disk utility found an error but cannot repair

parksung · Nov 28th, 2007, 01:06 AM

i ran Disk Utility to verify my external hard drive (after my entire system got weird from unsuccessfully attempting to install Leopard on my Tiger 10.4.10 Macbook.

it reads:

**/dev/disk1s1
**Phase 1 - Read FAT
Unable to read FAT (input/output error)
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit

1 non HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair

ok, fine...but it can't complete the verifying disk or repairing of the disk, so what can i do now? the external hard drive is detected obviously, but doesn't appear on my desktop as usual...

Todd · Nov 28th, 2007, 01:47 PM

Get as much of the data off the external drive as you can. (Hopefully, all of it is is still accessible.) Then format the drive - as a Mac volume if you never need to connect it to a Windows computer.

External drives you buy in the store are formatted for Windows. Re-format them as true Mac volumes if you don't need the Windows compatibility.

Orion · Nov 28th, 2007, 02:42 PM

OSX Disk Utility cannot verify or repair the integrity of Windows formatted disks. You would need to hook it up to a Windows machine to do that, unfortunately.