help-don't want to screw up

[galloman]

Hi,

Due to unknown problems with my Mac partition, it seems that I need to reinstall the OS. Thing is, how do I do it properly ? I already put in the dvd and booted from there to look for my original mac partition, but unfortunately neither starup disk nor disk utility could recognize the partition, so i guess it's lost.

When I boot from the dvd how do I properly reinstall my OS ?

what will be reinstalled ??

Will my windows partition be erased as well ? Will I need to reinstall bootcamp and windows ?
I really hope you can answer my questions, as this thing is a tool to me and don't want to screw it up.

thanks in advance

thanks for help

 

[Lovesong]

There are several questions that you should address before we could help you. First off, describe your partitioning scheme- obviously you have 2 partitions- how big are they? What is the format of your windows partition, and can you boot into it?
Boot from the CD (hold down C on startup), and when you get past the language screen, click on utilities -> Disk Utility. What does the utility see- both partions, a single hard drive? When you select the partition that used to be OSX, what format does DU say it is in? What abou your Windows partition?

 

[galloman]

There are several questions that you should address before we could help you. First off, describe your partitioning scheme- obviously you have 2 partitions- how big are they? What is the format of your windows partition, and can you boot into it?
Boot from the CD (hold down C on startup), and when you get past the language screen, click on utilities -> Disk Utility. What does the utility see- both partions, a single hard drive? When you select the partition that used to be OSX, what format does DU say it is in? What abou your Windows partition?

yes you are absolutely right and apologize for that, let me answer that

describe your partitioning scheme- obviously you have 2 partitions- how big are they?
I have 2 partitions thanks to bootcamp. Mac and Windows. Mac is 75 and windows is 5 gb.

What is the format of your windows partition, and can you boot into it?
my windows partition is on FAT32 and yes, that's the only partition I can boot into. Somehow I turned it on the night before last night and it only booted into that one.

Boot from the CD (hold down C on startup), and when you get past the language screen, click on utilities -> Disk Utility. What does the utility see- both partions, a single hard drive?
when I do that it becomes nonresponsive. It appears as if a window is loading, one that says "gathering disk info" or something among those lines and it stays there forever

When you select the partition that used to be OSX, what format does DU say it is in? What abou your Windows partition?
I don't know the answer to that one, as I don't think I know how to get where you referring to. if i boot from the cd and click on startup disk i get the choice of the disk itself and a "network disk" which in the description says that will make my computer search for a disk to boot from and restart.

if I choose that option it becomes nonresponsive as well.

also, if I turn it on and press on the option key the only disk appearing is the windows one.

hope this is may help you help me

thanks a lot

 

[Lovesong]

Yup- your file allocation table is fried. Only thing to do (and yeah- any data you had on the OSX partition is jacked), is to reformat your partion back.

Try booting from the disk, and proceeding as if you were going to install OSX. There will be a point where you will need to select a drive on which to install. You should be getting the option to install on either your 5gig windows (don't do it), or on the other HD (it will likely be some non-sensical name). If you were to select the other, it will tell you that it needs to be partitioned to HFS+. Go ahead and do that, and you should be able to get OSX back. If you can't see the second partition (the one that OSX used to be on), go ahead and cancel- you have bigger issues than that, as in you'll have to reformat your entire drive (meaning losing your windows partition), and you will likely need another mac (to detect the HD and reformat it- you would boot in target mode), or an external enclosure, if you can pull your hard drive out of the Mac. Let me know if any of this makes any sense.

 

[galloman]

Yup- your file allocation table is fried. Only thing to do (and yeah- any data you had on the OSX partition is jacked), is to reformat your partion back.

Try booting from the disk, and proceeding as if you were going to install OSX. There will be a point where you will need to select a drive on which to install. You should be getting the option to install on either your 5gig windows (don't do it), or on the other HD (it will likely be some non-sensical name). If you were to select the other, it will tell you that it needs to be partitioned to HFS+. Go ahead and do that, and you should be able to get OSX back. If you can't see the second partition (the one that OSX used to be on), go ahead and cancel- you have bigger issues than that, as in you'll have to reformat your entire drive (meaning losing your windows partition), and you will likely need another mac (to detect the HD and reformat it- you would boot in target mode), or an external enclosure, if you can pull your hard drive out of the Mac. Let me know if any of this makes any sense.

pretty good advice there, thanks. Ok let me see if I got this straight

I put in the cd and boot from there and proceed as usual. There will be a point at which it will ask me where to install the OSX. According to what I get from this, there will be my 5gb windows and my 75gb nonsense name option. I choose the 75gb nonsense and proceed and everything should move smooth. Now, if I don't get showed up the option of that nonsense 75gb partition I cancel this and there I don't know what else to do from there the rest I didn't understand that much, sorry about it.

Any idea as to why this happened ?

 

[Lovesong]

Yup. You got it.

If that doesn't work, write back, and we'll see what the option are.

In terms of why this happens, there are a number of reasons- most likely it's Windows. Were you able to boot back to OSX after you installed windows? If not, it's likely that microsoft jacked your drive when you were installing Windows. There has been a number of people that this has happened to. There are other reasons why thigs like that happen. I managed to destroy my FAT on a drive when I booted it in OS9, added some files, and the drive was over the 128GB capacity.

Try the reinstallation, and let me know how it goes.

 

[galloman]

Yup. You got it.

If that doesn't work, write back, and we'll see what the option are.

In terms of why this happens, there are a number of reasons- most likely it's Windows. Were you able to boot back to OSX after you installed windows? If not, it's likely that microsoft jacked your drive when you were installing Windows. There has been a number of people that this has happened to. There are other reasons why thigs like that happen. I managed to destroy my FAT on a drive when I booted it in OS9, added some files, and the drive was over the 128GB capacity.

Try the reinstallation, and let me know how it goes.

I find it a little difficult for it to be windows, because I have had windows on this thing for almost a year and had never had a problem before. I had switched back and forth whenever I had needed it (not many times, though), without worrying about it. It just happened all of a sudden. I did not apply an update, nor a new software installation, nor a messing around with anything. I just finished working one day and the day afterit started up like that. That's what intrigues me the most. As soon as I get home I'll try that and see what happens.

thanks again

 

[Lovesong]

Good luck, mate.

 

[galloman]

bad news

I just got home and tried what you described. When the time of selecting a destination disk came up, nothing showed up. Nothing, not the 5gb windows partition, not the 75 gb partition where my OSX used to be. Now, what are my options to get my OSX back and the rest of my disk ?

now I'm really screwed I guess.

 

[Lovesong]

Shoot. OK- here are things to be done:

First off, do you have any important data on the windows partition? If so, boot into it, and copy it onto another HD, or a DVD.

I never got what kind of a mac you have. If it's a portable, an iMac, or a mini- this is going to be slightly more complex. If it's a MP, things are fairly straight forward. I going to assume that you have a machine with a HD that is not all that accessible. If this is the case, do you have access to any other mac? My reasoning behind the question is that you could try booting your machine in target mode- basically you hold down T at startup, and it turns your entire machine into a giant external hard drive. You can then attach it to another mac via firewire, and this should let you go into that other mac, and use disk utility on it to format the HD on your mac. If you don't have access to another mac things get even more complicated. You have a choice, and it's up to you from there- basically you'll need to get that hard drive out of your machine, and attach it to an external enclosure (about $20), and use another machine to rebuild the partition (this can be a windoze box). This is a hit and miss, as we really don't know how far your drive is gone. You risk A)- voiding your waranty (unless you have a MacBook, or a Pro tower), and you could be out $20 if the drive is that gone. One upside to this, is that if the drive is totally screwed, once it's out of your mac, you can go down to the store, get a new one and have your computer back in working order within 30 minutes. Your other option, if you don't have a second mac, is to take it down to an Apple Store (if there is one near you), or an Apple Service center, and have them try to get the drive to work. Depending on when you bought the computer, it should still be under waranty. If nothing else, they'll be able to tell you how damaged the drive is (I'm guessing that it's still just a bad FAT). If have a MB or if you are one of the lucky ones, and are sitting in front of a mac pro, then the drive situation is not as dire. Those two computers have user- accessible HDs, and if push came to shove, you can just pull them, and get new ones.

I won't lie to you- the fact that the CD is not seeing the drives is not a good sign. DiskUtility should have been able to recognize its own components.

SHOOT- stop! I just had a brain fart! Try this- you might be able to rebuild you HD this way:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303081

Just inser disk 1, and hold down D. Darn it, I'm not erasing all that other stuff I just wrote! But seriously, sometimes my brain is working in the background... Let me know if that gets you anywhere.

 

[galloman]

Shoot. OK- here are things to be done:

First off, do you have any important data on the windows partition? If so, boot into it, and copy it onto another HD, or a DVD.

I never got what kind of a mac you have. If it's a portable, an iMac, or a mini- this is going to be slightly more complex. If it's a MP, things are fairly straight forward. I going to assume that you have a machine with a HD that is not all that accessible. If this is the case, do you have access to any other mac? My reasoning behind the question is that you could try booting your machine in target mode- basically you hold down T at startup, and it turns your entire machine into a giant external hard drive. You can then attach it to another mac via firewire, and this should let you go into that other mac, and use disk utility on it to format the HD on your mac. If you don't have access to another mac things get even more complicated. You have a choice, and it's up to you from there- basically you'll need to get that hard drive out of your machine, and attach it to an external enclosure (about $20), and use another machine to rebuild the partition (this can be a windoze box). This is a hit and miss, as we really don't know how far your drive is gone. You risk A)- voiding your waranty (unless you have a MacBook, or a Pro tower), and you could be out $20 if the drive is that gone. One upside to this, is that if the drive is totally screwed, once it's out of your mac, you can go down to the store, get a new one and have your computer back in working order within 30 minutes. Your other option, if you don't have a second mac, is to take it down to an Apple Store (if there is one near you), or an Apple Service center, and have them try to get the drive to work. Depending on when you bought the computer, it should still be under waranty. If nothing else, they'll be able to tell you how damaged the drive is (I'm guessing that it's still just a bad FAT). If have a MB or if you are one of the lucky ones, and are sitting in front of a mac pro, then the drive situation is not as dire. Those two computers have user- accessible HDs, and if push came to shove, you can just pull them, and get new ones.

I won't lie to you- the fact that the CD is not seeing the drives is not a good sign. DiskUtility should have been able to recognize its own components.

SHOOT- stop! I just had a brain fart! Try this- you might be able to rebuild you HD this way:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303081

Just inser disk 1, and hold down D. Darn it, I'm not erasing all that other stuff I just wrote! But seriously, sometimes my brain is working in the background... Let me know if that gets you anywhere.

thanks a lot, I'm going to try that you suggest. I'm in a bad situation, as I bought my MacBook, yeah it's a black Macbook-forgot to mention-sorry, in Chicago in July from last year and I live in Mexico and ain't going to Chicago until late July or early august. if the tip you mentioned does not work, I'm going to go to see some computer repair people around here and tell them to take a look at it. If they tell me the thing is messed up I guess I'm just going to call Apple and see if they can help me in any way to repait the thing under warranty. How would I go about doing this process ??

thanks a lot for your help !!!

 

[Lovesong]

Well the good news is that your MB is still under waranty. Basically in order to get Apple to help, you need to call them (check for a number on their site), and they'll ask you to run some tests, eventually realizing that you aren't completely oblivious when it comes to computers. Chances are that they'll have you ship your computer to the US somewhere. The good news is that it won't take more than a week to get it back. Like I said, the good news about having a MB, is that if people there can't help you, and Apple gives you lip (which they shouldn't), you can always get a 2.5 HD, strap it in, and come July, you can walk into the Apple store, with your computer, and have Apple fix it. You can then use either that HD or the new one as an external. Good luck, man. It's aways painful when that kind of stuff happens.

 

[galloman]

Well the good news is that your MB is still under waranty. Basically in order to get Apple to help, you need to call them (check for a number on their site), and they'll ask you to run some tests, eventually realizing that you aren't completely oblivious when it comes to computers. Chances are that they'll have you ship your computer to the US somewhere. The good news is that it won't take more than a week to get it back. Like I said, the good news about having a MB, is that if people there can't help you, and Apple gives you lip (which they shouldn't), you can always get a 2.5 HD, strap it in, and come July, you can walk into the Apple store, with your computer, and have Apple fix it. You can then use either that HD or the new one as an external. Good luck, man. It's aways painful when that kind of stuff happens.

thanks again, I performed the test you suggested and it the results came out negative for any kind of danamge or malfunctioning. It said that it was all normal and that the hardware was running properly. Like I said, I think I'm gonna give it a try going to a technician and see what they say. If it seems like something is messed up, then Apple will step in of course. Good news is I do have a mailing address in the US and it is a couple of hours away from me, so I hope this works.

thanks a lot man,