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5ringdon

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 7, 2008
6
0
I know that this is stupid but I tried to change disk permissions on the guest account for my hard drive. I realize now that this means they could not open anything not to mention that when I logged off I would not be able to boot my computer. I get the blue screen with a fan/asterisk type thing then it goes back to the blue screen and repeats forever. I already repaired disk permissions with the start up DVD but I was wondering if there were commands I could use in terminal to allow me to access my hard drive. I'm running leopard.
 

Cavas

macrumors newbie
Feb 8, 2009
11
0
Hi 5ringdon,

Unfortunately I have the same problem on my macbook pro, also under Leopard. I think this is kinda stupid, because we asked to lock the HD for guest. I really don't understand why the computer fails to boot, I am still the admin, can't it boot and ask for permission/password ? Anyway, I didn't even manage to boot with the start up disk. I don't know if I am doing something wrong or if my mac is in worst shape. Can you please tell me how you did that? Perhaps if I get it running I or someone else can come up with a solution for the HD access.
 

LPZ

macrumors 65816
Jul 11, 2006
1,221
2
Hi 5ringdon,

Unfortunately I have the same problem on my macbook pro, also under Leopard. I think this is kinda stupid, because we asked to lock the HD for guest. I really don't understand why the computer fails to boot, I am still the admin, can't it boot and ask for permission/password ? Anyway, I didn't even manage to boot with the start up disk. I don't know if I am doing something wrong or if my mac is in worst shape. Can you please tell me how you did that? Perhaps if I get it running I or someone else can come up with a solution for the HD access.

Well, if you can't start up from the System Disk I'd be very worried.

Can you boot in "single-user mode", by holding down the ⌘-S key during start-up? If so you gain access to a command line prompt where you can enter Unix commands. Give that a try. If you do get a command line, enter

/sbin/fsck -fy

and hit return. This will check your filesystem. Post what you get. After that, enter

cd /Users

followed by

ls -l

Post what you get.

To exit single-user mode, you can enter

reboot

But you may wish to hold off on that, since you may be able to fix your problem from the single-user command line.
 

LPZ

macrumors 65816
Jul 11, 2006
1,221
2
⌘-S at startup

OOPS. That should have been Command(Apple) and S. Sorry. The previous post is now fixed.

:apple:-S
 

Cavas

macrumors newbie
Feb 8, 2009
11
0
Ok guys,

so I managed to boot from the System Disk.

What I am trying to find out now is how to put permissions of the Macintosh HD (located at /Volumes) back to how it was using the terminal and the chmod command. I hadn't change the admin permisions, only the rest to not read or write. So how can I put those back ( I think it was on read only for guest).

LPZ, I can also access single-user mode but I don't know how to use that mode well. If you still think I should run the commands you told me first to see the results, tell me to do so.

By the way, when I press Repair or Verify Disk Permissions at Disk Utility/First Aid, I get the message " Disk Utility stopped repairing permissions on "Macintosh HD" because the following error was encountered: The underlying task reported failure on exit"
And it the History Box : " Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit. Permission repaire complete "

Thanks
 

LPZ

macrumors 65816
Jul 11, 2006
1,221
2
Ok guys,

so I managed to boot from the System Disk.

What I am trying to find out now is how to put permissions of the Macintosh HD (located at /Volumes) back to how it was using the terminal and the chmod command. I hadn't change the admin permisions, only the rest to not read or write. So how can I put those back ( I think it was on read only for guest).

LPZ, I can also access single-user mode but I don't know how to use that mode well. If you still think I should run the commands you told me first to see the results, tell me to do so.

By the way, when I press Repair or Verify Disk Permissions at Disk Utility/First Aid, I get the message " Disk Utility stopped repairing permissions on "Macintosh HD" because the following error was encountered: The underlying task reported failure on exit"
And it the History Box : " Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit. Permission repaire complete "

Thanks

Probably no need for single-user mode. In Terminal, what do you get from

cd /Volumes

followed by

ls -l

Please post.
 

LPZ

macrumors 65816
Jul 11, 2006
1,221
2
Ok guys,

so I managed to boot from the System Disk.


By the way, when I press Repair or Verify Disk Permissions at Disk Utility/First Aid, I get the message " Disk Utility stopped repairing permissions on "Macintosh HD" because the following error was encountered: The underlying task reported failure on exit"
And it the History Box : " Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit. Permission repaire complete "

Thanks

I'm not convinced that your problem has anything to do with file permissions/ownership.

Since you can run Disk Utility from the Install Disk, run it and after selecting your HD, click Repair Disk rather than Repair Disk Permissions. What do you get from that?
 

Cavas

macrumors newbie
Feb 8, 2009
11
0
Dear LPZ,

in /Volumes there are 4 elements, namely, .Trashes, ._.Trashes, Mac OS X Install Disk 1 and Macintosh HD, the latter of course being our element of interest :)

The ls -l commands gives :

total 12
d-wx-wx-wt@ 2 root admin 1024 Feb 8 08:17 .Trashes
--w--w--w- 1 root admin 4096 Feb 8 08:17 ._.Trashes
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Feb 8 09:07 Mac OS X Install Disk 1 -> /
drwxrwx--- 38 root admin 1360 Dec 19 14:03 Macintosh HD

Thank you!

The repair disk said everyting was ok, but I'll run it again. The permissions was the only thing I changed before getting this problem. Not that it means that this is really the problem, but us something I need to check, especially after seeing that someone else (5ringdon) had exactly the same problem after doing excactly the same thing with the permissions.
 

Cavas

macrumors newbie
Feb 8, 2009
11
0
I run the Repair disk again and " The Volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK"
 

LPZ

macrumors 65816
Jul 11, 2006
1,221
2
Dear LPZ,

in /Volumes there are 4 elements, namely, .Trashes, ._.Trashes, Mac OS X Install Disk 1 and Macintosh HD, the latter of course being our element of interest :)

The ls -l commands gives :

total 12
d-wx-wx-wt@ 2 root admin 1024 Feb 8 08:17 .Trashes
--w--w--w- 1 root admin 4096 Feb 8 08:17 ._.Trashes
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Feb 8 09:07 Mac OS X Install Disk 1 -> /
drwxrwx--- 38 root admin 1360 Dec 19 14:03 Macintosh HD

Thank you!

The repair disk said everyting was ok, but I'll run it again. The permissions was the only thing I changed before getting this problem. Not that it means that this is really the problem, but us something I need to check, especially after seeing that someone else (5ringdon) had exactly the same problem after doing excactly the same thing with the permissions.


I guess at this point I'd try to repair permissions again using Disk Utility (post the full output). If no problems occur, then I'd try to boot from the HD rather than from the Install Disk.

According to the output of that ls command, the "other permissions" on your HD say "no reading, no writing, no executing/searching." When I do the same for my HD from Terminal on the Install Disk, I get "drwxrwxr-t". Still, I don't see why this should keep the System from booting from your HD.
 

Cavas

macrumors newbie
Feb 8, 2009
11
0
Well LPZ, I can see why you didn't see why the permissions should be a problem for booting, I didn't think I would come up with such a problem either. But that was in fact the problem. I fixed it by typing :

chmod 755 Macintosh\ HD/

in the /Volumes directory.

This command turns the permissions to " read, write and execute by the owner, read and execute by group members, read and execute by others "

The permissions changed and after I rebooted the system it started up normally. I really think this is some kind of mistake/bug/whatever on the mac os x. Someone should fix it, at least you should get a warning on what will happen when you make this changes. Anyway, thanks for your help.
 

LPZ

macrumors 65816
Jul 11, 2006
1,221
2
Glad you solved your problem.

It would be a good idea to run Disk Utility now and repair permissions, just in case any other system files ended up with incorrect permissions. You can run the Disk Utility from your Utilities folder.

I too am surprised that the OS allows a user to do this so easily. Looking on the web I see that many users have had the same problem.
 

Cavas

macrumors newbie
Feb 8, 2009
11
0
Well at least the solution is not very difficult, just one command. But again it is very funny that the OS let's you do that so easily as you said. I guess most people think "hm, let's make the HD accessible only to me" but it seems things get messed up if the HD is the HD with the OS. I'll run the repair permissions as you suggested, that's a good idea. Hopefully this posts might help others to overcome the problem.

Cheers,
Cavas
 

danny99

macrumors newbie
Feb 24, 2009
2
0
Well LPZ, I can see why you didn't see why the permissions should be a problem for booting, I didn't think I would come up with such a problem either. But that was in fuct the problem. I fixed it by typing :

chmod 755 Macintosh\ HD/

in the /Volumes directory.

This command turns the permissions to " read, write and execute by the owner, read and execute by group members, read and execute by others "

The permissions changed and after I rebooted the system it started up normally. I really think this is some kind of mistake/bug/whatever on the mac os x. Someone should fix it, at least you should get a warning on what will happen when you make this changes. Anyway, thanks for your help.


Hi Cavas,

I did have the same problem,
but 'm a new user not sure about were to type in the command

can you pls walk me though the step in more details??
 

Cavas

macrumors newbie
Feb 8, 2009
11
0
Oh man, I didn't see the last post by danny99, sorry for not answering. :( ( I had the email notifications for replies disabled..). I really hope someone already helped you out on how to fix this. However I will write the procedure step by step for others that may have this problem to see. Use these steps if the solution proposed by reykjavik in the discussion at

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/662925/

don't work ( as it didn't work for me).

1. Insert MAC OS Disk 1 and boot your mac. Hold the C key while booting. The mac will start-up using the dvd.

2.The Language menu will appear. Choose language and proceed by clicking the arrow button.

3.From the menu bar on top of the screen, choose Utilities -> Terminal.
The terminal will open.

4. Type
cd /Volumes
and press enter

5. Type the command
chmod 755 Macintosh\ HD/
and press enter

The part Macintosh\ HD/ on the command is the HD name, that is the default. You might have changed it however so type the name of your main HD instead. It's a bit tricky to write name that has more than one words separated by space (as in the case of Macintosh HD) so to be sure, type the first few letters and press the tab key. The terminal should fill the name in the command correctly.

6. The permissions have now changed!

7. From the menu bar choose Mac OS X Installer -> Quit Mac OS X Installer

8. On the question asked click Choose disk
Choose your main HD and click restart

9. Your mac should start-up normally again :)

This is obviously something that shouldn't be happening so I filled a bug report to apple. Untii they fix it, don't change those permissions. Note that this problem can also come up through the file-sharing permissions as well,
check out this in the discussion at

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/416180/

and the solution by shamino.

Cheers,
Cavas
 

CasinoOwl

macrumors regular
Jun 20, 2007
165
274
Palm Springs, CA
Works on Snow Leopard

Thanks you Cavas! I made this same stupid mistake - changed my permissions on my main HD to No Access. I am running on OS X 10.6.1 and this fix worked fine. :)




Oh man, I didn't see the last post by danny99, sorry for not answering. :( ( I had the email notifications for replies disabled..). I really hope someone already helped you out on how to fix this. However I will write the procedure step by step for others that may have this problem to see. Use these steps if the solution proposed by reykjavik in the discussion at

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/662925/

don't work ( as it didn't work for me).

1. Insert MAC OS Disk 1 and boot your mac. Hold the C key while booting. The mac will start-up using the dvd.

2.The Language menu will appear. Choose language and proceed by clicking the arrow button.

3.From the menu bar on top of the screen, choose Utilities -> Terminal.
The terminal will open.

4. Type
cd /Volumes
and press enter

5. Type the command
chmod 755 Macintosh\ HD/
and press enter

The part Macintosh\ HD/ on the command is the HD name, that is the default. You might have changed it however so type the name of your main HD instead. It's a bit tricky to write name that has more than one words separated by space (as in the case of Macintosh HD) so to be sure, type the first few letters and press the tab key. The terminal should fill the name in the command correctly.

6. The permissions have now changed!

7. From the menu bar choose Mac OS X Installer -> Quit Mac OS X Installer

8. On the question asked click Choose disk
Choose your main HD and click restart

9. Your mac should start-up normally again :)

This is obviously something that shouldn't be happening so I filled a bug report to apple. Untii they fix it, don't change those permissions. Note that this problem can also come up through the file-sharing permissions as well,
check out this in the discussion at

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/416180/

and the solution by shamino.

Cheers,
Cavas
 

JoelThornhill

macrumors newbie
Jan 14, 2010
1
0
Just wanted to say thanks for this post i know it's old now its lucky i found it!
After trying to do some file sharing with a pc my brother told me he could get to my hard drive from his mac so i thought id be clever and changed all the disc permission settings and had this problem, not doing that again.

After searching for ages i found this thread and its something so simple to do!

Maybe apple should just have a note saying 'changing disc permissions will mess up your computer'

Thanks again for this thread
Joel
 

Brenman

macrumors newbie
Jan 16, 2010
1
0
Same Thing This morning!!!!

I was trying to harden my system by changing Hard Drive Permissions and then I did a reboot.... or tried to do a reboot and it was stuck at the Apple screen. After doing a search on "Stuck at Apple Screen" everything that came up looked like it was a hard disk failure and then I remembered, didn't I mess with the HD permissions last night, and sure enough, there I was with a Hard Drive that I couldn't boot anymore.

I had to hold down the "Option" key to select to boot to my MAC OS disk ("c" didn't work).

Crazy, crazy crazy!!!!! Thanks for the Unix command to type!!!! Probably would have cost me all kinds of money at the MAC Store to have them do it.

I kinda wonder if they would have known what the problem was.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank You!!!!
 

Markus001

macrumors newbie
Apr 16, 2011
2
0
Changed HD disk permissions can't boot/Mac gray screen

Guys,

I want to thank you all for sharing information using your time and your brains to help.
I really appreciate it, wish you all good things to happen.

I spent 2 days trying to figure out what to do with it.
But, what you wrote here worked perfectly for me.

For those who might read it, here is what I did:
By not knowing, I have changed HD permissions for Admin -read only, for other account I use Read&Write.
Tried to reboot and that the system didn't boot, grey MAC screen with a wheel spinning

I have OSX 10.5.8(original version) installed on my iMAC
I used MAC OSX CD, Disk Utility to repair disk itself and permissions, it worked fine.
I also reset all passwords for Admin and all accounts I had, using Disk Utility
I could use single mode too writing similar commands like chmod 775 ... 1775 etc
Though... system won`t boot. The same grey screen...

Only when I did exactly how it was written above(using terminal in DiskUtility), then it WORKED! (It might work in single mode too, but I DIDNT check it!)

I really hope it will help other people experiencing the same problem.
Mac dudes really need to do something about it.

Thank you.
 
Last edited:

Rhyalus

macrumors 6502
Mar 4, 2011
420
35
Since this thread was brought back to life...

I caused this problem for myself as well. Apple Care just recommended reinstalling the OS (Leopard on a MBP)... this was not so bad because all programs and docs were still in place.

Can someone let me know what are the correct settings when you "get info" on the main hard drive?

My drive shows read/write for system and admin and read only for "everyone".

For my home directory, it shows my acct name read/write, staff and everyone read only.

For the Documents directory, my acct and "everyone" is read/write. I also added an acct for sharing with my home win7 pc, and added that here as read/write.

The everyone acct messes me up a bit.

Anyone have any references or observations on the default sharing?

Thanks,
R
 

melvinabundo

macrumors newbie
May 15, 2011
3
0
New member because of this thread. So glad I found it.

So happy that I found this thread. Thanks for your (aware and unaware) help. The blue screen freaked me out. I'm running 10.5.8. The problem happened to me after I was setting up permissions for ftp file sharing.

For my case I simply repaired permissions. I didn't use the command line. I'm using my macbook to type this now and everything seems ok. I hope it really is all ok. I decided to repair permissions after I saw this thread. Initially I only repaired the disk. That didn't work.

So I decided to register an account here because your advice worked. Thanks again. :)
 

mertt

macrumors newbie
May 17, 2011
1
0
so many thanks...

Oh man, I didn't see the last post by danny99, sorry for not answering. :( ( I had the email notifications for replies disabled..). I really hope someone already helped you out on how to fix this. However I will write the procedure step by step for others that may have this problem to see. Use these steps if the solution proposed by reykjavik in the discussion at

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/662925/

don't work ( as it didn't work for me).

1. Insert MAC OS Disk 1 and boot your mac. Hold the C key while booting. The mac will start-up using the dvd.

2.The Language menu will appear. Choose language and proceed by clicking the arrow button.

3.From the menu bar on top of the screen, choose Utilities -> Terminal.
The terminal will open.

4. Type
cd /Volumes
and press enter

5. Type the command
chmod 755 Macintosh\ HD/
and press enter

The part Macintosh\ HD/ on the command is the HD name, that is the default. You might have changed it however so type the name of your main HD instead. It's a bit tricky to write name that has more than one words separated by space (as in the case of Macintosh HD) so to be sure, type the first few letters and press the tab key. The terminal should fill the name in the command correctly.

6. The permissions have now changed!

7. From the menu bar choose Mac OS X Installer -> Quit Mac OS X Installer

8. On the question asked click Choose disk
Choose your main HD and click restart

9. Your mac should start-up normally again :)

This is obviously something that shouldn't be happening so I filled a bug report to apple. Untii they fix it, don't change those permissions. Note that this problem can also come up through the file-sharing permissions as well,
check out this in the discussion at

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/416180/

and the solution by shamino.

Cheers,
Cavas

You solved my big and terrible problem. Thank you very much. You are the best. :)
 

mparias

macrumors newbie
May 20, 2011
1
0
It works perfect

Thank you so much Cavas for such detailed explanation and valuable contribution. I was expecting to go to the Mac Store (45 minutes away) because of that issue, but now I don't have to. thanks again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cavas
Oh man, I didn't see the last post by danny99, sorry for not answering. ( I had the email notifications for replies disabled..). I really hope someone already helped you out on how to fix this. However I will write the procedure step by step for others that may have this problem to see. Use these steps if the solution proposed by reykjavik in the discussion at

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...rmissions+boot

don't work ( as it didn't work for me).

1. Insert MAC OS Disk 1 and boot your mac. Hold the C key while booting. The mac will start-up using the dvd.

2.The Language menu will appear. Choose language and proceed by clicking the arrow button.

3.From the menu bar on top of the screen, choose Utilities -> Terminal.
The terminal will open.

4. Type
cd /Volumes
and press enter

5. Type the command
chmod 755 Macintosh\ HD/
and press enter

The part Macintosh\ HD/ on the command is the HD name, that is the default. You might have changed it however so type the name of your main HD instead. It's a bit tricky to write name that has more than one words separated by space (as in the case of Macintosh HD) so to be sure, type the first few letters and press the tab key. The terminal should fill the name in the command correctly.

6. The permissions have now changed!

7. From the menu bar choose Mac OS X Installer -> Quit Mac OS X Installer

8. On the question asked click Choose disk
Choose your main HD and click restart

9. Your mac should start-up normally again

This is obviously something that shouldn't be happening so I filled a bug report to apple. Untii they fix it, don't change those permissions. Note that this problem can also come up through the file-sharing permissions as well,
check out this in the discussion at

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...rmissions+boot

and the solution by shamino.

Cheers,
Cavas
 
Last edited:

euphfan

macrumors newbie
Jun 3, 2011
1
0
still problems

Ok, so I followed your steps, and I enter cd /Volumes into Terminal, press enter, then I type chmod 755 Macintosh\ HD/ (I'm pretty sure that is the name of my HD, when I hit tab it fills it out for me).
But, nothing happens, it doesn't do anything, and when I restart, nothing has changed.
I'm running Mac OS X 10.5.6
Also, when I put Macintosh\ HD/ in quotes, as thus: chmod 755 "Macintosh\ HD/" I get back "Macintosh\ HD/" No such file or directory"
P.S I see that most people have restricted permissions, I actually changed all permissions to Read and Write, will that make any difference?
 

flashmavi

macrumors newbie
Oct 20, 2011
1
0
THANX THANX THANX THANX THANX

Here is the stupidity I did!
My GF bought a Vaio and I wanted to set up file sharing for her.
On the first try it didnt work, so I googled a tutorial.
So I went to file sharing and looked at my folders.

1st thought - A folder for her
2nd thought - Lets share my entire Desktop
3rd thought - No, ACTUALLY let's share Macintosh HD :)

So I clicked on Mac HD, selected SMB for windows sharind and DONE.
And then...
I WAS DONE.

...because the system crashed immediately, And I felt like 6 years old again, when every time I touched my fathers Mac, It didnt start up again when he came home.

Thanx to this thread, I was able to fix the problem without losing the last 6 weeks of work.

BTW. I tried it in single user mode first and it did NOT work.
I used an OLD Mac Osx 10.5.4 installation disk, entered teminal from there and followed your instructions.
 
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