Booting from CD OS X 10.3?

[richard-apples]

I seem to be going round in circles here, but in order to run a file system check on my HD, I assume I need to booted from CD so I can unmount the HD.

I have OS X 10.3 disks.

So can I boot from those and get into Terminal to run the file system check?

If I boot with disk 1 in and with Option pressed, I get options to install or boot from the HD.

If I boot with the grey disk, I get Install, boot from HD or AHT.

Do I need to create a boot CD?

Help!

Cheers!

 

[maflynn]

Why do you want to unmount the hard drive?

Boot up the computer using one of the discs you mentioned, get into the Disk Utility (provided in both, just select tools->Disk Utility) and repair the drive.

If you're not looking to run Disk Utility, perhaps I misread your post.

 

[richard-apples]

Why do you want to unmount the hard drive?

Boot up the computer using one of the discs you mentioned, get into the Disk Utility (provided in both, just select tools->Disk Utility) and repair the drive.

If you're not looking to run Disk Utility, perhaps I misread your post.

Hi Mike,

I have a disk fault and the disk utility won't fix it. I want to try running a file system check from terminal as a last resort. (The drive has to be unmounted beforehand)

If I boot on the grey disk (the one with AHT on), I get the installer and it has a Terminal option on the menu but it's greyed out.

 

[maflynn]

If you cannot unmount it via the terminal and the Disk Utility cannot fix it, then maybe the hard drive is toast.

You can maybe buy a new HD, install it in your mac, and then put the old HD in an enclosure to see if you can access your data/repair it via the terminal. I think if Disk Utility cannot do much with it, and you're getting errors the news is probably not good

 

[richard-apples]

If you cannot unmount it via the terminal and the Disk Utility cannot fix it, then maybe the hard drive is toast.

You can maybe buy a new HD, install it in your mac, and then put the old HD in an enclosure to see if you can access your data/repair it via the terminal. I think if Disk Utility cannot do much with it, and you're getting errors the news is probably not good

Yep I am assuming it is toast (Invalid Node Structure), but before I bin the disk I want to try fsck_hfs from terminal. Nothing to loose!

Hence the need to boot from a CD....

 

[richard-apples]

So is it possible to actually boot from CD or do I have to create a new partition on the HDD to boot from if I want to unmount the main HDD?

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:
It sounds like you have directory damage (not hardware damage) to your hard drive.

I'm going to guess that this is an older Mac on which you're working.

My advice would be to
1. Back up the old drive to an external using CarbonCopyCloner
2. Boot from the newly-created clone
3. Re-initialize the internal drive and run Disk Utility's test on it, see what results you get.
4. If the disk re-initializes ok, and if Disk Utility reports the directory structure to be ok, RE-TEST it about five times in succession.
5. If EACH and EVERY test still reports ok, I'd RE-clone from the external backup BACK TO the internal drive, and consider the problem "fixed". I'd still maintain the external cloned backup, however!

 

[richard-apples]

OP:
It sounds like you have directory damage (not hardware damage) to your hard drive.

I'm going to guess that this is an older Mac on which you're working.

My advice would be to
1. Back up the old drive to an external using CarbonCopyCloner
2. Boot from the newly-created clone
3. Re-initialize the internal drive and run Disk Utility's test on it, see what results you get.
4. If the disk re-initializes ok, and if Disk Utility reports the directory structure to be ok, RE-TEST it about five times in succession.
5. If EACH and EVERY test still reports ok, I'd RE-clone from the external backup BACK TO the internal drive, and consider the problem "fixed". I'd still maintain the external cloned backup, however!

It's a G4 17" flowerpot.
I'll try cloning to a usb drive.
(Assume it will do that to a usb disk and I don't have to have a firewire disk)

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote above:
[[ It's a G4 17" flowerpot.
I'll try cloning to a usb drive. ]]

I'm going to -guess- that the drive won't be bootable.
I could be wrong on that one.

 

[bunnspecial]

There are ways to get a G4 to boot from USB, but as I understand it not all drives will necessarily be bootable and it can be hit or miss.

I do know that I was playing around with my G4 "Quicksilver" the other day and had an external HDD connected by USB that I'd intended to clone to one of the internal drives. Much to my surprise, when I held down the "option" key at startup, the external showed up as a bootable drive and I was able to successfully boot from it.

I've also spent a lot of time beating my head against the wall when certain USB and computer combinations would NOT work.

But it is at least theoretically possible.

Here's an old thread discussing the issue

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1445568/

 

[richard-apples]

I've put a new disk in and got an install disk for 10.5 which is currently doing its update, so all is well now!