"Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting"

This morning when I powered on my laptop the loading bar went all the way until it was completely full then froze for an hour. I tried using OS X Recovery to run First Aid on my drive and I got "First aid found corruption that needs to be repaired. To repair the startup volume, run First Aid from Recovery". Since that didn't work I tried to use OS X Recovery over the internet and when I tried to verify my drive I got this message "Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting". How can I fix this?

MacBook Pro, Early 2011

Posted on Mar 25, 2017 3:28 PM

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Posted on Mar 25, 2017 8:35 PM

Hi,

The only way to change the partition map is be formatting the HD, meaning everything will be erased. If you have your data backed up, erase your HD via Recovery Mode or Internet Recovery Mode, install the OS, and restore the data from your backup: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

8 replies

Jul 31, 2017 12:56 AM in response to tjk

Hi, I found this thread as I have a similar problem which started only after I updated my Sierra version to the newest. After 2 days of effort I finally was able to reinstall Sierra but with little or no computer functionality. I can open someapplications but can't load any internet pages or the App Store despite good connection to the internet which has not failed me in 2 days of trying to troubleshoot this disaster.


Tried making a boot disk from Terminal but it did not work.


I did reformat my internal hard drive (SSD) but it is still showing the same error message in Disk Utility: "Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting."


I tried reinstalling Sierra again from recovery mode but was denied permission and/or told it was a bad command. I have tried to reinstall it perhaps 20 times today with only the one semi-successful effort.


I wonder if it might be a data cable problem as I had to replace it a few months ago. The HD is 7 months old.

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"Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting"

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