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Repair Disk *without* a DVD/CD. How?

I want to Repair Disk using Disk Utilities, but this option is disabled in OSX Lion.


So I read up a thread here that suggests that I can Repair Disk by rebooting and pressing the ALT key, which is supposed to show me options. However, I only see the "Mac" startup option, nothing for Disk Recovery or whatever.


What am I missing? How do I repair disk? I don't have the original "Recovery CD" (nor do I want to have it) and really really want this to be possible WITHOUT a CD or DVD. I understand repairing a disk is indeed possible?


This is related to many hanging situations after my upgrade to OSX Lion. And no, I do not wish to install clean OSX Lion. An upgrade should be an upgrade, especially from Apple.


Thanks for any pointers.

Posted on Sep 9, 2011 8:41 PM

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Posted on Sep 9, 2011 8:50 PM

Select the top level of your HD and you should be able to Repair Disk

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15 replies

Sep 9, 2011 9:07 PM in response to Cyberpundit

Did you Verify or Repair. If you Repaired then that's not good if Disk Repair could not repair. Since you don't have the Hardware Disk that came with the machine, you may have to purchase a repair utility like DiskWarrior or something similar.


You could try booting into the Lion Recovery HD and Repair Disk from there.


To boot into Lion Recovery HD:

Restart your Mac and hold down the Command key and the R key (Command-R), and keep holding them until the Apple icon appears, indicating that your Mac is starting up. After the Recovery HD is finished starting up, you should see a desktop with a Mac OS X menu bar and a "Mac OS X Utilities" application window. Note: If you see a login window or your own desktop and icons, it is possible that you didn't hold Command-R early enough. Restart and try again.

Sep 10, 2011 12:54 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

Thanks.


Strange problem: the CMD R during reboot worked. I went into a gray background area, and selected Disk Utilities, then Repair Disk on my main (and only) drive. It went fine. Completed the process in about 20 seconds.


Then I ran "Verify Disk" just to check. It said no problem.


So I restarted normally.


After normal restart, I run Disk Utilities again and do a "Verify Disk", and it again shows the exact same errors, including some "corrupt" stuff.


What's up? What did that Repair Disk process do that's different? Looks like it's a useless exercise and didn't do squat.


Any ideas or pointers much appreciated!


Many thanks..

Sep 11, 2011 8:06 AM in response to Cyberpundit

The disk (Mac) did not show me the Repair button. It was greyed out.


Is something wrong?


While booted into Recovery? (Hold ⌘R on boot).


Cyberpundit wrote:


So I read up a thread here that suggests that I can Repair Disk by rebooting and pressing the ALT key, which is supposed to show me options. However, I only see the "Mac" startup option, nothing for Disk Recovery or whatever.


Do you have FileVault enabled?

If not, you should also see the Recovery Disk when holding the ALT key on boot.

Sep 11, 2011 8:30 AM in response to Cyberpundit

Live verification of the boot volume can be unreliable:


Mac OS X: Disk Utility incorrectly reports disk errors on startup volume (disk)


If you get different results, you should believe the result you get while booted from the recovery partition.


If you ever do get real directory damage that Disk Utility can't fix, do not waste money on third-party disk utilities such as Disk Warrior. A drive that throws that kind of error is untrustworthy and should be replaced. If you choose not to replace it, erase the damaged volume and restore from your most recent backup. Doing that is faster, safer, and cheaper than using Disk Warrior. Disk Warrior is a recovery tool that's only useful if you don't have adequate backups. Spend your money on backups, not utilities.

Repair Disk *without* a DVD/CD. How?

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