Disk Utility - Can't access Mac OS X Utilities

I noticed that lately my macbook has been running awfully slow lately, so I performed some maintenance tasks and ran into the error message shown in the picture above.

I panicked, slightly, and followed the instructions right away. I restarted while holding the command + R buttons until I saw the first Apple logo, but it just started right back up like usual; so I tried it again, this time holding down the keys the entire time until the whole thing restarted and loaded my account.

It says above that I need to go into the Recovery Hard Drive in order repair my disc and get things back to normal, so I decided to ask some professionals here if there's any other methods into accessing the Recovery HD, or if it's something seriously wrong with my mac preventing me from accessing my Recovery HD.

No unless you have the original Snow Leopard discs. When you access Command+R you say loaded your account - where you able to enter Disk Utility there and run Repair Disk? You cannot repair a drive whilst booted from it. Sure sounds like the drive has failed.

Hi,

Possibly start up with your original discs and then you can repair the drive, unless you have upgraded your OS X. In that case I would run fsck
1. Restart your Mac holding down "Command(the Apple key)+S" key to enter 'Single user mode'.
2. Type "fsck -f", and hit return.
3. Once complete type "reboot" and hit return to reboot you Mac back in to OS X as normal.

Start up and hold Option. You should see 2 disks. select the second one. This is the recovery disk.
Run DiskUtil. Sometimes command-R doesn't work for me and this does.

@cradom I followed your steps and it got me to a different screen, but all it showed was my BlackBook drive which is the one I'm trying to repair

@oldscribe I followed your steps and I got this error message:



@harryb2448 In the Disc Utility it won't let me select Repair Disc for my BlackBook. It says my 500GB Hard Drive is fine, but the BlackBook partition is corrupt


Note: I do not have any original discs. I bought my Mac on eBay and, unfortunately, it didn't come with anything
(I do have Lion installed, but I think Snow Leopard was stock for the year)

I wonder if I set up a new partition on my HD, buy OS X Lion through the App Store for $20 (it would be useful to have anyway), then install it to the new partition, if I could repair my BlackBook partition from the new one that way... or something.

(Just throwing it out there: I'm not very Mac-savvy yet, but I'm working on it )

There is a typo in your use of "fsck", you need to have a space between "fcsk" and "-f" as you can see in the line a few lines above in your screen shot.

"fsck" is the program and "-f" is the option that is forcing the check.

Also you have to put the full path: /sbin/fsck -fy

Okay, there we go! I really had a hunch it was something I was doing wrong




I made the switch from Windows to Mac over a year ago. It was a tad confusing remembering all the controls, but I got most of the basics down. There's still a lot to learn!


Thanks guys ;D

You need to run fsck until it no longer shows errors. It might take several times.

How's this? I would've done it more times but I tried it twice and I didn't see any errors...

Should be ok.

Pat yourself on the back. Well done!

Hi,

Another pat on the back from me, sorry about the full path name just assumed you were there.

But congrats.

Thanks again guys,
Yeah, I only have one computer right now so I had to write down your guy's instructions and restart my computer that way when I first went into the terminal thingy, I did notice the instructions listed in the terminal showing the space between the 'fsck' and '-fy'. Now, I'm not all that good with terminals and coding, so since I've gotten my past problems solved by the friendly admins and members of this forum, I figured I'd follow your guy's instructions before making an educated guess and mess everything all up. It made me feel like a total noob (which, kind of, I am), but I feel better safe than sorry.

I'm probably gonna buy another Mac (iMac, MacMini, or a Macbook, not sure yet) from eBay like I got this one (unless a seller wants to change my mind), but either way I'm gonna be on the look-out for one with the original manuals & install discs, and hopefully the original box! I risked buying this one that came with nothing but the charger & battery, but it has a lot of cool software on it and it was $600 (which I thought was a steal) so I just had to jump on it

Well late model machines do not come with a manual or discs. Late operating systems such as Lion and Mountain Lion belong to the purchaser from the App Store, not the computer itself. And regards cool software ~ if you do not get the original software CD and activation codes it is pirated. Some eBay sellers do this illegally to generate more money for the sale.

I had no idea, I figured he wanted to keep the software discs so he could put them on other computers he was refurbishing.
I made sure to check his ratings first before I spent that kind of money on something I couldn't actually see first, and they were pretty good. I guessed he had a small business refurbishing Macs through eBay. The transaction went smooth and I got exactly what I expected. He did however, leave his email address on the App Store, so some apps I can't seem to get rid of/update without his password ... I'm just not sure now if I wanna keep the pirated software on my computer, or just format my hard drive and erase anything he may have left behind.

burningstar said:

He did however, leave his email address on the App Store, so some apps I can't seem to get rid of/update without his password ... I'm just not sure now if I wanna keep the pirated software on my computer, or just format my hard drive and erase anything he may have left behind.

Click to expand...

That would be the best bet. If you Reformat your HD and put a new OS on it, yes you will loose your pirated software, BUT you will have a clean Mac with your Apple ID in the App Store and you will be able to download and delete what you want.

First and i stress this MAKE A BACKUP FIRST.
When you do you won't be able to reinstall the pirated Apps because you will need the activation codes BUT you will still have all your important Pictures and documents that are on your Mac now and won't loose a thing.
Either with Time Machine which is inbuilt in the Mac OS X via System Preferences or Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. The last 2 make clones of your HD where TimeMachine only copies the files and folders from the OS and doesn't make it a bootable copy. CCC and SD make a clone and make it bootable so if ever your HD fails you can Boot from the ext with the SD/CCC clone

HTH

Cheers

Thanks for the info, TattooedMac
I actually just used Time Machine today before running Maintenance, so the (very little) data I had on my Mac is backed-up to my Western Digital external HD. (I usually just keep the necessities on my Mac and keep the rest on my Ex. HD, giving my Mac plenty of space) I do have SuperDuper downloaded, and after reading your post, I think it'll be wise to do a back-up with S.D. just to be sure... another thing I found shady is some of my 'paid' programs are in folders that have a .txt file with a list of serial numbers in it, (which, I know pirated torrents come in files like that with a list of serial numbers.)

Since switching to Mac, I myself have never pirated anything. (Another story for my previous Windows use)
The only thing I really use often is Photoshop. I have music editing programs like Reason, Soundtrack Pro, MainStage, Logic Pro, and Live, and I also have some movie/photo editing software... a real multimedia computer. I do play musical instruments, so I like having Reason and Live, but I never really use them (I haven't even gotten around to learning GarageBand yet )

Note I don't have Lion purchased on the App Store, (which, I don't mind buying it, Mac OS discs are SO much cheaper than Windows OS discs) will the format/restore wipe out the pre-loaded OS too, or will it just erase all my personal data and bring me to the welcome/set-up screen?

Edit: I just opened SuperDuper. It says in normal mode, it will erase everything on my Ex HD and use it for the image back-up, while 'Smart Mode' will erase everything but my Time Machine back-ups. Is there any way I can make it to where it won't erase anything on my Ex HD and just copy the image? I have other files on my Ex HD that are separate from my Time Machine back-up, would it be safe just to move those files to my desktop for now, let SuperDuper do it's work, then move the files back to my Ex HD? Or is there another way?