Here's my dilemma:
I have a 2.4 Intel iMac running 10.5.5. I noticed Sunday the finder was hanging. I couldn't get the finder to restart, so I used my Leopard disk to repair/verify permissions and repair/verify the disk. Both came back fine.
So, I did an archive and install. When the computer started up, the Finder still hung. After several restarts and PRAM zapping, nothing changed. So, I thought I'd wipe the hard drive, re-install Leopard and use my external USB HD with my Time Machine backups to restore my files.
I wiped the HD clean and rebooted. Finder still hung. I unplugged the hard drive. Finder booted fine. Plugged it back in. Finder wouldn't respond. I was able to look at the HD in finder before it became unresponsive, and I noticed that the HD looked empty, but only had 4 gb of space (it's a 500 gb WD drive).
I restarted, and opened the Migration assistant. Migration asssitant couldn't see any Time Machines backups when the Hard Drive was plugged in. When the hard drive was unplugged, Migration Assistant could see Time Machine files for my fiancee's laptop on the network.
When booting from the Leopard disk, I can see the backups in the migration asssitant, but the computer hangs up when trying to load them.
Is there anything I can do to recover the files from the disk? What could have caused this problem?
Thanks for any help.
I have a 2.4 Intel iMac running 10.5.5. I noticed Sunday the finder was hanging. I couldn't get the finder to restart, so I used my Leopard disk to repair/verify permissions and repair/verify the disk. Both came back fine.
So, I did an archive and install. When the computer started up, the Finder still hung. After several restarts and PRAM zapping, nothing changed. So, I thought I'd wipe the hard drive, re-install Leopard and use my external USB HD with my Time Machine backups to restore my files.
I wiped the HD clean and rebooted. Finder still hung. I unplugged the hard drive. Finder booted fine. Plugged it back in. Finder wouldn't respond. I was able to look at the HD in finder before it became unresponsive, and I noticed that the HD looked empty, but only had 4 gb of space (it's a 500 gb WD drive).
I restarted, and opened the Migration assistant. Migration asssitant couldn't see any Time Machines backups when the Hard Drive was plugged in. When the hard drive was unplugged, Migration Assistant could see Time Machine files for my fiancee's laptop on the network.
When booting from the Leopard disk, I can see the backups in the migration asssitant, but the computer hangs up when trying to load them.
Is there anything I can do to recover the files from the disk? What could have caused this problem?
Thanks for any help.