Can anyone help with persistent Disk Utility error?

[Moof1904]

I noticed some slowdown strangeness on my G5 (10.3.9) and ran disk utility. It reported this error "Invalid extent entry. Volume check failed. The underlying task reported failure on exit. (-9972)"

I booted from an external drive and ran Tech Tools Pro 4 and it found a bunch of stuff and fixed it. I reran TTP twice and it reported everything fine both times.

However, when I rebooted from the startup drive and ran Disk Utility again, I received the same message.

I repeated the Tech Tools Pro followed by Disk Utility cycle again and TTP reported no problems and Disk Utility gives the same volume check failed message.

Any suggestions for fixing this? How hosed am I? Do I need to reformat and reinstall everything. If so, I'll wait until Tiger comes out and do a reformat and a clean install of Tiger. In the ensuing days, however, I'd feel better if I could find an interim fix.

 

[Bear]

It sounds like you tried everything but booting from a Panther install CD and running the Disk Utility from the CD.

You're trying to repair an active volume which won't work since you are booted from it.

 

[Moof1904]

I'm sorry. I misspoke. After running Tech Tools Pro while booted from an external drive, I ran Disk Utility while also booted from that external drive and received the message you see here.

I've never run Disk Utility > Repair Disk on the troublesome drive while it was the boot drive. (I'm pretty sure Disk Utility has the 'Repair Volume' greyed out when one has the boot volume selected.)

 

[MisterMe]

.... (I'm pretty sure Disk Utility has the 'Repair Volume' greyed out when one has the boot volume selected.)

Not if you boot from a CD, it doesn't.

 

[slooksterPSV]

Mr..... is perfectly right. It'll be like any of the other buttons if you repair it off the CD. You might want to see if you can repair permissions then repair the volume or run fsck. FSCK may fix up a couple probs.

EDIT: When running repair volume / and or / fsck you may want to boot into open firmware mode.

 

[Moof1904]

Gang-

By "boot volume" I meant the current startup drive, not the drive typically used for booting. I recognize that one must boot from a different drive than the drive upon which one needs to run Disk Repair.

The question remains, how hosed is the drive? Is my only option to reformat and reinstall everything?

 

[mkrishnan]

The question remains, how hosed is the drive? Is my only option to reformat and reinstall everything?

So *is* running TTP equivalent to doing fcsk in single user mode?

 

[Moof1904]

So *is* running TTP equivalent to doing fcsk in single user mode?

That I don't know. I tried booting in single user mode, but the G5 just boots normally. Either I'm holding down the incorrect key or my third party keyboard is mucking things up.

 

[slooksterPSV]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/89736/ - Running FSCK, repairing permissions, etc.
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=1220151#post1220151 - Key commands for macs

 

[Moof1904]

So, two reps of the fsck -f command in single user mode results in

Invalid extent entry
(4, 6495)
Volume check failed.


Is it reformat time?

 

[mkrishnan]

Hmmm, I'm sorry, Moof, it's sounding pretty bad....

 

[slooksterPSV]

So, two reps of the fsck -f command in single user mode results in

Invalid extent entry
(4, 6495)
Volume check failed.


Is it reformat time?

Be sure to zero all data, that will get rid of anything left on the computer and may help to fix some things. It will take some time.

 

[Moof1904]

Thanks

I guess this eliminates any indecision I had on my part about what kind of Tiger install to do on the 29th!

Since I gotta do it, I think I'll just limp along until Tiger comes out and then do a reformat, zero out, and reinstall beginning with Tiger...

Thanks for the feedback, Gang.

 

[Bear]

I guess this eliminates any indecision I had on my part about what kind of Tiger install to do on the 29th!

Since I gotta do it, I think I'll just limp along until Tiger comes out and then do a reformat, zero out, and reinstall beginning with Tiger...

Thanks for the feedback, Gang.

Just make sure you start backing up your data now just in case the disk gets worse. That is if you haven't backed it up already.

Also before you install tiger, run diagnostics and make sure the disk isn't dying. But you might want to wait until you're ready to re-install as the diagnostics could exercise a dying disk enough to kill it.