

The command to use depends on whether you just want to check the item, or repair it as well. In Disk Utility (or Terminal) mount the container or volume again, by selecting it and clicking on the Mount tool.Once that has completed, consider whether the container or volume needs any repair using fsck_apfs.Watch as the volume or container is checked.
#Apple mac disk utility hangs password#
Then enter your admin user’s password at the prompt. Open Terminal and type the chosen command with the correct device name.When you’re checking a container, it’s best to unmount each of its volumes before unmounting the container itself. In Disk Utility (or Terminal) unmount the container or volume, by selecting it and clicking on the Unmount tool.In this case, I’ll use disk7s2, which is the sort of volume name you’re looking for, or disk7 for a container.

#Apple mac disk utility hangs how to#
When I was researching yesterday’s article about how to check Time Machine backup volumes, it hit me again and again, so I went back and had a closer look at what now goes wrong, and what to do about it. That some day clearly hasn’t come in Monterey 12.0.1. It would have been far better if Disk Utility had told us honestly that “this is a known bug, and some day we might get round to fixing it.” In Catalina and Big Sur, the error reported was confusing, and the recommendation to “back up the data on this volume” inappropriate. So to prepare for the call to fsck_apfs, Disk Utility has to unmount the volume or container, and that’s the step which appears to go awry. I suspect that privacy isn’t sinister, merely allowing communication between the tool and app using XPC.īest practice for performing disk checks and repairs like this isn’t with a live file system, and those options won’t work when the item being checked is still mounted. The y option simply agrees to make all the repairs suggested by the tool, but the x option is private. This article suggests ways around this, while we wait for Apple to fix this bug.įor much of this period, the First Aid tool in Disk Utility has relied on the command tool fsck_apfs to do the work, calling it using two options, y and x. To my shock, in Monterey 12.0.1 this problem appears worse than ever, and I now have one disk which Disk Utility is completely unable to check or repair. One of its most persistent and pervasive problems has been complete failure because Disk Utility has been unable to unmount volumes or containers. If the Security Options button is not available, Disk Utility cannot perform a secure erase on the storage device.Checking and repairing disks is one of the more important tasks performed by Disk Utility, but ever since the introduction of APFS, it has been more fraught than it should have been. Secure erase options are available only for some types of storage devices. (Optional) If available, click Security Options, use the slider to choose how many times to write over the erased data, then click OK. If the Scheme pop-up menu isn’t available, make sure you selected the storage device you want to erase-it’s at the top of the hierarchy.Ĭlick the Format pop-up menu, then choose a file system format. Ĭlick the Scheme pop-up menu, then choose GUID Partition Map. In the sidebar, select the storage device you want to erase, then click the Erase button. If you want to erase any other type of storage device: Double-click Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities folder. Note: If you want to get your Mac ready to trade in, sell, or give away, and your computer is a Mac with Apple silicon or an Intel-based Mac with an Apple T2 Security Chip, use Erase Assistant.
