Changed HD disk permissions can't boot

[Dinidh]

Question

Posting from my iPhone as my Mac is down. When I run the chmod command, how long does it take to repair permissions. When I enter the command for my hd, it goes to the next line and just sits there, blank. Am I doing something wrong??? I know this is the same problem I have, I need to get 775 permission so I can boot back in!!! Thanks

 

[Huntagatherah]

You've heard it before...THANKS CAVAS!!!!

Cavas-
You're a life saver, thanks for taking the time to post the instructions for all of us that have run into this devastating bug. Your thread is as relevant as ever!!

DIndh- Once you finish typing the cmd for hd and it goes to the next line, YOU'RE DONE!
Just follow the rest of the instructions and let the magic happen!

 

[old-wiz]

thanks for taking the time to post the instructions for all of us that have run into this devastating bug. !

It is not a bug. Users shouldn't go around changing permissions in *NIX systems if they don't understand what they are doing. Perhaps the system should warn you though. I've seen CS graduates get on *NIX systems at their first jobs out of college and proceed to wreck the system by monkeying around with permissions.

 

[pdmateus]

Hi,

I did the exact same thing and not nothing works on my Lion, I havent reboot so I still have all my windows and I can use the vm's but thats it...After sleep I can see the the windows but cannot run anything, terminal, finder etc.

I dont have the original cds with me right now, is there any way to solve this without the boot cd??

Thanks alot.

 

[washaq]

none of the solutions above solved my problem, im so screwed up, i started to reinstall lion, i hope it wont delete any of my files-work etc.

 

[andrewtayal]

Same issue with lion 10.7, can't boot after changing sharing preference

Bought my MBP 13" which had snow leopard and upgraded to lion 10.7 couple of months back. I changed the sharing preference in the Mac HD - erased wheels and everyone to 'no access'. Everything stopped after that, tried rebooting, recovery from Time Machine, and also your steps below. All did not work.

When I inserted my Mac os disk, it showed SL osx installation which of course did not work in my now Lion 10.7.

Did manage to go into utility, .............. Got stuck

Anyone please help

Oh man, I didn't see the last post by danny99, sorry fWor 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

 

[Pechvogel]

Hello guys, I'm experiencing the same trouble, my only problem is that at the moment I don't have my os disc! What can I do? Is this command valid even without the disc? I already tried switching on my computer pressing command-s but when I enter the command that I read here the computer says me that my hd is set in "read-only"! What should I do then? Thanks

 

[Ioda]

Grey screen with fan

I am unable to get into my MacBook Pro after changing the permission, and I cannot find my start up disk to try and repair this. What can I do?

 

[Blazyken]

Fixing this without OS disk

Like Ioda and Perchvogel I'm stuck because I lack my OS disk
I tried Cavas great solution, but the command doesn't go through and says it's "read-only."

I'm running OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and like the other people in this thread my Mac stopped working after I changed disk permissions, I set them to read & write for everyone

Is there any way to fix this without a disk?
Thanks in advance

 

[kokopelli41690]

ive been having the same problem and this is what was said:
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Jul 2015.localized
drwxrwxrwt 6 root wheel 204 Nov 20 shared
drwxr-xr-x+ 26 501 staff 884 Jan 9 myname

 

[rahulpb]

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.

I know this is a very old thread but I have a Macbook having same issue unresolved for years which Im trying to resolve now. The output of my 'ls -' command in Single User mode under "/Volumes" shows something like this

lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Mar 3 2015 Macintosh HD -> t

Why is my disk listed as a symlink? How to fix that?

 

[morfeas-dsl-]

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

So many years later and still i found only this that works. Thank you.