OSX disappeared! Help me!

[sluthy]

Please, urgent help required! (Okay, not real urgent, but I'm not sure if my 2500+ music files are at serious risk)

Okay, my iMac DV 500 was fine until yesterday morning, then I tried to install Limewire. It was always crashing on startup, so I updated it to 4.8.1. It ran, got to the "pay for pro Later, Now, Why" box which wouldn't disappear, no clicks registered. Selecting the Limewire menu to quit, brought up a blank box instead of the menu and the whole system hung (beachballed, Dock unresponsive, Finder worked for a second before beachballing).

So I held the power button in for 5 sec to shutdown and restart. Started up fine, all startup apps worked (iCal, Adium, etc - including that annoying Bluetooth not working dialog that comes up everytime de3spite not having Bluetooth and turning it off). I went to close the iCal window and it hung again, same deal. So 5 seconds of button pressing again, and startup again, this time, it got to the grey-Apple-on-white and stuck there. No spinning widget, no HDD noises, nothing. Oh crap.

So in goes the Systemworks disc, reboot (power button again - is there any New World Mac equivalent to the three finger salute?), and Disk Doctor. Partitions, fine. Media, disabled (how do I run this?). Files, the usual broken resource forks, incorrect flagging, etc. Directories, it gets to Checking Catalogs (Speed Disk says "Checking B-tree catalogs"), hangs for a sec, and report "Unkown disk error, cannot continue". Uh oh.

Vloume checker or whatever it's called sees the hard drive and shows the correct size and files are all intact apparently, but no scan can run on it. What the - ?

So I reboot, and it automatically goes into OS9 instead (I never realised how fast and attractive OS9 really was, seriously - and Virtual PC is much faster than what I remember). Anyway, OS9 works fine (other than no network, therefore no 'Net) and all my files are apparently intact, but OSX no longer comes up as a startup disk, neither in the Control Panel nor the hold-down-Option menu. Help!

 

[CanadaRAM]

Oh. Systemworks is a really risky program to use on an OSX drive.
Be thankful you can see the drive at all if Systemworks crashed while "repairing" an OSX volume. See that plastic-lined receptacle underneath your kitchen sink? That is the proper location for Systemworks.

OK, your OSX on the hard drive is borked. It boots OS9, can you get into your User folders at all? If you can access CD burning (if you have a CD-R) from OS9, or you can attach another drive, please backup all of your files that you can possibly access.

Now reboot the machine with the OSX CD in place, holding down the "C" key. Instead of proceeding into the installer, go to the menu at the top and choose Disk Utility. Select your hard drive volume Run a Repair on your hard drive. Does it run the repair successfully?
Run a Repair Permissions on the hard drive if it lets you.

Try restarting from the hard drive. Does it work? If not, reboot from the OSX Install CD and proceed with an "Archive and Install" to reinstall OSX.

 

[sluthy]

Oh. Systemworks is a really risky program to use on an OSX drive.
Be thankful you can see the drive at all if Systemworks crashed while "repairing" an OSX volume. See that plastic-lined receptacle underneath your kitchen sink? That is the proper location for Systemworks.

Really? Why is that? I got it because it was end-of-line for Systemworks on the Mac and I could get it for nearly half-price b/c of uni discount. Why is it partcularly bad for OSX?

OK, your OSX on the hard drive is borked. It boots OS9, can you get into your User folders at all?

Yep, like I said, the HD appears to be perfectly intact (other than OSX not coming up in the startup list).

If you can access CD burning (if you have a CD-R) from OS9, or you can attach another drive, please backup all of your files that you can possibly access.

Hmm, backing up 25-odd GB to CDs - fun .

I'm still at a loss as to why OSX corrupted itself just like that. Any ideas? All I had been doing was playing with Qemu and Limewire for the week or so beforehand.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Really? Why is that? I got it because it was end-of-line for Systemworks on the Mac and I could get it for nearly half-price b/c of uni discount. Why is it partcularly bad for OSX?.

It has a nasty habit of destroying the data on OSX hard drives esp. if it freezes during "repair". This has happened way to often to people I know personally.

Edit--- I originally spelled "presonally" - perhaps that would mean people who I got to know before having heard their voices - like all y'all.

Hmm, backing up 25-odd GB to CDs - fun ..

Consider the alternative...

You don't have to backup program installations, as long as you have the original install disks available. but do backup your User folder (if it allows you) any other data files you can, and the music files.

I'm still at a loss as to why OSX corrupted itself just like that. Any ideas? All I had been doing was playing with Qemu and Limewire for the week or so beforehand.

Who knows? Personally I would never let Limewire near my machine either.

 

[mad jew]

Who knows? Personally I would never let Limewire near my machine either.

Sound advice that. But looking through the monthly desktop pictures threads there's a multitude of members who still run it.

 

[sluthy]

What do you guys run instead of Limewire? Because iSwipe runs like crap (I mean 5 second beachball every mouse move or click, literally, but turning off everything bar Gnutella and Bittorrent seems to have helped a bit). The PC version of Limewire works a treat, finally worthy to replace KaZaa (hip hip hooray, rest in pieces Sharman and Cydoor).

Okay, popping in Panther Install CD1 and running Disk Utility - Verify Disk, it goes:

"Checking HFS Plus volume"
"Checking extents overflow file"
"Checking catalog file:"
"Keys out of order"
"Can't..."

Hmm, keys out of order... if I choose Repair Disk, what are the chances of corrupting the data on the drive, honestly? I know "better safe than sorry", but how dangerous is it?

EDIT: It was "Keys out of order", not "Keys not in order". My bad.

 

[sluthy]

Bump - what are the percentage odds of losing data if I use OSX Disk Utility to Repair Disk for the corrupted B-tree catalog thing?

 

[OnceUGoMac]

It sounds like the mach.kernel file got moved. When this file gets moved, it makes OS X unusable. My advice as a utility is Disk Warrior. Hope this helps.