Disappearing partition

[ipsyd]

I have a Pismo PowerBook with its internal hard drive partitioned - an 8GB partition with OSX 10.2.4, and a 3GB partition with OS 9.2. I normally start up from the Jaguar partition. (As my primary backup, I have both these partitions cloned onto corresponding partitions on a FW external drive.)

Yesterday the PowerBook wouldn't start up - I get the Apple logo, but it won't go past that. If I option-boot, this internal OSX partition appears as a startup option, but when I select it, it still won't get past the Apple logo.

With the ext FW HD connected, option-boot allows me to select the external FW OSX partition as the startup drive. Then everything is normal EXCEPT that the internal OSX partition does not mount - nor can I see it using Apple System Profiler. (The OS 9 partition on the same internal HD is visible and available, both when I option-boot, and as a mounted volume when running OSX from the ext FW drive.)

As my backup is an iMove edit or two out of date, I really want to bring this missing partition back to life rather than clone the backup back to the internal HD - and in any case, I can't see the partition I want to clone to. I'm not at all Unix-savvy, but pretty handy otherwise. What's the best way to proceed?

[Cheryl]

Have you tried using the Disk Utility? If you have the Utility folder on the FW HD, use that to find and scan the hard drive on the powerbook. If not, use the OS X CD.

[ipsyd]

Thanks, but Disk Utility sees "a damaged extents..." - the message appears to be cut off - then reports Disk Repaired. However, my problem remains exactly the same after the repair.

I have also tried Norton SystemWorks, which invites me to authorise upwards of a dozen Fixes before it finally says that it can't repair the disk. After this, the disk mounts, but I still can't boot from it.

Tried Disk Utility and NSW alternately a number of times without success. Finally threw in the towel, reinitialised the partition and cloned the backup back to the internal partition.

Thanks for trying. If it happens again, I might give Drive X a go....

[Cheryl]

highly suggest you invest in Drive 10. Norton works only on the OS 9 side. Drive 10 is a native OS X program. It will repair your drive correctly.