Applications :: Cannot Erase Or Partition It - Disk Utility "Cannot Allocate Memory"
Mar 7, 2010
I have a 500G WD external HD, and I used Disk Utility to securely (35-pass) erase it. Now the I cannot do anything to the drive. Cannot erase or partition it. When I try disk utility says the task has "failed with the error: POSIX reports: The operation couldn�t be completed. Cannot allocate memory" Before the drive would show on the desktop as, WD 5000BEV External Media, when I plugged it in. Now it has a message saying that "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." Then it gives me three options which are... Initialize, Ignore, Eject. When I click Initialize I am redirected to Disk Utility. Also now in disk utility it says that it is a 2.2 TB WD Media opposed to WD 5000BEV External Media. How does it go from a 500g to a 2.2t It is unformatted and I do not know how to reformat it back to the it was.
Anyone knows why my external HD (USB disk connected to Airport extreme) does not show up in disk utility? (It sits on my desktop just fine and is fully functional) I' want to erase a partition but now i don't know how.
I would like to know the difference between the options 'erase' and partition' in disk utility. Under 'erase' there are several options: under 'security options' there are 4 options: don't erase data, zero out data, 7-pass erase and 35-pass erase.
My Computer: 2.8 GHz intel Core 2 Duo Mac, running OS X Ver. 10.5.8. I've partitioned my hard drive before, but in order to get more space on my Windows partition I have made a disk image using a program called Winclone. I also backed up important files to my external hard drive, and then used disk utility to erase and make a new partition so I could restore the Winclone disk image I made and have everything back. What I'm concerned about is I've been waiting for this new partition (65 GB) to finish being made and its taking a while. I read that if you stop the process it could damage the OS X side and you could lose all your files.
I started to run time machine about 10 minutes ago and set the destination to my external drive for backup (Its a huge drive, it can hold 650+ GB so I'm not worried about running out of space.) Do I stop Disk Utility and risk it? Do I let it run? Do I kiss my computer goodbye and pray that Time Machine backed everything up right onto my external hard drive? I don't know if Time Machine is working correctly because I started it after I began to partition my hard drive. What to do. Should I let Time Machine back everything up, the disconnect my external and end Disk Utility?
I'm having a pretty serious problem. I attempted to erase the free space on my HD, as I do from time to time, except this time it appeared to hang/freeze at the end, when it gets to the part where it creates a temporary file. I waited for several minutes and it didn't move. I tried clicking the skip button, but that did nothing either, so I force quit Disk Utility.
The problem is, it left the disk at "Zero KB" of free space, effectively making my computer inoperable. I was in the process of studying for a huge exam tomorrow, and am currently flipping out.
If it matters, I'm on a Macbook Pro 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo, running 10.4.
I really don't want to have to reinstall the OS and import the old files, but my real fear is that I will have to do a fresh install of the OS.
I have a LaCie d2 160GB hard drive hooked up via FW800 to my PowerBook and I've decided to resize some of the partitions on the drive. I've done this before without troubles, and running Verify/Repair Disk on the drive reports no errors, but when I go to resize any of the partitions on the drive.
I'm trying to use my 500 GB external HD as solely a storage drive now whereas it used to be storage and backup, with separate partitions for each. I have deleted the backup partition (the first partition) successfully with Disk Utility, but how can I resize the remaining partition into the free space before it on the disk? I can't drag it or enter the desired size in the text box, it doesn't seem to want to get any larger. Is there any way to do this without purchasing ipartition? I have an old version from Tiger, but I'm not sure if that will work safely on leopard, and I do not want to lose my rather larger collection of ripped dvds on this external drive. Here's a screen shot of what i now see in disk utility.
I have an external 750GB hard drive that I previously formatted as FAT 32 because I wanted to be able to plug it into Windows computers as well. I was not very thoughtful at the beginning and I just created one big 750GB partition. I currently have 450GB used and about 300GB free.
I would like to create a new partition in the free space without losing the data I have in the disk, and format the new partition as Mac OS Extended to use it for Time Machine backups. Presumably Disk Utility can do it, but when I go to the "Partition" tab it says "This partition cannot be modified" and the "+" sign below it is grayed.
The hard drive is a 1TB Western Digital my book I bought it in January I think. I tried to format it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) when I got it but for some reason every time I try to erase the part thats named disk3s2 or partition the main one it stops a little before half way through. I don't think its the hard drives fault so I called apple about it one day and they helped a little but it didn't work. Thanks in advance if you can help me. Also a few times I waited about seven hours for it while I was at school and when I came home it didn't move.
I am having trouble erasing DVD+RW discs. When I insert a used disc and try to erase it in Disk Utility, the process seems to complete almost immediately, ending with OS X asking me if I want to mount the inserted blank disc in Finder. However, if I eject the disc and put it back in, everything is still on there. (detail: When erasing, there is usually a short interval where a striped progress bar is shown, after which a "normal" progress bar is slowly filled as the disc is erased. However, for me only the striped progress bar is shown--the "normal" progress bar is skipped--and then OS X says erasing is done.) If instead of ejecting the disc I choose to go ahead and burn something as if Disk Utility has actually erased the disc, I get a laser power calibration error.
I have been reading that the erase feature on OS X's disk utility will not remove file slack. If I erase the entire drive using one of the security options (Zero-Out, 7-Pass, or 35-pass),
I recently installed and uninstalled a few versions of linux on my imac. After installing some versions i realized I was going to need more space, so I went back into mac OSX and have been trying to add a new disk partitions with more GB.
First some background info. I recently purchased a 1TB hard drive for my 13" MBP, and I am about to do a clean install of OSX 10.6 and Win7 64bit on separate partitions.
And I want to setup the partitions before I install using Disk Utility. The reason for this is because I'm under the assumption that when creating a NTFS partition its better for the disk to be blank so it can put the MFT(Master file table) and MFT Mirror wherever it wants instead of some random spot on the disk (that way disk writes will be faster). The MFT thing was true when converting a FAT32 disk to NTFS. Nativity formatted NTFS disks were always faster then ones converted from FAT32, because the MFT was spread out instead of at the start of the disk.
I'm worried that installing OSX and then using the bootcamp utility will cause the MFT on my NTFS partition to end up in a un-optimal place and disk Reads/Writes will be slower.
Ok, so here's my questions.
1.) Should I be using a GUID Partition Table or Master Boot Record(Remember OSX 10.6 and Win7)?
2.) Should I use Disk Utility to Create a the OSX partition and then leave the second partition as Free Space? / Or should I use a third party utility and make the OSX partition and the NTFS partition at the same time?
3.) If I do create the partitions Manualy, will bootcamp still work correctly?
4.) Should I Use Journaled or Case-Sensitive Journaled on my OSX partition?
I know all of the questions were stupid, but there isn't any info on the web about it.
i was Erasing Free Space in Disk Utility, after a while I needed to Force Quit another program but I mistakenly quit Disk Utility and now it says I only have 3.1 GB space available when it should be around 270 GB available. I'm sure Disk Utility said it was 'Creating Temporary File' at this time this happened.
I'm now also getting a message which states I need to clear out space on my start up disk.
I am selling my 6 months Macbook pro and I would like to delete everything very securely. I would normally do a fresh install and then use disk utility to erase all date on a 35 pass. However I do not have the installation disks. I am not the best at using a mac but could someone tell me everything I have to delete and the steps I must take before I do a 35 pass erase in disk utility? I have noticed in console that I cant delete 'Diagnostic and usage messages'. I have gone through Finder then deleted the applications and gone to application support and deleted what I have seen but is there anything I am likely to miss being a non techy guy? I don't want to leave anything at all on the mac in the slightest.
I just ran the Erase Free Space thinking it would help me with a bootcamp issue.
I had 70Gb free and I stopped it when I noticed i had 30 Gb free left. So I just lost 40 Gb of hard drive space. What happened? is there anyway of recovering it or did I just make a huge mistake.
I am trying to reinstall Lion on my macbook pro, but every time the hdd shows up as 'locked' and when I attempt to format it, it gives me a "volume erase failed with the error - cannot unmount disk" message. It appears as if some files withing the disk are still running but I have no way of quitting them-knowingly. I can specify more if this seems to vague.
I have an external hard drive that was used on a PC. I want to use it on a Mac. I went into disk utility and did an erase. (Extended Journaled and in security options changed it to zero out data). I can now use it on the Mac how ever it is telling me that there is 54.1 MB of used space. I want to have access to this. How do I do it?
I have a hard drive with about 250 gb of film and music on fbut it's formatted as HFS+ which windows cant read! I need to partition the drive to make windows be able to read at least a portion of it. But If I run disk utility and create a partition will it erase the info I already have on there? I don't have this data else where so I hope it wont!
I have a 2TB Western Digital My Book Studio FW800 external that has 5 partitions, connected to my 2011 iMac. I had help doing the partitions and don't really remember the reasoning, but one is just for my SuperDuper! backup, one is Miscellaneous, one for movie clips off my camcorder, one for misc scanned photo's and one for my genealogy research. I back up using Time Machine to a Time Capsule and also to this WD hard drive with SuperDuper!
Recently I'm getting a pop up message that "Mac OS X can't repair the disk "Genealogy"'. And it needs to be reformatted. It's become a read only disk. When I look in Disk Utility it shows all the partitions as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" EXCEPT for the one in question. I also noticed that there are a lot of files with "date created" being the same date in 1969! These files may be letters I've written or photo's I added to that partition within the last few years.
I think I have to completely reformat the entire external hard drive to repair this, but I want to make sure. Because it's going to be a major hassle backing it all up to another external (having to get one first) and then figuring out how to make the files that have turned "read only" in that one partition, back to their original state! Does this sound right, that I have to reformat the entire external hard drive? And how do I get the read-only files back to their original state.
I had windows vista installed but suddenly the audio decided to become faulty, after spending a day trying to fix it i realized I have a windows 7 install disc so i might as well just replace vista with windows 7. I didnt take care of vista or ever register it so it became quite a task to upgrade so i just deleted the partition and went to create a new one and just do a full install of windows 7.
I made the partition but the wrong format, so i removed it through boot camp assistant and created another, except now it keeps giving me the "back up the disk and use disk utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using boot camp assistant again" Now, I'd love to do this, except I have no idea what I'm doing and WHY this error has occured. After becoming frustrated I switched from my imac to my macbook pro and received the same error when trying to create a partition. So any help on exactly what I need to do would be a HUGE help. I only use windows for music production (I know, seems backwards, but I use Sony Acid and FL Studio so I'm stuck with Windows)
1. To grab all the files I need/don't want to lose (photos, music, documents, etc.)2. Then completely erase the 500GB HD so I can then install it into the new Macbook Pro and install Leopard.(I'll then externally connect the 160GB HD that came w/ my Macbook Pro and add the files I've already copied into that 160GB HD into the 500GB Leopard installed HD in the new Macbook Pro)So, currently my 500GB HD is connected to my Macbook pro and I want to completely erase everything so I'll then have a completely clean hard drive, to then install into the Macbook Pro, add the installation discs and install Leopard into the 500GB HD.
I have run the Disk Utility verify function against my system partition. It tells me there are minor issues that need fixing up and I should run the repair disk function, by booting using Command-R and using the Disk Utility to repair the drive.Problem is, when I boot using Command-R and select Disk Utility the partition is shown greyed out and the Verify and Repair options do not work.I think this could be because the partition is encrypted. The utility does not offer me the chance to unlock the partition with my passphrase.How can I repair the filesystem errors on this partition?
I'm having a pretty serious problem. I attempted to erase the free space on my HD, as I do from time to time, except this time it appeared to hang/freeze at the end, when it gets to the part where it creates a temporary file. I waited for several minutes and it didn't move. I tried clicking the skip button, but that did nothing either, so I force quit Disk Utility.
The problem is, it left the disk at "Zero KB" of free space, effectively making my computer inoperable. I was in the process of studying for a huge exam tomorrow, and am currently flipping out. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
If it matters, I'm on a Macbook Pro 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo, running 10.4.
I really don't want to have to reinstall the OS and import the old files, but my real fear is that I will have to do a fresh install of the OS.
My new 2010 hexacore Mac will have 24G memory, an OWC Extreme Pro 120G SSD (positioned in the lower optical bay) and four 2TB WD RE4 drives. I'll use my old Synology 209 NAS (two 1TB WD Green Raid 1 drives) for TM backups over 1000Mbps Ethernet. Yes, I'll need to upgrade to a larger NAS very soon. This will be my first Mac Pro (have MBPs and iMac) and will be used for web design and development (mostly Adobe CS5 products).
The SSD will be used for boot and application files. I plan to use Disk Utility to create a 1+0 Raid array for data files. For a Scratch disk, should I: 1) create a partition on the 1+0 Raid Array for Scratch 2) partition a chunk of the SSD for Scratch 3) attach a spare external 2.5" WD drive via Firewire 800 for Scratch
Based on my reading, it seems that option 1 makes the most sense but I'm not entirely sure if you can partition a 1+0 array with Disk Utility. I'm pretty sure option 3 is quite silly but wanted to toss out the idea. Lastly, are there any generic recommendations on scratch volume sizing?
I have a 640GB external USB hard drive that I use for time machine currently. I would like to go in and add a partition to load movies to and plug it into my PS3. Can I use disk utility to create a new partition without erasing the stuff already on the disk?
And then is it possible to format a partition larger than 32GB as FAT?
