Utility

or Disk Utility itself or the OS itself.


Please report if this was of any use or if any problem appear.


If step 5] successful, then run "First Aid" on each contained disk: "Macintosh HD", "Macintosh HD - Data".


I hope you have some backups of your "Macintosh HD - Data".


Feb 16, 2022 8:25 AM in response to Zorba_le_grec

Hi Daniel,


Thanks for the reply.


1) I didn't mention it in the original post, but I did run Disk Utility after a (prior) reboot - that's why the photo above was not a screenshot.

2) I turned off the Mac, and on again - it still boots, but same issue (my user account is missing). I then rebooted and CMD-R'd again, and now I'm running Disk Utility again - on the Fusion Drive. I'm back to looking at a spinning beach ball, and a series of messages indicating: "Error: Cross-Check: Mismatch between extentref entry reference count (1) and calculated fsroot entry reference count (0) for extent...." - and several hex numbers.


I'll let it run a bit more, but admittedly I'm not too hopeful. I do have backups of everything, and I'm debate whether I should just reformat the disk, or try other ways to get my User Account back (which started this entire expedition in the first place).


Oh well. If anyone has additional suggestions, please let me know.


Thanks, Philipp

Feb 16, 2022 1:47 PM in response to PMaier1971

From your negative return I conclude that even your recovery HD hidden volume is also damaged. But your problem is that

the partition exists.

To be honnest, this is rather bad news for your physical disk, I smell the smoke.


Just to know I am not just leading you to waste a full day for nuts,

how old is your internal disk? ( Don't be ashamed I am working with 10 years old Mac and disks :) ).


Then there exists 2 other ways to save your existing disk, if it's any worth for you.

If it was my disk, I would try it to know for sure if I am not trying to rescucitate a dead cow. There is nothing worse than

to work with a dead disk without knowing everything we do is corrupted and not recoverable.


1]. Use a full installer USB key. ( I recommend to always make and test one, because this is the fastest and safest recovery method ).

If you have another Mac able to run Catalina, you could be one. See here :


https://osxdaily.com/2020/07/14/how-make-bootable-macos-catalina-install-drive/


2]. Use the Internet recovery.


You will need a perfect Internet connection ( == not Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi off, i.e. Ethernet or Thunderbolt + Ethernet only ).

Next turn on your Mac and immediately jump on [⌘]+[⌥]+[r] .


Be patient, the nice planet will start to spin for ( from memory ) something around half an hour ( not sure, I usually

can't stay more than one minute in front of anything spinning to make me sleep ).


This recovery method from Apple servers will reinstall the original version which was the 1st factory installed.

1st thing to do: a full "First Aid" from "Disk Utility" ( 1. container, 2. Macintosh HD, 3. Macintosh HD - Data ).

Next reboot and hold your breath.

Disk utility stuck (MacOS Catalina)

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.