Does "Force Shut Down" hurt new computers?

[SteveC]

Hi all,

I've had to "Force Shut Down" (hold down the power button to shut it off) my iMac twice since getting it due to the Finder hanging on transfers when a network computer become inaccessible, and the Finder becomes totally unresponsive to the Relaunch command. I watched the beach ball for 5 minutes HOPING it would snap out of it and just give me a network connection error or something, but instead, I had to force shut down my computer. Blah...

Question is, does it hurt the computer? I'm really annoyed that I've had to shut down twice that way, and hope it hasn't/won't hurt my iMac. It's a really stupid reason to have to restart, too. I would think the Finder would just display an error rather than locking up completely. Grr! I guess this is the one and ONLY thing I don't ADORE about OS X. Boo..

Anyway, with the force shut down.. What happens: something small like... it skips the basic maintenance that normally occurs during a normal shut down, or does it cause damage to the hardware?

 

[superbovine]

Unless it is writing something to the hard drive at that moment you are ok. the worst that could happen is your corrupt part of the operating system, and the computer doesn't start.

 

[shadowmoses]

Yup happened to me my powermac randomly restarted due to bad RAM and corrupted my HD meaning i had to re-install OSX but so long as your HD isnt in intensive work when it restarts you should be fine...


SHadow

 

[john1123]

did you try to force quit the finder? Command + Option +Esc

 

[SteveC]

Thanks guys. I don't mind reinstalling the OS at all. That's a quick job and I have all my personal data backed up. I know the HD wasn't performing any intensive work when I shut it down. The only thing open on the computer was the network transfer, which had stopped, so there was no data being transferred.

john1123,
Yeah, I tried that. When I did, it would not relaunch and with the loss of the ability to control the Finder, I also lost the ability to shut down the computer the "proper" way.

 

[Ringo]

Unless it is writing something to the hard drive at that moment you are ok. the worst that could happen is your corrupt part of the operating system, and the computer doesn't start.

It did happen to me... i was turnin off normally my iMac and while it was in progress i had the brilliant idea of force shutting down (dont ask me why) result corrupted load of OSX system file(witch made hd unusable until repair) and i had to go buy disk warrior to solve my problem. then reinstall OSX. Now everything is fine on my mac so the lesson NEVER force shut down WHILE shuting down.

 

[kent_ridge]

What do you all mean by reinstalling OS X? Does it mean all your personal data will be erased?

Sorry, I'm really still new with such stuff.

 

[mduser63]

What do you all mean by reinstalling OS X? Does it mean all your personal data will be erased?

Sorry, I'm really still new with such stuff.

Not necessarily. There a 3 ways to install OS X, Erase and install, archive and install, and "upgrade." Erase and install will erase everything on your hard drive, including all of your personal data. Archive and install won't erase any of your personal data, it just puts the entire OS into a folder called "Previous systems" and installs a new copy of OS X. You can then get whatever you want out of that previous systems folder. Finally, "upgrade" will just reinstall OS X over the top of the previous install, and assuming nothing goes wrong, you'll end up with a system which is the same as the one you started with, minus any problems caused by a corrupt OS.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Do not reinstall OSX. This is almost never necessary and rarely advisable. Long bouts of spinning beachballs are often fixed by repairing permissions using Disk Utility.

Forced shut downs will often cause disk directory corruption, which although not generally fatal, don't heal themselves -- and they accumulate. Repair by running fsck from single user mode.

Better yet, download and run AppleJack, probably my favorite OSX utility of all time.