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I'm unable to mount a DMG, getting a "no mountable filesystems" error

I'm unable to mount a DMG, getting a "no mountable filesystems" error

I downloaded a DMG of some commercial Mac software (CSSEdit) but I found that the DMG wouldn't mount. I tried another image from the same company, and then a number of images I had laying around from other software. About half of them mount and half don't. The error is always "no mountable file systems"

Asked by: Guest | Views: 261
Total answers/comments: 4
Guest [Entry]

"I had the same problem on an AES-128 encrypted dmg containing all of my most essential files, the kind worth spending thousands of dollars to have Drivesavers recover.
I couldn't even copy the dmg to another drive (could not be read or written -36).
My G4 (yes, I'm old school) is running 10.4.11.

This worked:

Booted from external hard drive also running 10.4.11.
Used Stellar Phoenix quick recovery to find and recovery the dmg to the external hard drive. All subsequent work was on that copy.
Ran that drives OS versions built in Disk Utility.
In Disk Utility, went to ""File"" menu upper left, chose ""Open Disk Image"".
Mounted volume then appears as sub dir of dmg in left column, just as any other volume does from it's hard drive, except greyed out (ie: invisible).
I use tinkertool to show all my invisible files, the mounted volume still did not appear on the desktop.
Attempted repair using Disk Utility without success.
BUT, launched DiskWarrior 4.0 and the mounted volume appeared there as well.
Ran directory repair (plain, not scavenge) and at the ""Report"" stage chose ""Preview"".
DiskWarrior reports new and old versions now appear on dektop.
I couldn't see either on my desktop (I had too much garbage there & may have missed it), but opening a new Finder window did show the preview volume in left column.
Grabbed my files off that preview volume and copied them to the external drive.
Praised everything good and right in the universe.
Allowed DiskWarrior to complete the rebuild, which was successful and the repaired volume mounted when finished.

Hope this helps."
Guest [Entry]

"Have you rebooted? I've had some weirdness with DMG's before and a reboot cleared it up.

I know it sounds too simple, but sometimes the mounting plumbing can get whacked out."
Guest [Entry]

"I ran into a similar situation. I had an image created by Disk Utility and every time I went to mount it, I got the no mountable file system error.

The solution was to convert the image to read/write type and then I was able to double click it to access its contents."
Guest [Entry]

"Have you repaired your disk permissions recently? This may help, since there may be some problems (permissions wise) on DiskUtility, or the part of the filesystem related to mounting of disk images.

Edit: Since that didn't work, I would next use OnyX and run all the maintenance options - this might just fix the problem.

It will also check your S.M.A.R.T status, telling you if you have a hard drive problem (and if you do, it's probably the cause of your issues)."