Hey Dan, So often the "industrial grade" utilites are ignored in resolving problems such as this. I sincerely believe that Apple intentionally designed Disk Utility to perform only a basic set of functions, leaving room for third parties to develop the stuff that would repair the most severe of problems. The same held true with Disk First Aid running under OS 9.
So when Disk Utility fails in your attempts to repair directory errors, I would think Step 2 in everyone's book would be to pull out their copy of Disk Warrior or Tech Tool Pro. Everyone should have a copy for that rainy day they hope never comes. So with that said, pull your copy of Disk Warrior out and see if it will recognize the drive. If not, try Tech Tool Pro and see if it has any better luck. If both attempts fail, you're at a crossroads. At that point, assume it's either your hard disk or the firewire controller that has failed. And the way to find out is to physically remove the hard drives from the case and either install them internally in a cpu or in another firewire case. You will draw a rapid conclusion from there. I'm glad you have this data backed up because attempting to format or partition this drive will effectively wipe it clean. Its failure to do so leaves it in a quasi unknown state. But also be prepared to find multiple drives in this 1TB enclosure should you have to remove them. Good Luck! Ward On Jul 28, 2007, at 8:16 PM, Dan Crutcher wrote: > My immediate problem: > > I have a 1TB external hard drive (Maxtor/firewire) that will not > mount, so not only can I not recover the data on it (not critical as > I have another drive with the same data on it), but I cannot even > find a way to verify, repair, partition, erase, zero it out or do > anything to return it to a useful state. > > When I connect it to a computer, sometimes it gives the message "This > drive is unreadable" and the options to initialize, ignore or eject > it. When I choose initialize it opens Disk Utility and the drive > shows up in the drive list, although no volume does. If I try to > partition or erase it, using any scheme of partitioning or formatting > options, I get the message: "Partitioning failed: Input/Output > error." And that's where I'm stuck. > > I do not believe the drive has physically crashed. It does spin up, > the right lights come on, etc. I can hear it trying to find something > to connect to, but it fails. I suspect the failure is related to some > problems I've been having with the computer it was connected to -- > frequent kernel panics and forced shutdowns, etc. -- and that key > directory data on it has become so fundamentally corrupted that it > won't mount or allow reformatting. > > Does anyone know of a utility that might be able to "see" this drive > and do a low-level format or something equivalent to that? > > Dan Crutcher > > > > _______________________________________________ > The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will > be September 25 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane. > Posting address: MacGroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu > Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
