Disc problems - need some help

AdmiralAK

AdmiralAK

Simply Daemonic
Hello macosx'ers
How are things?
(been a long time since I've been here but the rest of this conversation in the lounge).

Lets see here's my prob.
My HD (not partitioned) has been having some access problems. When it gets to a certain area (usually when I log in from another machine) I hear these sounds as if the HD is laboriously looking for something that it should already know where it is.

Sooo.. I run my OS X install disc to see what the problem is and I get the following problems:

Invalid sibbling link
Invalid B-Tree Header
Invalid map node
Invalid directory item count
(should be 6 not 21)


Now I run the disc utility to fix the problems and it claimed that they were fixed. I verify it but the problems are still there. I decided to check my permissions just for the hell of it, there were probs so I fixed them (and they were indeed fixed)

I went back and checked with the disc util to see if there were any probs (all the invalid stuff from before) and still probs remained. so I ran teh repair util again and the probs were not fixed.

I ran norton utils for X and it could not do anything.


Any ideas?
 
The prob is that I am on my work computer, and Norton is work provided...dont really feel like buying diskwarrior for work (since I cant really write it off :p)

I will keep it in mind though if I find no other solutions
 
With directory repairs needed, the other 'real' solution is backup, re-format, and reinstall. Maybe you can talk your company into providing Disk Warrior (unless you're self-employed :) ). Norton is currently not as effective for a disk and directory repair tool.
 
cr@p!
oh well...seems like I might have to do some real convincing to get disk warrior because two of my macs have such problems - and who knows how many more... (thankfully they all work :p)
 
Welcome to hell. I've had the same problems before. When you hear the grinding and knocking sounds of the disc trying to find a block and failing, it's almost always a bad block on the disk surface. Often, these interfere with the proper operation of fdisk, as you are experiencing. The only way I was able to get things working was to use Norton Disk Doctor and do a complete media verification. It takes a REALLY long time with even just a hundred kilobytes of bad blocks, so let it run overnight. If you get lucky, it'll mark them as unusable, and you'll be back to normal, save for a couple corrupt files. If that doesn't work, you'll have to back up the whole disk, and do a complete reformat. Hitting it with Disk Doctor again at that point might be a good idea, too. If the formatting fails, then the disk is pretty much hosed. I had to just get mine replaced at that point. Yay, Apple Care.
 
and I thought I would never run into any of these probs with my mac ;)

the problem too is taht my disk is very fragmented (as are other macs that I have at work) since I have NEVER defragged them since we got em - gotta figure that each one is at least 2 years old and used everyday.

well I will work on it tomorrow see if I can do anything :) -- I might get diskwarrior if the price is right (less than 100 US)


Admiral
 
hello my friend!! sounds like defragmenting after repairing would be your best bet. if you get diskwarrior, be sure to get plus optimizer with it to defrag. while i am strongly against it, speed disk (part of your norton) should be able to do the job though. they are work macs after all. :)

it sounds more like a defrag issue than anything else to me.
 
No, if the head is seeking a block and never finds it, it's a physical disk issue, i.e. a bad block. When you hear the head knocking, does the system completely freeze dead except for allowing mouse movement? Because that's a sure sign right there.
 
Techtool Pro can diagnose (and possibly repair) bad blocks, and defrag your disk and optimize your directory as well. I'd say you should try to get this as well, ideally along with Disk Warrior.
 
Oh goody I get to be the first to say it:

Backup!

You're hearing the first parts of what might be a failing hard drive. Even Macs aren't immune to crappy hard drives.
 
Man.. I actually get to say this...
I have backed up :D:D:D:D:D
All my important files are backed up.
What I hate is the putting-stuff-fromback-up-to-disk which takes ages :)
I much rather fix it than format - reinstall OS - update all OS components - install all apps - update apps - make files and folders the way they were- get on with life ;)
 
Well I had that before, well actually a few times, and I still can't pinpoint what caused it. Norton fixed it before and Norton made it worse before. To make a long story short, i installed in place and that fixed it. I don't use Norton on my X partition, about to get DiskWarrior for that. But when i did use Norton, i would run Disk Utility from the install CD, make sure it returned no problems, repaired my permissions, then booted from the Norton Disk and checked the drive.

So can anyone tell me what causes these problems? Could it be when i boot to 9 and change something it causes this problem? I know i switched a lot of files around for archiving purposes while in 9, booted into X, and 3 out of 6 partitions had problems, 1 partition had to be wiped, the other was repaired, and I wound up clean installing the X partition after its repairs held up only for 1 week.
 
update:
I am currently doing my mac with discwarrior (bought it last night)-it is at the "locating directory data" part, and it has been grinding for at least 15 minutes :p --- well -- last option Drive X or TechTool Pro ;) --- we'll see what happens
 
well...
Diskwarrior took from 9AM to 2PM to do its thing.
1) It could not replace the directory struct
2) same as #1
3) worked OK

Did Norton,
then I optimized
Now it partly boots, and then blue screen and cursor... nothing else!

oh well!

I did this on a test machine so it is not my work machine
 
whoa, really, thats a crazy long time. Hmm, I'm actually scared to use Norton on my X partition after all the problems I've had.
 
update:
Mac boots up partly, it loads netinfo, IP, and then the status of the bootup stops and I get a blue screen. Still cannot get CD to be used as a bootup device.
 
Never was unabble to use a boot up disk in all my experience, "knock on wood." I'm so ready for my G5, still waiting on the right software deal from either Adobe or Macromedia to sway me. Because I don't see these problems on newer Macs like I'm having.
 
first, 5 hours for diskwarrior with file comparison is about normal for me on my 10 gb internal.

tolya - if it worked ok after DW, then why did you use norton? norton will cause as many problems as it fixes. haven't you been paying any attention to my ranting over the years? :p
 
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