Sherman Zent
Registered
I have a quicksilver with a 250 gig internal, connected via a PCI to IDE ATA-133 Controller card (neeeded for the computer to run a drive that large). I have an external drive via firewire I use for backup. Installed the larger internal drive over a year ago, there are multiple profiles on the computer (me, wife and 3 kids) and it's been working fine and dandy.
Suddenly the computer won't startup from the internal drive. First thought drive is failing, but going into it via startup from the backup, operates just fine in every way -- runs programs, opens docs, etc. -- except it just won't boot. Try option key restart, safe boot, from startup preference -- both from the backup and from the osx disk -- The internal is present to choose in all cases, but won't boot.
I run disk warrior, which shows the drive to be fine, I run permissions repair and disk repair from the the disk utility, which show no real problems, just the usual minor stuff.
I erase and restore the internal from my external backup with superduper. The internal restarts! Yay! I use it a bit, get on the internet. I do another restart and once again it won't boot up. When the problem first occurred I got the flashing ? mark folder. Now it does that for a few seconds and then makes it to the white apple screen, but hangs there. I try every which way to restart, with same results as before.
I do a zero-out erase of the internal, install fresh osx from disk. Everything works. I restart several times, opening applications and creating documents between each attempt. all seems fine. I try restoring from the backup again. The restart problem returns.
I try trashing some specific system folders and files on someone's advice, but no help. I'm resigned to installing a fresh osx, reinstalling fresh apps from disks, etc. I guess I will copy over user profiles with restarts in between, to make sure I don't bring over the problem.
BUT I still want to understand what the heck happened -- since my internal is connected one way (via the pci controller card) and my external another way (via firewire), and an identical copy of my system (and entire contents of the computer) will boot from one but not the other, I'm thinking that there is an inherent vulnerability in the connection via the pci card, or the particular card is not working properly, or just has a design vulnerability. Anyone have any insights on this?
Suddenly the computer won't startup from the internal drive. First thought drive is failing, but going into it via startup from the backup, operates just fine in every way -- runs programs, opens docs, etc. -- except it just won't boot. Try option key restart, safe boot, from startup preference -- both from the backup and from the osx disk -- The internal is present to choose in all cases, but won't boot.
I run disk warrior, which shows the drive to be fine, I run permissions repair and disk repair from the the disk utility, which show no real problems, just the usual minor stuff.
I erase and restore the internal from my external backup with superduper. The internal restarts! Yay! I use it a bit, get on the internet. I do another restart and once again it won't boot up. When the problem first occurred I got the flashing ? mark folder. Now it does that for a few seconds and then makes it to the white apple screen, but hangs there. I try every which way to restart, with same results as before.
I do a zero-out erase of the internal, install fresh osx from disk. Everything works. I restart several times, opening applications and creating documents between each attempt. all seems fine. I try restoring from the backup again. The restart problem returns.
I try trashing some specific system folders and files on someone's advice, but no help. I'm resigned to installing a fresh osx, reinstalling fresh apps from disks, etc. I guess I will copy over user profiles with restarts in between, to make sure I don't bring over the problem.
BUT I still want to understand what the heck happened -- since my internal is connected one way (via the pci controller card) and my external another way (via firewire), and an identical copy of my system (and entire contents of the computer) will boot from one but not the other, I'm thinking that there is an inherent vulnerability in the connection via the pci card, or the particular card is not working properly, or just has a design vulnerability. Anyone have any insights on this?