Partition map check failed because no slices were found

[CommCool]

Hi everyone, I have just received this message in Disk Utility when trying to "repair disk" on my main external HD. Any idea what this means?

Its extra concerning because when I checked my time machine backup disk it also returned the same message...

And a third External HD has all buttons greyed out so that I can't repair or verify (although I can with the single partition).

This indicates to me that something other than the health of the individual disks might be the issue... unless its a huge coincidence? I've got 4 main external HDs that I repair/verify regularly and I've never seen this message before so it would seem highly unlikely that it would happen to 2 HDs simultaneously for the first time...

I get the same message from disk utility on my other computer.

Could it be a virus?

I used terminal to get the following results based on instructions from another website
(In the Terminal window, give it the following commands, one per line, pressing the Return key at the end of each line:
diskutil list
diskutil cs list
mount):



Dustins-Mac-Pro-2:~ dustinmclean$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *251.0 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 250.1 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *4.0 TB disk1

1: Apple_HFS 4TB 4.0 TB disk1s1

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *4.0 TB disk2

1: Apple_HFS TIME MACHINE 2 4.0 TB disk2s1

/dev/disk3

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: FDisk_partition_scheme *2.0 TB disk3

1: Apple_HFS Samples 2.0 TB disk3s1

Dustins-Mac-Pro-2:~ dustinmclean$ diskutil cs list

No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

Dustins-Mac-Pro-2:~ dustinmclean$ mount

/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)

devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)

map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)

map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)

/dev/disk1s1 on /Volumes/4TB (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled, noowners)

/dev/disk3s1 on /Volumes/Samples (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled, noowners)

/dev/disk2s1 on /Volumes/TIME MACHINE 2 (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled)





Thanks in advance!

 

[CommCool]

Am i not getting replies because no-one has any idea? Or because its a question thats already been covered elsewhere? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Flint Ironstag]

Forgive me if I missed parsing it in your text, but what OS are you running?

 

[CommCool]

My apologies!

OSX 10.10.3

3.5 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5
16 GB 1866 MHz DDR3 ECC

The hard drives are all seagate drives.


Thanks

 

[DeltaMac]

I know this may be routine maintenance for you - so, are you experiencing any actual problems now?
Or, just the question about the weird message that you are getting when you try the test?

Is there any particular reason why your system is not up to date? (Updated Yosemite is at 10.10.5)
That would also mean that you are missing more recent security updates, too, I'm guessing.

... I get the same message from disk utility on my other computer...

Same error on two different Macs? Seems that you might have some issues with something that you might have changed recently.
What apps, or hardware have you have added (or changed) since the last date of your "regular" hard drive scans?

 

[CommCool]

In regards to updating I'm always very cautious about updating as it can often cause problems with other software. But I've just updated to 10.10.5 and Disk utility is still giving me same message.

I don't recall installing anything new recently but I'm not sure when I last did a disk repair on these HDs....

 

[DeltaMac]

There must be something in common - if you have the same message from Disk Utility on two separate Macs...

Are you actually experiencing problems, other than the message in Disk Utility?