Rotten Apples...
Aug. 15th, 2010 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteI've just spent several frustrating hours wrassling with my Mac. My Maxtor external hard drive had stopped appearing; it would mount, and then suddenly dismount, triggering the "this device was removed improperly warning". The actual disk seemed to be spinning happily along, so I guessed it was the cable. Managed to fix that by swapping in a new cable (though I had to steal the mini-USB cable from my camera to do so). So far, so good: Geoff 1, hard disks 0.
Then I realized it'd been a very long time since I'd verified my main hard disk, and figuring it would only take a few minutes and not having anything useful to do, I tried running Apple's Disk Utility software to see if there was anything that needed fixing. Repaired permissions; no problem. Ran the verify disk functions; problem.
Foolish boy, mucking about with hard disks at 8 PM!
Disk Utility gave up before completing, having found a problem with the Catalog that it couldn't fix. "No problem," says I, and digs out Apple's installation DVD (no small feat, involving archeology, fending off mummies, and eventually excavating the DVDs) so I can reboot and run Disk Utility from the DVD.
Off goes Disk Utility, churning merrily away. Distracted by the novel I'm reading, it takes a few minutes to notice that I've seen this screen before. Sure enough, it's trying again... and again... and after three tries, gives up with the following messages:
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Missing thread record (ID = 1526636)
It should be 8552113 instead of 855214.
FAIL!
(Okay, the last bit was my invention. That's basically what it said.) Sadly, my faithful silicon companion will no longer boot—not even a safe boot. That's rarely a good sign. Memo to self: never do disk maintenance after 8 PM.
Fortunately, I had a reasonably current disk image on the external hard drive (which now worked... see above) and a reasonably current version of Disk Warrior. Rebooted from my disk image, ran Disk Warrior, and all was well right up to the point where it told me there wasn't enough contiguous space on the hard drive to do a failsafe rewrite of the directory structure. There was no option to save a copy anywhere, and I'd just backed up all my data yesterday plus I had Time Machine backups going back a day or two (before the external drive started malfunctioning), so I previewed the new directory structure, as the software recommended. All looked well, so I crossed my fingers, held my breath, and clicked the "do it anyway" button.
Possibly it's just psychological, but I seem to have a speedy new Mac. A quick glance suggests everything's there and intact, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow to confirm that.
Phew! Don't try this at home, kids. Or at least wait until the morning, when you're adequately caffeinated.
Then I realized it'd been a very long time since I'd verified my main hard disk, and figuring it would only take a few minutes and not having anything useful to do, I tried running Apple's Disk Utility software to see if there was anything that needed fixing. Repaired permissions; no problem. Ran the verify disk functions; problem.
Foolish boy, mucking about with hard disks at 8 PM!
Disk Utility gave up before completing, having found a problem with the Catalog that it couldn't fix. "No problem," says I, and digs out Apple's installation DVD (no small feat, involving archeology, fending off mummies, and eventually excavating the DVDs) so I can reboot and run Disk Utility from the DVD.
Off goes Disk Utility, churning merrily away. Distracted by the novel I'm reading, it takes a few minutes to notice that I've seen this screen before. Sure enough, it's trying again... and again... and after three tries, gives up with the following messages:
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Missing thread record (ID = 1526636)
It should be 8552113 instead of 855214.
FAIL!
(Okay, the last bit was my invention. That's basically what it said.) Sadly, my faithful silicon companion will no longer boot—not even a safe boot. That's rarely a good sign. Memo to self: never do disk maintenance after 8 PM.
Fortunately, I had a reasonably current disk image on the external hard drive (which now worked... see above) and a reasonably current version of Disk Warrior. Rebooted from my disk image, ran Disk Warrior, and all was well right up to the point where it told me there wasn't enough contiguous space on the hard drive to do a failsafe rewrite of the directory structure. There was no option to save a copy anywhere, and I'd just backed up all my data yesterday plus I had Time Machine backups going back a day or two (before the external drive started malfunctioning), so I previewed the new directory structure, as the software recommended. All looked well, so I crossed my fingers, held my breath, and clicked the "do it anyway" button.
Possibly it's just psychological, but I seem to have a speedy new Mac. A quick glance suggests everything's there and intact, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow to confirm that.
Phew! Don't try this at home, kids. Or at least wait until the morning, when you're adequately caffeinated.
Rotten Apples
Date: 2010-08-16 09:08 pm (UTC)JakeR