Invalid Sibling Link, no startup disk. PLEASE HELP!

[ben1984]

Hi all,

A couple of days ago my Macbook pro froze and crashed. Upon restarting finder wouldn't run (just the beachball of doom), but most other programs seemed to operat ok, if a little slowly.

I used disk utility to try and figure out the problem and found i had a Sibling Link Error that DU was unable to repair. after reading several posts I tried
fsck -yf on start up couldn't sort it either and made thins a little worse: it now take several tries to get it to boot at all and only in safe mode.

I've serched high and low and I can't find my original startup disk so i cant boot from that to run DU. Any while I understand it'd merrits I simply can't afford DiskWarrior. Also (hanging my head in shame) I haven't backed up in a long while and i dont have an external HD. I've also tried fsck_hfs but it says it's an illegal option.

Can anyone suggest any solutions to my plight bearing in mind the above?

Sorry for being a bit of a lost cause. Ay help would be greatly greatly appreciated I'm a bit rubbish when it comes to computers, I'm embarassed to say that it's just not one of my strengths. So step by step answers would be great if at all possible.

p.s. Sorry for any glarring spelling mistakes- I'm severly Dyslexic.

 

[priitv8]

Have you by any chance updated to Lion or something later? In that case you won't need the original startup disk at all, just reboot from Recovery Partition (hold Cmd+R whyle system starts up).
Other than that, you need to find either a startup DVD or another Mac + FireWire cable, so you can start yours in Target disk mode and use it as external disk connected to the other Mac. This way you'll be able to run DU against your HDD.
Instead of Target Disk mode, obviously you can use a USB-SATA adapter or dock as well.

 

[ben1984]

I've done the standard updates every time I've been prompted does that count?

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Also, if I cant find my install disk, can i use another similar? I mean if i'm running osx 10.6.8 could i use a 10.6.3 disk? ( as they seem to be more readily available)?

 

[Nermal]

It depends on the age of your machine. Systems produced in "early 2010" or earlier should be bootable with a 10.6.3 DVD, but newer systems will need the grey recovery DVDs that were originally shipped with the machine.

 

[ben1984]

It depends on the age of your machine. Systems produced in "early 2010" or earlier should be bootable with a 10.6.3 DVD, but newer systems will need the grey recovery DVDs that were originally shipped with the machine.

It was made in march 2010 (according to the serial number). Do you know if that's early enough?

 

[Nermal]

It's probably a "Mid 2009" model if it was made in March (since the next model wasn't until "Mid 2010"). You're *probably* OK with a white retail 10.6.3 DVD.

 

[ben1984]

It's probably a "Mid 2009" model if it was made in March (since the next model wasn't until "Mid 2010"). You're *probably* OK with a white retail 10.6.3 DVD.

It also said it was "Mid 2010" so i guess i do need to hold out for a 10.6.8 disk?

 

[Nermal]

It also said it was "Mid 2010" so i guess i do need to hold out for a 10.6.8 disk?

Apple's knowledgebase indicates that a Mid 2010 will not work with a retail 10.6.3 DVD. You have two options. Either try to obtain the original restore DVDs (I've heard that some people have had success with calling Apple and asking for them), or obtain a 10.9 flash drive. 10.9 is a free upgrade but you'll need access to another Mac to download and create a flash drive.