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Help this panicked grad student with a HD error?

A

AdamBaum

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 26, 2013
6
0
I do believe this problem is the result of the last update, but right now I only care about my dissertation.

I have my graduate dissertation due in a few days. I restarted my MBP to clear out the RAM and it wouldn't come on. I kept getting the white screen of death.

I opened Recovery Mode and the Macintosh HD is greyed out and not mounted. When I try to verify and repair it, it gets stuck on 'Checking Catalog File.'
I can use Safari and use the Open file an I can see all of my files in there. I cannot upload them to email or Google Drive. I ordered DiskWarrior but I think they are asleep for the night.

I have an external USB drive. I tried to copy my Macintosh HD to that drive but I get another error. I tried to do the New Image thing and it's the same. I was trying to go into Single User Mode and manually copy the files, but I am nt sure how nor where the directory structure is for the USB drive. Is it possible to do this? I don't care if it's time consuming, I need my dissertation files. I'm afraid to erase and restore the HD until I recover my files. I really need these files so that I can finish this dissertation and not have gone another $57k in debt just to end up without my degree.
 
AdamBaum said:
I found this page. I got up to the step that says To mount the disk to the share point and I got confused because I don't have MSDOS.

http://www.macsage.com/mounting-usb-drive-in-single-user-mode/
Click to expand...

That page is not talking about you having MSDOS. It is directing you to use an OS X command called /sbin/mount_msdos. This command is used to mount an external USB drive that is using the MSDOS file system. You would need to know which file system your external drive has been formatted with in order to issue the correct /sbin/mount* command to mount it.
 
AdamBaum said:
So, if it is formatted for mac, it should be mount_hfs ?
Click to expand...

That looks the most likely from the list :)

Code: 
ls -la /sbin/mount*
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  44720  6 Jun 08:11 /sbin/mount
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     59 22 Jul  2012 /sbin/mount_acfs -> /System/Library/Filesystems/acfs.fs/Contents/bin/mount_acfs
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  19632 22 Jul  2012 /sbin/mount_afp
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  20304 22 Jul  2012 /sbin/mount_cd9660
-r-xr-xr-x  2 root  wheel  37568 22 Jul  2012 /sbin/mount_cddafs
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  34896  6 Jun 08:11 /sbin/mount_devfs
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     67 22 Jul  2012 /sbin/mount_exfat -> /System/Library/Filesystems/exfat.fs/Contents/Resources/mount_exfat
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  35120  6 Jun 08:11 /sbin/mount_fdesc
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     44 22 Jul  2012 /sbin/mount_ftp -> /System/Library/Filesystems/ftp.fs/mount_ftp
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  58672  6 Jun 08:11 /sbin/mount_hfs
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  21584  6 Jun 08:11 /sbin/mount_msdos
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  41952 22 Jul  2012 /sbin/mount_nfs
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  15040 22 Jul  2012 /sbin/mount_ntfs
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  52528  6 Jun 08:11 /sbin/mount_smbfs
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  80496 22 Jul  2012 /sbin/mount_udf
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  61296  5 May  2011 /sbin/mount_ufsd_NTFS
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  14320 15 Mar  2013 /sbin/mount_webdav
 
Good luck! What year is your MacBook Pro by chance? I'm having similar issues with my 2009 MBP, and the local geniuses can't give me an explanation.

I really need a new machine before I start my senior thesis next semester :/
 
KUguardgrl13 said:
Good luck! What year is your MacBook Pro by chance? I'm having similar issues with my 2009 MBP, and the local geniuses can't give me an explanation.

I really need a new machine before I start my senior thesis next semester :/
Click to expand...

Nope, what you need is a dropbox account and an external storage backup. Depending on your storage needs Dropbox is free or $10 a month, and an external USB drive can be had for below $100.

While a new machine is certainly nice to have, it doesn't provide that much more security. HDD failures can always happen.

Concerning the OP: Do you have another machine available? You could probably put the Mac in target disc mode or just take out the HDD and try to access your files from the other machine.
 
thundersteele said:
Nope, what you need is a dropbox account and an external storage backup. Depending on your storage needs Dropbox is free or $10 a month, and an external USB drive can be had for below $100.

While a new machine is certainly nice to have, it doesn't provide that much more security. HDD failures can always happen.
Click to expand...

Dropbox isn't a solution when my computer constantly won't boot (I've had at least 4 or 5 hd cables installed over the last two years). I have two USB drives; one for extra files, one for time machine. Neither is useful when the internal drive can't be found. Last time I went to the Genius Bar it failed the next day when I tried to start it up. I really do need a new machine. Please don't assume.
 
I went and got a 13" MBP from Bestbuy to run DiskWarrior on Disk Utility... but now I can't even get DiskWarrior to open.

It's a 2011 Macbook Pro. I connected it to a 2012 13" MBP with Thunderbolt. I can see the unmounted HD in Disk Utility, but I cannot repair it.
 
I was able to run DiskWarrior for a bit, but it couldn't fix everything. I was able to upload a lot of files to Google Drive through Recovery mode... but I really want to copy my HD before i reformat it. :(
 
If you were able to get your dissertation files off and safely stored somewhere else, consider that something close to a miracle. :) You could power it all down and try to repair things a second time (i.e. a second go might fix a little more), but there are no guarantees it'll come back on or fix more than it already has.

Personally, I'd cut my losses on the old drive. Putting important files back onto something that has the potential to crash again or stop working the very next day doesn't sound like a good move.
 
I'm going to doubly back up everything now... my problem is that I haven't gotten everything.

Also, it says now that my hard drive is "read only" - could the permissions change have caused this problem? I tried to change the permissions from read only but to no avail.
 
I'm going to assume you have the older Mac in Target Disk Mode (over Thunderbolt) because if you hadn't done that, I doubt the disk would have shown up. The read only state should theoretically allow you to copy everything, but it sounds like there is more going on than just that.

Depending on what permissions were changed, its possible that it could "lock" certain files down. I'm no expert on this and it may be helpful for someone with more data recovery experience to step in at this point.
 
KUguardgrl13 said:
Dropbox isn't a solution when my computer constantly won't boot (I've had at least 4 or 5 hd cables installed over the last two years). I have two USB drives; one for extra files, one for time machine. Neither is useful when the internal drive can't be found. Last time I went to the Genius Bar it failed the next day when I tried to start it up. I really do need a new machine. Please don't assume.
Click to expand...

Sorry I missed the part where you said that you have similar problems with your current machine. New machine would help I guess.

One remote + one local external update is pretty safe and pretty cheap, that is why I recommend it.
 
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