Strange Disk Utility error

You cannot repair the active startup disk, so I'm not sure what it is you think you did. If you try using Disk Utility to repair the active startup disk you will find that the Repair Disk button is not active. The proper procedure is:

Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions - Lion

Boot from your Lion Recovery HD. When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.

Boot to the Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

The item you select does it appear somewhat like this:

Of course the content is different, but I'm more interested in the structure you see. On your computer you see Macintosh HD whereas on mine it says Lion HD.

If so, then in order to repair Macintsoh HD you have to boot from a different drive because you cannot repair the active startup volume. When you select the top entry and click on the Repair Disk button all that does is repair or replace the drive's partition map.

Now, if the partition map is damaged, then the only way to fix it is to repartition the SSD. Doing so will erase all the data on the drive. So you need to make a backup of Macintosh HD on a cleanly erased external drive. I would suggest using the cloning option in Disk Utility to clone the SSD to the external HDD:

Clone Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility

Boot to the Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue button.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

Destination means the external HDD. Source means the internal SSD.

Once you have your backup then you may proceed to repartition the SSD.

Step One: Boot from the external drive. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive then click on the downward pointing arrow button.

Step Two: Partition the SSD

1. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder of the HDD.

2. After DU loads select your new hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.

3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Step Three: Clone the HDD to the SSD

1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.

2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.

3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.

4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.

5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.

6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.

7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

Destination means the SSD. Source means the HDD.

Step Four: Open the Startup Disk preferences and select the SSD Macintosh HD volume. Click on the Restart button. You should boot from the SSD. Eject the external drive and disconnect it from the computer.

Please do not use SuperDuper! with Lion. SD! has not yet been fully certified to work with Lion. I doubt it is the cause of the problem, however. For cloning I suggest using Disk Utility's Restore option. For backups and cloning you can also use Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.5.

Yes, having FileVault enabled will be an issue. See the following:

OS X Lion- About FileVault 2

OS X Lion- Using FileVault 2 and Lion Recovery

I am not sure if it's considered safe or possible to repair a drive that has been encrypted with Lion's FileVault. I've never used FileVault, so I am not positive of what you may and may not do with an encrypted drive. I think you must unlock the protected disk before you can repair it.

As I've said previously you cannot repair the active startup disk. You must boot from a different disk in order to repair your normal startup disk.

When you use Disk Utility to Repair the active startup disk you are not repairing the drive. You are repairing the partition map on the drive. That is what has produced your error. If you want to properly repair your startup disk you must either boot from another bootable disk or from the Recovery HD.

If you boot from the SSD and run Repair Disk on the SSD (not the volume entry) and there were a partition map problem it would be repaired. And, this should be true for your other drive as well.

I would not dismiss an error as a mistake even if it were a mistake. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is this. Here is an image of my drive in Disk Utility:

You will note that the Repair Disk button is active when I select the main drive entry - 1 TB WDC ....

However, if I select a volume such as Mountain Lion the Repair Disk button is ghosted.

If I select the main drive entry and click the Repair Disk button here's what is displayed:

You will note that the last log entry shows "The partition map appears to be OK."

In your case you originally stated that you received an error about the partition map when you did the same thing on your active startup drive.

I just want to jump in here and say I get the same message as well. Here is some additional information:

The problem began (as it did for several other people) directly after the 10.7.4 update. It also seems to have something to do with already having your system encrypted with FileVault before applying the update. It also doesn't seem to throw an error when verifying or repairing the disk in the Recovery Partition. That would imply that the problem may be with Disk Utility having an issue with an ecrypted drive during a verify/repair.

I hope that helps somewhat, it would be nice to get this worked out.

Note: the 10.7.4 update included a bit to specifically change compatibility with systems using FileVault 1. I have a suspicion that this is where things went wrong.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4000219?start=0&tstart=0