# Disk Utility Options Are Greyed Out



## kaiz1 (Feb 10, 2010)

I have an additional internal hard drive that I installed myself about 2.5 years ago.  I had it partitioned into 2 parts.  It has been working fine until a few days ago.  I'm not sure what exactly happened but I think I may have accidently thrown the hard drive in the trash and deleted it.  Now I can't find the hard drive on my desk top or in the finder.  The only place it shows up is in disk utility.  However when I select this hard drive everything is greyed out.  I mean everything.  I can't verify disk, repair disk, erase, partition, etc.  I also tried running disk utility form the install CD and same thing.  It recognizes the hard drive but every option is greyed out.  Here's a copy of the information from the information tab in disk utlity for the hard drive in question:  	
	Name : 	WDC WD5001ABYS-01YNA0
	Type : 	Disk

	Partition Map Scheme : 	Unformatted
	Disk Identifier : 	disk1
	Media Name : 	WDC WD5001ABYS-01YNA0 WDC WD5001ABYS-01YNA0
	Media Type : 	Generic
	Connection Bus : 	Serial ATA
	Connection ID : 	Device 0, "B (lower)"
	Device Tree : 	sata/k2-sata@1/@0:0
	Bay : 	"B (lower)"
	Writable : 	Yes
	Ejectable : 	No
	Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : 	No
	Location : 	Internal
	Total Capacity : 	0 Bytes
	S.M.A.R.T. Status : 	Not Supported
	Disk Number : 	1
	Partition Number : 	0

My next thought is to try unplugging the hard drive and replugging it in and see if that does anything.  I'm not worried about recoving data. I'm positive I lost the data but I'm not worried because the data was backed-up on an external hardrive.

Any ideas or suggestions?


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## djackmac (Feb 11, 2010)

Its saying unformatted, so until its formatted you can do much with it until its formatted. You said you had partitioned it at one time, have you tried to do this again?


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## kaiz1 (Feb 11, 2010)

Yes. but I can't partition because everything is greyed out.  

Techinal support believes my hard drive went bad.  Is there another way to attempt to format without using disk utility?


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## Giaguara (Feb 11, 2010)

Terminal could do it. 
_man *diskutil*_ for syntax.

In Disk Utility (with GUI), even if options are grayed out, try to partition that disk - partition to 2 or 1, does not matter, just to see if the partitioning get done properly. If it does, then give the amount of partitions you wanted and proceed.


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## kaiz1 (Feb 11, 2010)

I tried that unless I was doing it wrong.  It would let me choose only 1 partition but after highlighting the 1 partition the apply button still remains greyed out and nothing would happen.  

Here's the funny thing.  Today I turned on my computer & there are my two orginal partions shows up on the desk top  I checked it out and all the orgianl data is intact.  For about a week it showed the hard drive was unformatted and I couldn't even find any data or the hard drive in the finder or on my desktop.  Low and behold today it's all there.  I can't explain it.  That is so weird.  Here's whats showing now:

Name : 	WDC WD5001ABYS-01YNA0
	Type : 	Disk

	Partition Map Scheme : 	Apple Partition Map
	Disk Identifier : 	disk0
	Media Name : 	WDC WD5001ABYS-01YNA0 WDC WD5001ABYS-01YNA0
	Media Type : 	Generic
	Connection Bus : 	Serial ATA
	Connection ID : 	Device 0, "B (lower)"
	Device Tree : 	sata/k2-sata@1/@0:0
	Bay : 	"B (lower)"
	Writable : 	Yes
	Ejectable : 	No
	Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : 	No
	Location : 	Internal
	Total Capacity : 	465.8 GB (500,107,862,016 Bytes)
	S.M.A.R.T. Status : 	Verified
	Disk Number : 	0
	Partition Number : 	0

I'm hesitant to use it.  Afaird it might disappear again and say unformatted.  I'll see how it goes.  Maybe its a loose wire. I don't know.  Thanks for the suggestions.


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## djackmac (Feb 11, 2010)

Might need a little more potent disk utility like DiskWarrior. But regardless you better get what you'll need off that drive while you are able to.


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## kaiz1 (Feb 12, 2010)

djackmac:

Okay this is really freeky.  It's not there again.  I shut down my computer and an hour later needed to turn it back on.  The partitions are gone again and missing from my desktop.  

Now I found where you originally told me to partition with GUI.  Under the partition tab I can select 1 partition and then the option tab is not grey out.  I swear that tab was greyed out before but now I can't remember.  I'm not worried about the data.  I have that backed-up on an external hard drive.  

Gosh any suggestions why it's missing one day and saying it's unformatted then back another day with partitions & data intact?  Maybe a loose connection?  I guess I should just try to partition it if it lets me.  You suggested partition with GUI.  Any reasons why not with the Apple Partition Map?  Is the GUI option better?


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## kaiz1 (Feb 12, 2010)

Sorry getting my people mixed up.  Giaguara suggested partitioning with GUI. 

But djackmac any input from you is also appreciated.


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