MAc not booting

You boot into single user mode by holding down CMD-s during startup.

http://www.westwind.com/reference/OS-X/commandline/single-user.html
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2002/09/04/troubleshooting_with_singleuser_mode

yeah i have managed to find that out.. but what do I do next? can u help me like to gimme an idea what is going wrong?

Regards

Hey brett,

After going into single user state, i tried doing fsck -y and it says:

/dev/rdisk0s9
Root file system
Checking HFSPlus volume
disk 0s9: 0X8 undefined
catalogue file entry not found for extent

I have also tried using this command: bless -folder9 "/System Folder" -use 9 and it says:

Error while setting volume information for /
Can't set finder info fields for volume mounted at /
can't bless direcgtories

Try booting from the OS X install CD by holding down the c key. Once booted, don't install, instead drag down one of the menues (it varies depending on which version of OS X you have) to Disk Utility and run Disk First Aid. Ask it to repair your drive.

Also, if you are using OS 10.3 or newer, look to see what the SMART drive status is in Disk Utility.

yeah ok i have run that.
There were actually two har drives on my system and two parttions on each as following:

HD1 P1
HD1P2
HD2 P1
HD2 P2.

This system was supposed to be dual boot with MAC OSX and 9. I am not sure which partition had the files for which Os. simply no idea about that. But now when i have run the First aid, it has shown me in the menue
HD1P1
HD1P2
HD2P2
but NOT HD2P1. It just said untitled disk and when asked to repaired, it gave the same error, i.e catalogue file entry not found for extent.

Okay. It sounds like one partition is completely foozled. What you do next depends on how important the information is on the missing partition.

If everything is backed up or you don't mind losing the contents of that partition, you could re-initialize the one partition using Disk Utility, then re-install OS X on it.

If it is important to recover data from the missing partition, you have a couple of choices, but they both cost money.

One is to purchase a heavy-duty drive repair utility like Disk Warrior from http://www.alsoft.com which might be able to repair the partition.

The second choice is to purchase a file recovery utility like Data Rescue:  

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/1133 

which can recover files from drives even if you can't mount the drive. You can download a free demo of it which will give you a list of recoverable files, then allow you to recover one file before insisting on payment if you want to go further.

The first thing you might do, though, is to see if you can boot from any of the other partitions. Try booting while holding down the option key until the Startup Manager appears. If there is a valid system on any of the other partitions, this will give you the option of booting from one of them, and at least figure out what you still have on the rest of the drive.

P.S. if you re-initialize the partition, re-initialize it as Mac Extended Format (HFS+) Journalled.

strung,

 on booting while holding down the option key, system comes up with a blue screen and three squares. Two of the squares have a disk sign on it while the third square has a cdrom sign in it. beneath the three squares there is an arrow sign at one end and a sort of half circle arrow at one end.

What I have understood is that since the cdrom is in the system that is why it is showing the cdrom sign. but when i click on any on the drive sign and press arrow nothing happens the screen just turns blue agian with that smile box and small revolving cdrom sign. While on the other one it gives me a grey screen again with some broken square split in half  kind of a thing in the middle.

here is some more info, i managed to get out from some old documentation y old sys admin.

HD1 P1 is the main partition where everyone had been storing the data and this
partition is replicated to a partition on another physical disk HD2 on
parition1. This replication is done weekely. HD2 Parition2 is the one which is
backed up using retrospect. There is one unused parition on each physical hard
drive i.e. Hard drive2 Partition2 and Hard drive1 Parition2, which DO NOT
CONTAIN any data and are used for restore purposes if needed.

From above it seems that HD2P1 which cannot be repaired was just a replica of HD1P1, so how come the system is not booting.
secondly is there any possibility of partiotions getting bad like this in MAC. I have rarely found it in SUN though.

regards

The half circle arrow is "refresh". You should be able to boot by selecting one of the two hard drive icons and hitting the right arrow.

Exactly what model Mac do you have?

Please answer my question above about what model Mac you have. In the meantime, there are a couple of things you can try:

Clear the PRAM:  Do a cold boot while holding down the command-option-p-r key combination until the you hear the startup chime three times, then release and hold down the shift key to start with extensions off.

Boot up holding down the option key. Select a drive to boot from then hold down the shift key to boot with extensions off (safe boot).

oh sorry, I thought I had posted it.

Its Power MAC G4. atleast that is what is says on a sticker behind the tower case as well as on the CD's.

nopes....

same grey screen with cd icon on top left in the case of one disk and grey screen with a split square when i try to boot it with the second disk.

Regards

I am not sure what is happening. I tried going into the single user mode and though the fsck was failing i was abele to mount the root partition and then go and browse into the that partition. How can I mount all the other partitions so that atleast i can have a look at all the partitions and see my data. and if i am able to mount the root disk whatever it is, then that might not necessarily be damaged , otherwise it would not be mounted.

Any one please can help me in bringing this system up

Why not install OS X on one of the unused partitions?

strung,

see with my experience on SUN, i am still not sure what is happening, I seem to mount the root partition, and access my data, so how can i reinstall the partition again.

Ok can you guide me on following:

upon mounting the root partition the partiotion which i get into does not seems to be my primary partition, so then how come the system is not bgooting. since i am not familiar with the directory strrtucre of mac, but i could tell from the data folders i have.

How can I mount all partitions and see what is in each of them

i have also been unable to set the boot device to some other partition in firmware, how can we do that.

See I have to try all these kinda options before reinstall. It is not a solution for me at the moment.

Can I have your msn or something btw if you can talk to me online for a while?

Regards

Your problem is that none of your partitions has a viable system on it from which you can boot. You can boot from the OS X install CD, but it does not have a Finder, so you can't browse for files.

If you have an OS 9.1 or 9.2 install CD, you could try booting from it. It does have a Finder.

Otherwise, you either have to install OS X on one of your partitions so that you can boot from the hard drive, or find another Mac to either access your G4 using Target Disk Mode, or take out one of the G4's drives and install it in another G4 as a slave drive.

if i can access the partition , why is it not booting through it. I have the os9 cd as well and i will try booting it from that tomorow as well.

There are a number of reasons why an accessible partition might not boot.

If it is an OS 9 partition, the system folder might not be blessed. (To "bless" an OS 9 system folder, open the system folder and drag the Finder file onto the desktop. Then close the system folder and drag and drop the Finder file on the CLOSED system folder). Or a necessary file might be missing or corrupted.

Similarly in OS X, a necessary file might be missing or corrupted.

Or the partition might not have a system on it at all.

hmm ok I will try it with booting it with os9 tommorw. BTW in order to see how the installtion goes by, I started with the installer and when it comes to disc, it only whoed me two partitions on HD2 while one hardrive i.e. hard drive 1 was completely greyed out and when i put the cursor on it it says har drive is dimmed and gives no reason.

Strung,

Now I am quite sure that the lost partition was the one which did not contain any thing. I booted from OS 9.2 CD and i can see my Hard Drive 1 P1 as well as Hard Drive 2 P1 and as mentioned above as well I can only not see Hard Drive 2 P2. So my Os has to be in one of these partitions. CAn you now please guide me on what should i do next.

Is there a folder called "System Folder" on any of those partitions? If there is, that is an OS 9 System Folder.

If there is a folder called "System" (not "System Folder") that is an OS X system folder.

Please let me know which partitions have  a "System Folder" and which have folder called "System".

Also, if there is a folder called "system folder" let me know if it uses a generic folder icon or the special system folder icon.

Ok,

After blessing I have booted the system in OS 9.2 and I can see all my drives.

So problem is in OsX i guess?

You can see all 4 partitions now?

Run Disk First Aid from OS 9 (you will find it in the utilties folder) and ask it to repair all four partitions and see what happens.

Ok here it goes:

Hard Drive 2 P1 contains a "System Folder" with a smiley square on it. It also contains a "system" folder. "System Folder" contains lot of stuff while "system" only contains a folder library.


Same is the case with Hard Drive 1 P1 as mentioned above, but "system folder" does not have that smiley square on it.( i think I blessed the other one as you said previosuly, might be a result of that).

Though I mentioned that "system" folder only contains a folder libraray but I think to my best of knowledge it was like that before as well, but just wanted to let you know.

Har Drive 2 P2 and Hard Drive1 P2 as mentioned in the beginning contains some restore and backup scripts etc,( some of our old data) and there is nothing related to OS in those so we do not have to worry about them.

FYI Only:
"I tried to access the first aid by going through application and then utilities folder under it but somehow all the applications seemed to be having greyed out and upon clicking it said that the application cannot be run under this version of OS. i believe this also has been like this because previously I tried to to boot into OS9.2 and it used to sy the same thing and when I read some of the documentation by previous sys admin, it said something like that "OS9 runs as a process under OSX."

Anyways I found this disk aid by going on a multi colored apple on top left corner and was able to run the application.

It shows Hard Drive 2 P2 as my startup disk in the beginning.

So i ran the utilityy on every disk and on HD2 P1 it says on verify that "Master directory block needs minor repair 1,0" and upon repair it says unable to read from disk.
 BUT two strange things happened , the startup disk by itself changed to HD2 P1.........secondly on clicking on HD2 P2 the option tab in the menue above shows the option of erasing the disk, but does not show anything like that with other partitions.


Shoot man its GUI is different, its command line is diff , its open prom is different, its single user is different:(:(

P.S I'll try to reboot it now and see if theat changing of startup disk has some effect.
Regards

Does HD2 P1 mount? If it does and if you are convinced there is nothing on it you need, then highlight it's icon in Finder and Drag down the Special Menu to Erase Disk. Use the option to initialize it as Apple Extended Format (HFS+).

It sounds like necessary files have been erased from your OS X system folder, so I would suggest you re-install OS X using the Archive and Install Option:  http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120

How do I mount the partition?I have not been able to figure out the correct argments taken by mount command?

HARD drive 2 P1 contains everything. Hard Drive 2 P2 does not contain any thing.

If i run disk aid through the cd, it saya every parttion is alright, but when i run it from inside the OS, it gives error on one pf the partition.

and also when the HD1 P1 also contains OSX files and HD2 P1 which is supposed to be just a mirror image why is that system is not bboting from the HD1 P11

I don't know why your OS X partitions are not booting, but doing an archive and install should fix that.

I am still confused by your partition numbering. Is the partition that won't mount one with important data on it, or is it an empty one?

I am still not sure what do you mean by mount? If you mean running a ount command and giving partitions as an arguments,since i don't know how the disks and partitions are named in mac, I could not do them.

Though all partitions are accessible when i boot the system with os9.2.

I have also run the harfware test and it has passed the mass storage test.
I have three system restore cd's, do you think i should try those?

By "mount" I mean do the partitions appear as volumes (icons) on the desktop? Do you have four drive icons on the desktop, one for each partition?

yes they do.

Okay. If they appear on the desktop, they are "mounted".

Is the one partition which you say gives you an error message in Disk First Aid and empty partition?

Is the one partition which you say gives you an error message in Disk First Aid an empty partition?

no that is one with the "system and "system folder" but as I told you in the beginning that documentation by previous sys admin sayas that it is just the replica of another partition.

As i have told u before there are two partitions which have "system" and "system folder: and i do not know which one is it actually using.

The icon for the system with the active system folder is always the one at the top right corner of the desktop.

Sorry, that should have read the icon for the Partition with the active system is always the one at the top right corner of the desktop.

I hope by icon you mean the disk icon. anywyas yes the icon for the partition at the top right hand corner is the disk which is giving the error anfd that was where i blessed the system folder.

Okay. Try blessing the system folder on the partition which is not giving you a problem. Then go to the Startup Disk Control panel, select that partition and reboot. That should cause it to boot from the other partition and its disk icon should then be in the top right.

Then look for Disk First Aid (not Disk Utility) by clicking on the desktop and typing command-f and Searching for "disk first aid". Run Disk First Aid and see if it can repair the faulty partition while booted from the good partition.

Make sure you use the copy of Disk First Aid which is on the good partition, not the one on the bad one.

nops, it still says unable to read disk while repairing. results are same for running it from both partitions.

ok i have noticed one more thing. I was previously running the disk aid by clicking on apple menue and applications(mac os9) alias and utilities and disk aid.

This time when i have tried to run it from going into /volume/applications(macos9)/utilities, I was able to find the application folder in the good partition but in the bad partition, the folder icon was different something like a "white paper" but it still opened though and was able to run the disk aid.

I DO NOT HAVE FINDER in the good partition, though i tried to boot it from the good partition but it still showed that grey screen with the split square in between.

Okay. You should be booted from the good partition (i.e. the good partition's disk icon should be in the top right) and you should run Disk First Aid from /GoodPartition/applications(macos9)/utilities

Sorry, our message are out getting out of synch.  Are you saying that even after blessing the system folder on the good partition you can't boot from it?

yeah they are....


Ok no i cannot bless the system folder in good partition the way you told me to do( by taking out finder file and putting it back in) because I DO NOT HAVE AFINDER FILE IN GOOD PARTITION

was it supposed to be like this. should i copy the finder from bad to good one? ok sorry i will not reply till i get ur answer incase we get out of sync again.

Rename "System Folder" on the good partition to "Old System Folder". Then copy the complete "system folder" from the bad partition to the good partition. Then bless the System Folder on the new partition.

(Don't confuse the folder called "system" with the folder called "system folder'. "System" is an OS X folder; "System Folder" is an OS 9 folder).)

So do i bless "system folder"(OS9) or "system"(OSX) as its is osX which i need to boot, os9 is booting from the bad partition already.

secondly how do i copy and paste. It seems that when i press the control button while clicking on the folder, it does not give me any copy option.

Just drag and drop the system folder from one partition to the other. (When you do that between partitions, it copies not moves).

ok the folder copied on the good partitionas a blessed folder and I did not have to do it again and the system booted in os 9 as well. My good partition is on now on top right corner..

running the disk first aid on bad partition still gives me same result that it cannot be repaired.

In startup disk utitlity under my good partition it shows me 2 folders system(osX) and system folder(os9). at the mooment i booted it from system folder(os9). Should I boot it by choosing system(osX) or should i copy system folder from bad to good as well?

Copying OS X system folders from one partition to another won't work.

At this point you have two choices:

1. You can buy a heavy duty drive repair utility like Disk Warrior (http://www.alsoft.com)  to repair the bad partition, or
2. You can backup the bad partition to another partition and re-initialize it.

If you are going to go route 2, you have to install OS X on another partition, then boot from that partition and use Carbon Copy Cloner (http://www.bombich.com) to back up the bad partition to a third partition.

ok it seems that is the only choice, but before doing that one question, if i can boot in os9 from both bad and good partitions, the disk should not be damaged. If there is something wrong with the system files, will a fresh install on the same partition not work? so that i do not have t reinstall all the applications as well.

If Disk First Aid tells you there is a disk error, then there is a disk error and the error will only get worse the longer you use the partition. Doing a fresh install on the same partition will work only if you first re-initialize the partition, which means completely erasing it.

A utility like Disk Warrior might be able to repair the partition in place (in fact there is a good chance it will). Otherwise you have to backup, initialize and copy the backup back.

The problem is that the error is not in any one piece of software, it is in the index that the system uses to keep track of where files are on the disk.

hmm i actually did copy all the folders of that partition once on cdroms as a backup. In MAC if you want to take backup , is it that we just click on all folders select them and drag them to other partition or something else needs to be done.

would mac keep track of all the applications ifi copy like this so that i do not have to go throught the applications install as well?

Dragging and dropping from one partition to another will work for OS 9 systems, but not for OS X. To backup OS X you need to use a utility like Carbon Copy Cloner. See:  http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

If you copy the whole partition using CCC, then re-initialize the old partition and copy the back up back again using CCC, everything should work if it was working before. In your case, it is not working, so after copying back, you probably will have to do an archive and install of OS X.

it is for mac os greater than equal to 10. will it run if i use it on os9

Carbon Copy Cloner will not work while booted from OS X

ok what i will do is that install OSX on one extra parition and then move on to installing CCC.

Strung thanks for all your efforts. I really appreciate the time you have spent. lt me start with the installtion and then see what happens.

Sorry, that should have read Carbon Copy Cloner will not work if booted from OS 9. It is an OS X only application.

Good luck

hi strung,

i have been able to install osX and i downloaded ccc ( cccloner.dmg file was downloaded). when i run it it just mounts a carbon copy cleaner. When i go inside, there are some readme's and stuff, but when i click on the carbon copy clonjer nothing happnens. Did i miss something?

Regards

I am not at my Mac, but I think what is happening is that you have downloaded a disk image, which then mounts on your desktop. When you open it, the application and readmes are inside. Create a folder on the hard drive you have booted from and name it "Carbon Copy Cloner Folder". Then drag and drop the CCC app and the readmes and stuff from the disk image into the new folder. Read the Readme and run CCC from the copy in the new Carbon Copy Cloner Folder, not from the copy in the disk image.

Nopes, when i downloaded it was a file called cccloner.dmg and when i run it yeah you are right that ccwas mounted as a volume ( i do not know why when it has to be simple application) and rest of the things were inside that volume. Anyways I did what you told but no application appears.

What exactly are the names of the things inside the disk image?

Make sure you view the disk image in list view. The app might otherwise be outside the viewable window.

carbon cloner copy file which has an icon of two disks side by side overlapping

cccdocumentation.html
Troubleshooting ccc
Readme files ( this is a folder)

I have tried all the three viwes. When i click on the aplpication nothing opens.

The Carbon Copy Cloner file should be the application.

Did you copy it to your hard drive before trying to run it?

Did you read the readme?

What version of OS X are you running?

yes it is an application. I downloaded in on my desktop and ran the ccclonerdmg file. Is this wjhat you are asking.

I am running osx10.1 and it says on site that latest version can run on the osx version before 10.2 therefore I downloaded latest version.

Once you run the Cccloner.dmg file, it should cause a disk image to mount. You should find an icon on your desktop that looks like a removable hard drive. Double click on that icon. It should open up like a drive and inside there should be a readme file and an application and what have you. Drag all that stuff into a separate folder on your hard drive and try to run the application from that folder.

yeah this is exactly what i did and it still does not work. and this is what i am getting on console


dyld: /carboncopycloner/Carbon copy cloner.app/Contents/MacOS/Carbon Copy Cloner can't open library:

/System/Library/Frameworks/AppleScriptKit.framework/Versions/A/AppleScriptKit
(No Such file or directory, errno =2)

I have no idea what is causing that error.  Try running Repair Permissions from Disk Utiltiy. If that doesn't solve the problem, I suggest you post a question here: http://forums.bombich.com/

disk utility does not have any repair permission tab. it has only information, first aid, erase, partition and raid tab and none of these have this rpair permission option.

Go to the First Aid tab. Click on the boot drive and it should give you a Repair Permissions option.

on the boot drive it does not give even an option to repair and verify, while for other volumes it just gives an option for repair and verify

one more thing, I am trying to find one of the files through find command and it says permission denied. when i type in su - it asks for the password and there was only one password which it asked me to set but it does not work on root. is there any other default password for root?

No idea. Sorry.

Apparently Repair Permissions was not built into Disk Utility in OS 10.1. You have to update to at least 10.1.5 first (free), then download the Repair permissions utility:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106712

Here is the URL for the free update to 10.1.5:  http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxcomboupdate_10_1_5.html

Note that there are a couple of small updates that you have to download and install first.

strung,

my combo install is stuck on following:

when i start it it says it needs an installer update. I have tried to install the installer updates and at some place it says intead of this u need a security update and i have instaleld both of them but whenever i start the 10.1.5 update it says u need an installer update.
can you please guide me on this.

Try rebooting and see if that allows you to install the update.

ok my installer update package finally worked butnow when it asks for the destination drive all drives are greyed out.

Okay. First double check to make sure you are in fact running OS 10.1. (Pull down the Apple Menu to About this Mac)

hey strung,

update completed man. i had to install specfic securityupdate for 10.1 before installing the combo. Now last thing whihc i need to do is to run my backup application retrospect. I will strat with cloner again tomorow and see what hapens.

strung,

just noted something and thought should tell you. On the newley installed partition on  the system folder I see a blue X , while it is not there on system folder in other partitions. Any specific reason.

Regards

I have never seen that.

strung,

One last thing if you can please help me on.

I had this backup application retrospect on my mac. I don't know how it was installed, but when after installing the OSX on a new partition I tried to run it from the folders on other partitions, I was able to run it but it does not have e.g. my previous scripts which were there. i.e. it lost its configuration. Now since i have installed the os on a new partition it could not possibly over write anything on any other partition. How can i actually retrieve my application from the old partitions? This might be a vague question but since i have no idea abt mac structure, I am not sure how to go about it.

Regards

Strung ,

I have an application which has its folders on three partitions and it can be run from all three partitions. I do not know how. and whats happening is that in my docking station below the icon of that application keeps on jumping... why is that

If the icon keeps jumping it means that the application wants your attention.

hi strung,

Well my application is restored as well. And since now I am relaxed, I will just think over and ask few questions in general about the MAC and will then close the question, so that it can help me in case any furthur problems arise.

I really appreciate all your help.

Regards

Hey strung,

Well thanks for all your help. I had found many of my answers.

Glad to be of help