Ok, I'm currently in the process of doing a clean format and install on my Macbook Pro for the third time in a week after already having to do it on my PowerMac. I don't know what exactly is causing the issue but I'll try to be detailed so hopefully someone will know whats up.
I'm running Leopard 10.5.5 on both of my machines. I have 2 external raid drives that I connect to my PowerMac via FireWire 800 and they are "daisy chained" together using the additional FW800 port on the back of those drives. I need to be able to share files back and forth between the machines since I do a lot of creative work and can't host all the files on my laptop at one time. So I have sharing enabled on both machines. Shouldn't be a problem.
In order to grab files I will go to my PowerMac from my macbook, goto the external drive and pull over what I may need over to the laptop. When I do this it mounts the firewire drive to my Macbook pro. No problems. However, yesterday I needed to install an application which I downloaded directly over the internet to the Laptop. Here's were it gets ugly.
When I open the app the installer just hangs and the drive selection screen shows my main drive but it's greyed out. I wait for like 15 minutes and still no go. I assume the installer is frozen so I quit it. That's when all H3]] broke loose. Apps started crashing, files wouldn't transfer. and then I go to restart into an infinite white screen with the ugly grey apple. I hopelessly wait 30 minutes at that screen till I realize my MB is toast. I try to repair disk permissions using the disk utility from the recovery disk and get an error that is unrepairable (can't remember what it was) I slap in Disk Warrior and run it. It finds some stuff and I reboot to no avail.
I then boot into Target Disk mode. Ok. This is what was really strange. I click on my HD's info and when looked at the permissions, All of my users are gone except "everyone". And "everyone" is set to "No Access" So I add back my account and the system and admin accounts to the permissions with "Read & Write" privileges. Apply to all enclosing items. After 2 hours waiting for that to finish I reboot. And what do you know. My system comes back up. WT??? I connect my external raid directly to my MB pro and do a full time machine backup. And pull over some files just incase that doesn't work. Reinstall the OS after erasing the partition of the HD.
I then choose the option to restore from Time machine backup and crap, the home folder's permissions are set to everyone "read only" with nothing else.
I changed it to what would be the right settings and applied to enclosing items. However when I accessed it different apps that I installed had the beautiful blue folder with the ugly red no-entry sign telling me I didn't have access. So I give up.
Ok. So now I'm reformatting again. This is the 4th Time in a week I've had to do a complete system reinstall and the 3rd I've done it on the MBpro. Each time this whackness starts it's when I'm doing an app install while having a remote drive mounted. Not pulling files from that drive. It's just mounted. So what is going on. I have to be on 10.5.5 because my project files for my work are saved at the latest version and I have to have the latest updates to work. Is there something going on in the installer? Is it because I have a PPC and Intel? Is Apple repeating some of Microsoft's mistakes?? What gives. Anyways. Thanks for reading my rant/problem. Any help or thoughts of what's causing the issue and what to avoid would be very helpful.
~OP
I'm running Leopard 10.5.5 on both of my machines. I have 2 external raid drives that I connect to my PowerMac via FireWire 800 and they are "daisy chained" together using the additional FW800 port on the back of those drives. I need to be able to share files back and forth between the machines since I do a lot of creative work and can't host all the files on my laptop at one time. So I have sharing enabled on both machines. Shouldn't be a problem.
In order to grab files I will go to my PowerMac from my macbook, goto the external drive and pull over what I may need over to the laptop. When I do this it mounts the firewire drive to my Macbook pro. No problems. However, yesterday I needed to install an application which I downloaded directly over the internet to the Laptop. Here's were it gets ugly.
When I open the app the installer just hangs and the drive selection screen shows my main drive but it's greyed out. I wait for like 15 minutes and still no go. I assume the installer is frozen so I quit it. That's when all H3]] broke loose. Apps started crashing, files wouldn't transfer. and then I go to restart into an infinite white screen with the ugly grey apple. I hopelessly wait 30 minutes at that screen till I realize my MB is toast. I try to repair disk permissions using the disk utility from the recovery disk and get an error that is unrepairable (can't remember what it was) I slap in Disk Warrior and run it. It finds some stuff and I reboot to no avail.
I then boot into Target Disk mode. Ok. This is what was really strange. I click on my HD's info and when looked at the permissions, All of my users are gone except "everyone". And "everyone" is set to "No Access" So I add back my account and the system and admin accounts to the permissions with "Read & Write" privileges. Apply to all enclosing items. After 2 hours waiting for that to finish I reboot. And what do you know. My system comes back up. WT??? I connect my external raid directly to my MB pro and do a full time machine backup. And pull over some files just incase that doesn't work. Reinstall the OS after erasing the partition of the HD.
I then choose the option to restore from Time machine backup and crap, the home folder's permissions are set to everyone "read only" with nothing else.
I changed it to what would be the right settings and applied to enclosing items. However when I accessed it different apps that I installed had the beautiful blue folder with the ugly red no-entry sign telling me I didn't have access. So I give up.
Ok. So now I'm reformatting again. This is the 4th Time in a week I've had to do a complete system reinstall and the 3rd I've done it on the MBpro. Each time this whackness starts it's when I'm doing an app install while having a remote drive mounted. Not pulling files from that drive. It's just mounted. So what is going on. I have to be on 10.5.5 because my project files for my work are saved at the latest version and I have to have the latest updates to work. Is there something going on in the installer? Is it because I have a PPC and Intel? Is Apple repeating some of Microsoft's mistakes?? What gives. Anyways. Thanks for reading my rant/problem. Any help or thoughts of what's causing the issue and what to avoid would be very helpful.
~OP