"Disk Needs to Be Repaired Using Recovery HD". Which one?

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Lovegasoline Author

Level 1

4 points

"Disk Needs to Be Repaired Using Recovery HD". Which one?

Macbook Pro

OS10.9.5

2.4 GHz Intel Core i5

Running Disk Utility I got this result:

'Incorrect number of extended attributes'

(it should be 411322 instead of 411331)

Error: "This disk Needs to Be Repaired Using the Recovery HD. Restart blah, blah ... when OSX Utilities window appears choose Disk Utilities"

OK.

However, I've never had this issue before. What disc am I using as the start-up disc? The external HD with Time Machine Backup? OR some other choice?

What exactly am I trying to do: a.) use another disc as a startup disc to runrestore the disc contents from Time Machine, b.)

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Oct 6, 2015 12:43 AM

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Answer 1

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

Oct 6, 2015 2:44 AM in response to Lovegasoline

The disk with the OSX has to be repaired. It usually will have the name MacIntosh HD. Disconnect the Time Machine disk and the remaining one will be the that must be repaired.

Ciao.

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Answer 2

Lovegasoline Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 6, 2015 5:54 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

I understand that the disk with OSX, the internal disk on the Macbook needs to be repaired, that's not in issue.

What I do not understand is:

What steps am I to do after I restart holding down command + R, then choose Disk Utility?

a.) select my external backup HD with my Time Machine backups as my startup disk and then once rebooted, open Disk Utility to attempt repair of the Macbook's internal HD , b.) use 'base disk' [or whatever the nomenclature is] as reboot disk to reinstall the OS from scratch, c.) something else?

Thanks.

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Answer 3

Oct 6, 2015 7:46 AM in response to Lovegasoline

Command R boots to the tiny recovery partition on the Boot Drive. From there, you can do a very small set of things directly (not everything Mac OS X is capable of doing).

One of the things you can do is run special version of Disk Utility, and you can use this Disk Utility to repair the Boot Drive, because all but the tiny Recovery HD partition is not-in-use. You do not need to re-boot to another Drive to do this.

If the drive makes some changes and comes clean (occasionally this takes more than one pass), you are done, and can just do a Restart (to boot regular Mac OS X) and go about your business.

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Answer 4

Lovegasoline Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 6, 2015 9:05 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks for the clear explanation Grant.

I dod what you suggested and ran Disk Utility a few times, and it showed the Macbook HD as OK.

However, afterwards when I restarted, I ran Disk Utiltiy and I'm still;l getting the same Error Message:

'Incorrect number of extended attributes

(It should be 408731 instead of 408730)'

...and it gives the same advice as before that the disk needs to be repaired using Disk Utility.

Background Note: yesterday evening I put my laptop into its case and commuted home (about 40 minutes): when I arrived home I removed the laptop and noticed that the fan was running (unusual) and the laptop was HOT. It's after that that I noticed some sluggish behaviour and ran Disk Utility and first got that error message.

Any suggestions what to do next?

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