Won't mount but Disk Utility says it's OK

Hello, I have a MacBook Pro Dual Core i7 (Jan. 2011) running OS X 10.6.8 with 8 GB RAM. A couple days ago it seemed a bit slow (otherwise running perfectly fine), so I used Tech Tool 6 to scan my internal start-up drive from a boot disk, and the scan progressed well until it seemed to get hung up on Catalog file. It ran for 8 hours, and not knowing how long it should take, I let it run overnight. When I woke up the next day, it had gone back to the Language menu. I tried to look at the report, but it said no tasks were run. Now my computer would no longer start (gets the circle-with-a-line-through-it icon) So I ran Disk Utility, which reported that all was OK with my internal drive. So I ran Tech Tool 6 again, and this time it said there were over a thousand bad blocks. When it seemed to be hung up again, I aborted and ran Disk Utility again, which again reported that everything was OK. So I tried to mount the drive in Disk Utility, and it said it couldn't be mounted. So I tried to reinstall on it, and it didn't show up as a volume that could be installed on.

So now I'm thinking of getting Data Recovery 3 to try and mount the disk to get data of it, but in researching the problem, I can't find anything written about this particular situation, ( in which Disk Utility says it OK but still will not mount it, while Tech Tool says it has bad blocks). Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with this sort of issue? Thank you for your help!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jun 9, 2013 3:30 PM

17 replies

ms manatee Author

Level 1

43 points

Jun 9, 2013 5:49 PM in response to Kappy

Oh, sorry, Grant and Kappy, I hadn't refreshed my screen to see all your additional posts. Yes, I have restarted many times since the problem started on Friday. Thank you, Grant, I would love it if it turned out to be a cable or something like that, but what Kappy said makes sense, too, because after Tech Tool ran all night, it was back to the language menu in the morning, so it must have somehow restarted, maybe a power surge or something. Unfortunately I didn't back up, but all I really care to recover are my email contacts. Do either of you know a way that I might be able to recover data at this point?

ms manatee Author

Level 1

43 points

Jun 11, 2013 10:25 AM in response to ms manatee

Success! I went out and bought DiskWarrior as a last resort, and I'm now happily copying all the data from my internal drive 🙂 (Now I remember why I didn't back up before, it's quite a PITA 😀) Thank you, Kappy, for suggesting DiskWarrior over Data Rcovery as a final option before reformatting.

My important message to anyone with a similar issue is to be sure and run DW off an external startup drive rather than off the boot DVD. DW is able to access more resources from the full system install than it can from the DVD. I first tried it from the DW boot DVD, and it didn't see the drive, but then I made an external boot drive and installed DW on the external drive, ran it from there and voilå! Worked like a charm!

A mechanical problem with the drive was reported, so I'm copying from the disk preview. DW reported it won't be able to do a replace because of the problem with the drive. So, time for a new drive, but I'm happy to get all my old email contacts and whatnot.

Thank you both, Kappy and Grant, for your help and encouragement. I learned a lot!

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Won't mount but Disk Utility says it's OK