OS X Mavericks :: Can't Erase Hard Drive Because Can't Unmounted Disk
Dec 2, 2014
Cant erase hard drive because cant "unmounted disk"...My hard drive crashed about a month ago, and i used a program called data rescue to clone hard drive. when i put it in mac it will not load. now all i want to do is erase the drive and install Yosemite as new mac. but cant install or erase the hard drive.
I have a time machine backup I need to restore. It's a backup from an external drive that has failed.
When I go "enter time machine," I can't see the contents from the external drive anymore to restore it.. because the external drive isn't mounted. It's not mounted because it has failed. I can see when I browse the TM backup directly via finder there are files from the amounted drive in the backup... as I'd expect.
So... How do I restore drives from an unmounted external drive?
Do I need to buy a new drive and name it the same as the old drive? Then will it show up?
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!
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 a MacBook Pro running OSx 10.9.4 and have been successfully using Time Machine with a WD My Passport External Hard Drive for a while. Now (after 10 days with a successful back-up), the computer will not back-up. I have gone into disk utility and tried to erase, partition, and/or repair the disk, but repeatedly get error messages - it can't erase the disk, re-partition the disk or unmount the disk.
Info: MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), External Hard Drive
I've just transferred my data to a new computer and now need to erase the hard drive on my old one.. I've tried Disk Utility, increased the security, and tried 'erase' but I keep getting an error message "couldn't unmount disk". I've gone into Partitions and tried deleting the HD there as well but I get the same message. I just want to get the computer securely wiped and would like to keep Lion as the operating system.
I have a MacBook Pro which was originally supplied with OS X10.4.9. I have upgraded using disks purchased from the Apple store to 10.5 and subsequently 10.6. More recently I upgraded to 10.7 using the download from the online App Store. I would like to perform an Erase and Install to get rid of the 'dross' on my hard disk and may do this as part of the 10.8 upgrade although have yet decide whether to wait for this or not.
when doing the erase and install, do I have to start from scratch by loading the original 10.4.9 OS X version or can I start at 10.7. If the latter how would I do this given that I don't have a disk as it was downloaded from the App Store?
Info: MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4), 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
i know that diskutil has alot of commands and im not sure how to use them, i would specifically want to know how to use eraseDisk properly. Or is there any other way to clean install tiger without using darwin? I know eraseDisk gives me a format to use but i never get it right for some reason. diskutil eraseDisk "Journaled HFS+" MacintoshHD bootable /dev/disk0 -- this works i got it right now but it gives me this error: could not unmount disk for zeroing
I'm wanting to sell my old Mac mini, but I need to know how to erase any and all private information that I don't want any possible buyers to have access to. How do I go about this?
My older MBP is running very slow, and I have tried all the usual ways of making it run quicker - repair permissions, repair disk from Lion recovery partition, remove extraneous files, checking Activity Monitor, etc. etc. Someone suggested reformatting the HD and then restoring from a backup. I have the HD cloned to an external HD with Super Duper, but if I reformat the internal HD and restore from the clone, won't the problems that caused the issue in the first place just be cloned into SD and then restored to the reformatted internal drive, thus defeating the excercise?
Disk Utility Crashed whilst creating a Partition, and I now have ~100GB missing, which was the amount I had allocated to the new partition.
The new partition didn't get created, and I now have 100GB missing from the Hard drive. I have a 1TB hard drive, and when I go to Disk Utility, it says: Capacity : 999.35 GB (999,345,127,424 Bytes)Available : 586.1 GB (586,103,844,864 Bytes)Used : 310.52 GB (310,524,317,696 Bytes)
Which adds up to about ~900GB.
I tried Repairing Disk in Disk Utility, booting into Recovery Mode and Repairing Disk there, but neither made a difference.
Info: MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)
My USB drive suddenly became read only after months of problem free use on both Mac and PC.
As you can see I have no options to change permissions and Disk Utility won't let me erase the drive. When I verify the drive DU says it needs to be repaired but it won't let me do so since it is read-only...
I'm running on a mid-2010 MBP with OS X 10.9.3. The key itself is a no name brand with no write protection switch.
I'm trying to erase my SSD internal drive that is corrupted software (Yosemite).I'm booting from an external with 20GB Yosemite OS & 480GB that contains files I've dragged off the internal SSD.I'm getting the error:Volume Erase failed with the error:Couldn’t unmount disk.How can I get around this?
I am going to be selling my trusty 12" PowerBook G4 to a friend soon, and putting the money I get from that towards a last revision 15" PowerBook G4. After I transfer my data from the 12" to the 15", I want to completely and securely erase my hard drive. The thing is, I don't know how to do this! I've never formatted/erased a hard drive before.
I am using a macbook with an Intel Core 2 Duo (about two years old) and I am running leopard (10.5.8).
I have been using a Western Digital 250GB External Hard Drive with a firewire connection to utilize Time Machine for the past 6 months. All was going reasonably well until recently. (It would occasionally get stuck backing up and I would have to restart my computer and then backup again, but otherwise ok)
Last week I turned my computer on and it didn't recognize the drive. It gave me the "Initialize" "Ignore" option screen. I tried everything before I tried erasing it, but eventually I decided to lose all of that backed up data and just erase the drive and start from scratch. (I backed up on a different drive prior to trying this.)
Anyway, now when I go into Disk Utility and click on the Erase tab and then try to erase the drive (doesn't matter which erase option I choose) it says it is unable to erase the drive. If it is plugged in w/the Firewire cable then it gives me an "Invalid Argument" error. If it is plugged in with the USB cable, it gives me a input/output failure error.
Does anyone know if I can fix this drive? Any ideas as to what may have caused the problem in the 1st place. Months ago I accidently unplugged the drive without ejecting, but it worked for for a long time after that.
I'm in a bind. I want to sell my MacBook Pro, but my dad threw away the installation DVDs that would allow me to erase the hard drive. What's the best option here? I was thinking that I could purchase the upgrade version of Leopard on Ebay since it's cheaper than the full version of snow leopard... but would that allow me to erase the hard drive?
Is there anyway to erase my hard drive on my old broken mbp? (fried logic board) I want to sell the whole unit, but feel that the only thing i could do is take out the hard drive and sell everything else. Id prefer to not have to dismantle my mbp as it is somewhat time consuming. Is there a way to erase it within the mac?
I can't seem to find any instructions online about how to do this, step by step. Want to make sure all personal data is erased. I'm interested in performing a full format that at the very least zeros out the data on disk.
Macbook OS X 10.5.8 and a WD 10EAVS 1TB External Hard Drive. That's all. I was given this by a fellow student on campus who was graduating. So I want to use this to store my iTunes Library (my Macbook's hard drive ran out of space). Here's what I do:
- Macbook is turned on and running
- I plug the external hard drive into a working outlet --> Hard drive turns on
- I plug the external hard drive into the mac using a USB connection --> Disk Insertion Error message: the disk you insterted was not readable by this computer
- It is not readable so I open it in Disk Utility (the hard drive is listed/recognized)
- I attempt to erase and/or partition the hard drive in order to format it in Mac OS Extended OR Mac OS Extended (Journaled), but I get one of these two messages: "Disk Erase failed with the error: File system formatter failed." OR "Disk Erase failed with the error: The underlying task reported failure on exit."
I attempted to look up what these mean or how to fix the problem but nothing is really working. I was able to format the hardware line to MS-DOS (FAT) and the sub-line as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) but I don't even know if that's right or not.Basically, I need my computer to recognize this hard drive whenever I plug it in and to run smoothly as "extra space" to store my music on.I haven't had A LOT of experience with external hard drives but enough to get things done. But this problem is a killer.
I want to carbon copy my bootable external drive to my main internal bootable hard drive so I tried to use Disk Utility to erase it but it will indicate that it failed and can't unmount. When I tried to manually unmount by dragging it to the trash it indicated that it is in use. I can't understand why it's in use since I booted from the external drive which I wanted to the copy to the internal drive.
When installing Snow Leopard, will it erase my hard drive and force me to start all over or will it just update the software and keep everything the way it is on my Mac now?