Disk utility gives "Error: Partition map repair failed while adjusting structures to fit current whole disk size"

I'll make a fourth, although I do not know how someone actually escalates it to a point that it get anyone's attention.

But yes, I have fiddled and formatted, and reformatted, and got it to work—but never for very long, and lost data.

I'll chime in on my own to ALSO say that I've experienced this error message/pattern.

The problem is (at least in part) with Disk Utility on Mountain Lion. I found a computer running 10.7.5, and used that version of Disk Utility to complete success - fixed up my external HD for use with whichever computer.

Mountain Lion (ML). Ugh.

I spoke with G-Tech today. They explained that if you have a drive that has the PART NUMBER 0G02537, their drive will require a FIRMWARE UPDATE to correct this issue. Otherwise, the drive will not work properly with firewire, and could result in the formatting issues we've all experienced, and at the worst, cause the drive to be completely unreadable, which happened to me.

For me, these were 4TB drives. I had used them on Snow Leopard (SL) without any issues. I copied data via USB over to the drive for delivery. The person receiving the drive mounted it in ML and stated the drive was unreadable, would they like to format it!!? I received the drive back, plugged it into my ML system (not my SL system) via USB, and indeed the drive was unreadable.

Fun Stuff, this.

I have been using G-tech drives for YEARS without issues. I sent the drive back for replacement (before I realized it was a firmware issue), but the one I received, I've come to now learn, has the same issue! So, looks like G-tech didn't get the ML memo to update something in their firewire drivers that seems to prove fatal.

Hope this helps some of you out there.

ok - i guess I'll chime in too...

late model MBpro w ML 10.8.2

- connected new SEAGATE 3T DT backup plus with USB 3.0

- disk util - formatted mac guid - 1 partition

- right away diskutil first aid on partition = no problem

- but first aid on root partition (what ever you call it ) was dreaded =

Error: Partition map repair failed while adjusting structures to fit current whole disk size.

- so there was no time to sleep or get corruption - it was instant

NOT GOOD!

BUT THIS WAS GOOD... NICE SPEED BUMP w usb 3.0

i copied about 4.2 gigs

Macbook (7200 rmp drive) to seagate (also 7200 they say) = 55 sec

seagate to Macbook = 46 sec

---

Macbook to FW 800 - 7200 DRIVE = 2 min 27 sec

7200 FW 800 to Macbook = 2 min 14 sec

SO USB3.0 IS WAY COOOOL!!!!

Krutsch wrote:

So... all of my problems went away when I performed the following steps (I found these on a Seagate support forum):

1. Connect the drive (I use FW800)

2. Install the included Seagate Drive Settings software and make sure you reboot your computer afterward

>>>---- DONE - mine called Seagate Dashboard Installer.dmg and got update also

--->>> BUT SEEMS LIKE USELESS bloatware for social networking that is meant for 10.6!!!! not 10.8.......????????????? nothing about firmware related info..............

(Software also available from Seagate with your drive)

3. Seagate does not make the next steps obvious, you have to search for them.

Confirm that your drive is connected directly and correctly.

The drive must be connected directly to the Mac's USB or Firewire port to ensure that the spin-down command is sent to the drive. Do not connect the drive to a USB or Firewire port on the computer monitor or on the keyboard.

Click on the Apple > Choose System Preferences.

Click on the Energy Saver Icon.

There is Check box that says Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible.

Check the box here to set the drive(s) to sleep after 10 min of inactivity.

(Removing the check mark will disable disk sleep.)

Check what the disk sleep settings are now (if desired).

Click on the Apple > About this Mac.

Open the System Profiler.

Click on More Info.

Click on Power in the left column. The current Disk Sleep time is displayed in minutes on the right.

4. Another absolutely critical step that Seagate does not tell you anywhere is that in order for the firmware update from the last step to actually take effect (regardless of what the System Profiler says), you must power the drive down (disconnect the power supply from the hard drive and wait 10+ seconds) and then plug it back in.

5. Erase the drive using Disk Utility and partition as desired (you may be able to get away without this but this is what I did and it worked)

Hi I did all these steps - but no improvement

- i am NOT using TM

- but after all your steps done - I went back to D-U and STILL has SAME EXACT ERROR - so none of this helped anything for me.......

ALSO - YOU SAY TO CHECK so DRIVE WILLL SLEEP IN 10 minutes - but isn't that the OPPOSITE of what others say = NEVER SLEEP?

So which is it?

BTW: I tried both and neither got rid of the error........

HMMM .... not happy about about this.........

I got my new 27" a few weeks ago and I just got a 3TB Seagate Backup+ drive. I can go into ML Disk Utility, set it to one partition (meaning, wipe what was there), and hit Apply. When that finishes, if I do a Verify Disk on the drive itself (not the 1 partition), I immediately get that error.

I can hook it up to my mini with Lion, do the same thing and there is no problem.

If I take the ML-formatted disk and plug it into the mini, the Lion Disk Utility finds 400MB of unused space at the start of the disk when I repair it, but then starts complaining about not enough space for a boot area or something (sorry, didn't write it down).

This is an old thread...Apple needs to fix this. I wonder if TM will work across the network with the drive connected to my mini.

-Patrick

Update...if you do 'diskutil repairDisk <device' from Terminal, I get more infomation...a root cause, perhaps:

Error: -69697: Partition map repair failed while adjusting structures to fit current whole disk size

Underlying error: -5341: MediaKit reports partition (map) too small

Mountain Lion has some issue with the partition map it created being too small, I guess Or, more likely, there is a bug in diskutil that thinks it's too small.

Additional FYI, if I initialize the Seagate Backup+ 3TB drive on ML, I get a 315MB EFI partition. Lion only creates one that is 210MB (which, perhaps oddly, is the same size as the EFI partition on ML's internal hard drive). At any rate, with the 315MB one, Lion complains that the EFI partition is too big.

I have not had any corruption issues. But, I hope Apple resolves this soon.

I found the following Terminal command: sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk2

Password:

I got the following data on my Seagate drive:

start size index contents

0 1 PMBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 4 Pri GPT table

6 51200 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

51206 201332309 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

201383515 191460 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

201574975 30442599

232017574 500516298 4 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

732533872 32768

732566640 4 Sec GPT table

732566644 1 Sec GPT header

I repeated the command for my startup disk with this result:

start size index contents

0 1 PMBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 1952853344 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1953262984 262151

1953525135 32 Sec GPT table

1953525167 1 Sec GPT header

The error we get must be about the above parameters.

I notice that most disks have a start value of 40 for the first partition. But, the Seagate partition starts at -6. This does not look right.

Any comments?

In addition, a buddy just checked his 2 newer LaCie 3T externals w usb3.0 on ML and he has been running for weeks with no problems - but they had the VERY SAME ERROR when you repair the TOP volume like (no indiv. partitions) - he was surprised...

There seems to be 2 separate issues:

1 - the ERROR in DU =

Error: Partition map repair failed while adjusting structures to fit current whole disk size.

2 - actual data going bad for some - but not others - possibly related to time machine for some...

I wonder if anyone think the error might be unrelated and maybe just cosmetic or or bug in ML disk util.... as other disk apps dont' seem to show the problem...?

FYI... here's the the part that is NOT working when the error happens... Below is a succesful run of the top - partition map... looks pretty important! I wonder if this means these drives are bad or disk util has some kind of bug?

Verifying and repairing partition map for “OEM”

Checking prerequisites

Checking the partition list

Adjusting partition map to fit whole disk as required

Checking for an EFI system partition

Checking the EFI system partition’s size

Checking the EFI system partition’s file system

Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces

Reviewing boot support loaders

Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions

Updating Windows boot.ini files as required

The partition map appears to be OK

Likewise getting this error with Mountain Lion and a 3TB Seagate GoFlex Desk via USB 3.0. I've tried reformatting with every combination of filesystem (HFS+, NTFS) and partition map (GUID, old Apple) to no effect. Unfortunately, I have no Lion or Snow Leopard machines handy to try to repair that way.

Vote for escalating.

Also - I just took the NEW SEAGATE 3T DT Backup Plus drive to a snow leopard MBP and reformatted from scratch and ran repair disk to the whole partition map and partition with no errors. Then brought it back to ML MBP and SAME ERROR SHOWS for the partition map.

Hopefully this will help show that this has nothing to do with sleep mode or time machine and more to do with...

1 - a bug in disk utility

2 - an incompatibility with the controller card

3 - something else?

I ran into this same problem the other day on a Time Machine drive that, thankfully, I had just used to restore my system.

I bought a new drive and the first attempt at backing up to it failed as well. It didn't give the same error message, so I don't know why it did, but it did. (I wish TM wasn't an all or nothing program. Maybe it could back up, you know, all except whatever gives it trouble? That would be a start.)

I've read the whole thread, though much of it is beyond me. If there's a consistent solution here, I didn't see it. What isn't beyond me is that TIme Machine used to work just fine and now it doesn't and Apple has yet to do anything about it. I don't know, to me Time Machine is a pretty big feature and backing up is a pretty important priority and yet Apple does not give any sign of taking it seriously any more. Do we even know that anyone at Apple knows about this problem and cares in the slightest? How do we get them to pay attention? Or do we just take it for granted that we have to find a third party solution because a major Apple feature doesn't actually work?

This is massively disappointing on Apple's part.

I just got a new mini a couple weeks ago with ML of course. I've just experienced this issue with a 3tb USB 3 Freeagent Goflex Desktop after mounting fine the past week. I have it formatted GUID as one whole partition. I never use or install any software that comes with hdd, BTW.

Like they're doing us a big favor with that junk, right. ;-)

But when I booted today it didn't mount. Like everyone else if I do a check with DU on the partition, its all a-ok. But the root disk gives me the 'partition fail' thing. I also did Disk Warrior...no problems. Re-booting once or twice the drive mounted again.

Don't appear to have any problem accessing any of the files on it. This is used as a backup of my archived stuff. I have the same files on an Hitachi 3tb usb3 Touro. I guess I'll hook that one up one of these days and see if it has this error as well.

Mike Stand wrote:

I

I have the same files on an Hitachi 3tb usb3 Touro. I guess I'll hook that one up one of these days and see if it has this error as well.

Hi Mike,

I'm sure we would all be interedted to find out if the Hitachi Touro has the same issue. Please let us know the results after you tried the test