In trying to repair my hard drive, which disc utility said was corrupt, it stopped repairing it because it could not unmount the disc? What do I do? I booted my macbook pro from my backup hard drive. Thank you.
macbook pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
If you are running from your backup drive, and ask disk Utility to "Repair Disk" it should unmount it automatically and re-mount it when down.
If you are getting an error message, what message?
If you are running from your backup drive, and ask disk Utility to "Repair Disk" it should unmount it automatically and re-mount it when down.
If you are getting an error message, what message?
Ok, so you booted from the external HDD and ran the copy of DU found in the external HDD to repair the internal HDD when DU balked? Maybe Spotlight got the bright idea to reindex it?
Anyway, try rebooting again from the external drive and as soon as the system is up, drag the Macintosh HD icon corresponding to the internal drive to the trashcan. This will ensure it is unmounted. Run DU then; the volume you unmounted manually will show up grayed out, but you can still select it and service it. Holler back with your results.
Hi,
I repeated the same process three times. The third time it worked. I have no idea why.
Even though I definitely booted from a back up drive I could not get my drive to stay in the trash. Thank you.
Something was accessing the drive and refusing to let go. Since your external drive is probably a clone, the same process repeated the act. Maybe booting from the original optical install media (considering you state to use Snow Leopard) would have been faster, since the installer has no add-ons.
But the good news is that success was finally achieved. Did Disk Utility manage to fully repair the drive?
Yes. It repaired it and I ran it again and it said it was repaired. I like your idea of running it from an original disc if it didn't work. Now I going to upgrade to Lion. Thanks again.
Before upgrading, be sure to do a Repair Disk Permissions too! You do not need to boot from the external or install media to do this.
Also, you may want to read on how to save the Lion installer you downloaded, BEFORE doing the upgrade, since it commits suicide and erases itself when finished, having you re-download it again should you ever need it in the future.
it commits suicide and erases itself when finished
The way you say it, it sounds like the entire image survives until the last instant, and then mean old Apple erases it on you. I am not sure that is correct. I prefer to say it "is consumed in the process of installing". I think big chunks of it are just moved into place (not even copied, just Directory pointers changed) if they are already on your drive.
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I determined experimentally that if you are willing to endure the ENTIRE download time again, you can make a DVD later. The problem is... the time when you want that DVD, your Mac is not working well enough to download and make the DVD. So you still have to plan ahead if you think you might EVER want it, make it now.
Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:
it commits suicide and erases itself when finished
The way you say it, it sounds like the entire image survives until the last instant, and then mean old Apple erases it on you.
I just KNEW you'd love the mental image! Imagine if I had conjured the thought of a samurai installer committing seppuku after its role is done....
How do you unmount a disc, so disc utility can repair a corrupt hard drive?
