Leopard Partition Won't Mount.

[Myth]

I ran Tiger and XP (FAT32) on my MacBook until recently, when I upgraded the Mac partition to Leopard. Afterwards, I decided to restore the drive, re-partition, and reinstall XP. All went well.

However, upon restarting from Windows, my Leopard partition wouldn't load. It would try and try hard, but the loading screen never changed. I tried using disk utility to repair the partition, but found that it was unmounted. It won't mount, won't verify, and won't repair. After trying to load it normally again, it would load for a long while, then turn off. I deleted the Windows partition in my tinkering, but I can't restore the size of the Leopard partition.

When booting up, holding option gives me the Mac HD icon, but I can't access it in anyway. When I try to reinstall OS X on the drive, I now have no target volumes available.

Help?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I'm assuming that you have a recent backup of your system, since you did an install/restore. That said, here's what you need to do:

Boot from the Mac OS X install DVD. Instead of installing, open Disk Utility and wipe the disk clean.
Install Mac OS X as normal, then when asked to transfer data, choose Another Partition on This Mac then find your drive with the backup on it. Select that as the place to transfer your stuff from.
Once that's done you'll need to repartition and restore Windows again, which I assume you know how to do.

If you do NOT have a recent backup, then... I'm not sure what to suggest.

 

[Myth]

I'm assuming that you have a recent backup of your system, since you did an install/restore. That said, here's what you need to do:

Boot from the Mac OS X install DVD. Instead of installing, open Disk Utility and wipe the disk clean.
Install Mac OS X as normal, then when asked to transfer data, choose Another Partition on This Mac then find your drive with the backup on it. Select that as the place to transfer your stuff from.
Once that's done you'll need to repartition and restore Windows again, which I assume you know how to do.

If you do NOT have a recent backup, then... I'm not sure what to suggest.

Backing up didn't work, but repartitioning my drive seemed to allow access to it. I installed Tiger on my "new" partition, but it occasionally crashes in the same fashion, and I have to erase the partition in order for it to mount again.

On one of these crashes, I was fiddling around in Disk Utility when I got the error message "Invalid Sibling Link," which apparently made it impossible to repair the drive.

When I can get back to my fresh desktop, things will occasionally freeze, and not just one application at a time. I'm guessing my hard drive is physically damaged?

 

[Myth]

Now this is interesting:

Continuing the cycle of repartitioning (into 1 partition every time) my drive, reinstalling OS X, then watching it freeze every few moments when I make any move - repeat - I got curious in my frustration.

I partitioned the drive into two, "Untitled 1" and "Untitled 2." I installed OS X on "2" and booted. Same problem. However, when I started my routine of using the install disc's Disk Utility to check the drive, "1" passed while "2" failed with the error "Invalid node structure," an error I usually got while verifying the failed single partition.

So it was just the partition with OS X installed that was giving me an error. I don't know if this means anything about the health of my computer, but I thought it would help the diagnosis.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Now this is interesting:

Continuing the cycle of repartitioning (into 1 partition every time) my drive, reinstalling OS X, then watching it freeze every few moments when I make any move - repeat - I got curious in my frustration.

I partitioned the drive into two, "Untitled 1" and "Untitled 2." I installed OS X on "2" and booted. Same problem. However, when I started my routine of using the install disc's Disk Utility to check the drive, "1" passed while "2" failed with the error "Invalid node structure," an error I usually got while verifying the failed single partition.

So it was just the partition with OS X installed that was giving me an error. I don't know if this means anything about the health of my computer, but I thought it would help the diagnosis.

Yes it does - this smells like a hard drive that's about to fail but not showing obvious signs of failure. If the S.M.A.R.T. status of the drive says "Failing" in Disk Utility, then that confirms my suspicion beyond ANY reasonable doubt.

 

[Myth]

S.M.A.R.T. status is "Verified." Right now it's working, though I don't trust it to boot correctly even once more before I have to re-partition and install again.

Another thing I've found to be interesting is that my only partition is numbered "2" when I look at its info.

I ran the Apple Hardware Test (extended as well) and go no errors, but an fsck returned this:

BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG
Floating point exception

 

[wrldwzrd89]

S.M.A.R.T. status is "Verified." Right now it's working, though I don't trust it to boot correctly even once more before I have to re-partition and install again.

Another thing I've found to be interesting is that my only partition is numbered "2" when I look at its info.

I ran the Apple Hardware Test (extended as well) and go no errors, but an fsck returned this:

BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG
Floating point exception

That fsck result isn't good at all... that's a symptom of, among other things, damage to the partition table/header area of the disk. Damage here causes partitioning to work erratically or not at all, and access to the rest of the disk to be unreliable. Sounds like what you're experiencing, right?

 

[Myth]

That fsck result isn't good at all... that's a symptom of, among other things, damage to the partition table/header area of the disk. Damage here causes partitioning to work erratically or not at all, and access to the rest of the disk to be unreliable. Sounds like what you're experiencing, right?

Yes, exactly. It certainly parallels my having to re-partition every time I lose access just so the disk can act normal.

I'm not unwilling to replace the hard drive. I just want to narrow it as much as I can so I don't make a move that doesn't fix anything. Newegg would be my best bet, yeah?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Yes, exactly. It certainly parallels my having to re-partition every time I lose access just so the disk can act normal.

I'm not unwilling to replace the hard drive. I just want to narrow it as much as I can so I don't make a move that doesn't fix anything. Newegg would be my best bet, yeah?

Newegg is fine, I suppose. I can't recommend for or against it, having never used it before.