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Disk Utility cannot repair this disk

Hi there,


I recently bought a MacBook Pro 15" a couple of months ago and had been working fine. After turning it on one morning nothing happened and the screen stayed white until a folder icon with a question mark inside started flashing. After searching what it was I found out I had to repair my drive in disk utility. So I went in and after attempting to repair the disk a message came up saying 'disk utility could not repair this disk' and then tod me to re-install OS X Mountain Lion but after trying it won't allow me cause I can't find a hard drive to install it into. If anyone can help thank you

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Dec 2, 2012 4:39 AM

Reply
4 replies

Dec 2, 2012 5:06 AM in response to Tonyfaver

The hard disk is not all broken if you were able to boot into 10.8 Recovery HD using command r at the boot time because it resides on the physical disk in a hidden partition.


If you used a 10.6 disk, then yes Disk Utility can't repair a 10.8 drive. Don't use a 10.6 disk to repair, only to totally erase the entire drive to reinstall 10.6.


If you command option r booted into Internet Recovery (globe appeared) then used Disk Utility and on the left side there was nothing or only your optical drive, then yes your internal drive or something else hardware related is possibly broken. Take it in for service.


If you command option r booted into Internet Recovery (globe appeared) then used Disk Utility and on the left side there was only your internal drive (or + optical drive), (no Macintosh HD partition) then select it and click Erase with middle security option and apply, then head to Partition: 1 and Option: GUID, Format OS X extended journaled.


If you command r booted and on the left side if you selected the internal boot drive you have made a error, select the Macintosh HD partiton and Erase > middle security selection (wait) then quit and reinstall OS X into that partition.


Since your machine is still under a 1 year warranty, if your boot drive is really dead, then take it in, however do buy AppleCare for another 2 years of covereage. Apple is going to simply replace the drive and you will lose your data.


If you need to do data recovery, it's possible to install OS X on a external drive, boot from it and attempt to access the internal drive provided it's still working.


Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive


My computer is not working, is my personal data lost?



Local PC/Mac repair shops do data recovery, however if they touch the internal drive physically (like removing it) then that will violate your warranty/AppleCare. So you will have to be explicit in that regard.


If you have backups of your data then no worries.


Most commonly used backup methods

Mar 2, 2013 5:50 PM in response to ds store

Hi all,


i am having troubles with my hard drive as well.. since i upgraded to Mountain Lion 10.8.2 i have had nothing but troubles with kernel panics ram etc

all day every day one thing after another.. apps hanging Cannot repair startup using disk on mountain lion… saying Disk Utility cannot repair Mountain Lion (10.8.2) saying the drive has

A hardware problem that cannot be repaired.. saying backup as much data as possible and replace the disk

i have tried almost everything i am booting from a usb drive for now hoping i can find a fix. but its not looking to good..

After looking around and seeing how many others are having the same problems.. maybe what some are saying is true…


most mac users put up with it because we've gone Through years of conditioning and the always end up getting it right but this time is different. the power these apps has is madness!..

Like Waking the mac from sleep to do tasks, An app that most do not want, Removing any files it wants the excessive memory usage it goes on and on,

i have 3 Macs Others are working fine!!.. there not running Lion.. maybe thats the fix…….

In the past, we would just wiped and reload OS X to fix this issue i have done that and no good ..




I've had more trouble with Mountain Lion / iCloud than I have had in over 15 years with all my macs together… all my troubles started

with new share files sharing that i didn't want keychain changing anything to make shore iCloud can do as it dose.. when you change things back

you are removed as





User uploaded file

Disk Utility cannot repair this disk

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