deleting an volume that's not reconised

[Geminis]

Here's my prob on Mac OS X Server 10.2.6;

When booting up it gives me this warning, something like: 'You have inserted a disk that MAC OS cannot read. Click ignore to proceed'

When booting from CD and using Disk Utility I can see beside my 3 harddisks, this volume: 2.00 MB Apple and in that volume (With a removable disk icon) 'tmp'

I cannot verify or delete it with the utility cause it gives the error: 'the disk 'tmp' failed to unmount cause it's in use - The operation is cancelled' See my lousy screenpicture.

Is it a RAM disk?

Does anyone know what this is and what to do? Might be in terminal, and I have little experience with that.

Even our distributor of software never seen it!?

Thanks for any tips/help!

 

[michaelsanford]

Ok, you seem to have a rather serious problem.

I'm not 100% sure, but I'm putting pieces together from various bits of information, so don't take any drastic action based on this reply.

Linux/UNIX (and by extension Mac OS X) formats disks much differently than Windows or the old Mac OS. Mac OS X formats one single drive into many volumes to accomodate for a small boot partition,some data, etc. I believe it's all done automatically and inivisibly to the user.

I'm guessing what /tmp/ is is a mount point for the /tmp volume that has somehow become corrupted.

This is, however, just an educated guess.

 

[DeltaMac]

I see by your pic the First Aid tab. What does the Information tab reveal about that volume? Also, If you disconnect the LaCie and any other external drives, do you still see the 'tmp' (it might be an corrupt partition on the LaCie??)

 

[Geminis]

Thnx, for helping here!

michaelsanford, I think I need something like diskdoctor...

DeltaMac, actually it's at my work - but I will post some more screenshots tomorrow about your questions, also what the terminal revealed when listing the directory...

BTW the LaCie is just installed two weeks, before that we had the same problem, so I guess it's not that.

Anyway apart from this, the server seems to work fine, except for privileges. I had to give all users the same ID number, before that they all belonged to the same group, but still don't have the same writing permissions.

Another thing that's strange is that I cannot copy the whole harddisk (Macintosh HD) to the LaCie... It also will give an error about files that are in use.

That's the main reason I don't want to make a clean install. Hmmm.. my problem seems bigger than I thought I'm afraid.

Thanks anyway!

 

[SkyNite]

Could a .smi or installer disk image be in the Login Items in your System Preferences? I had that happen on my wife's computer once, with similar results.

EDIT: And check out DiskWarrior. It's a "must-have" tool for directory problems.

 

[DeltaMac]

You can't normally just copy an entire drive without being a superuser or root user, System will tell you that files are in use.

 

[Geminis]

that's what I say, being logged in as root, I cannot move all files! First found out when I tried to move an AutoCatalog directory (catalogs cd/dvd back-ups). There was one file in it which I could not copy to another drive...

 

[anarchie]

When you boot from a CD, the operating system still needs a portion of disk space somewhere to store temporary files. It won't store them on your hard drive, because that would be rude. Instead, it creates a "ram disk", which is a portion of your main RAM which acts as a hard drive. That is what that two megabyte /tmp is: a RAM disk which holds temporary files. You had best leave it alone.

Michael, you were half right. /tmp is a temporary filesystem, but no partitions or volumes are automatically created by the OS X installer.

For copying an entire bootable OS X disk, you should use <a href="http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html">Carbon Copy Cloner.</a> This will copy any or all of the files on a disk, visible or invisible, to another disk. It will also make the disk bootable if you copy all of the required operating system files.

 

[Geminis]

Thanks for staying with me here

Anarchie, ok the thing about the ram disk I believe, but why do I get that annoying error on startup? ('You have inserted a disk that MAC OS cannot read')

--

Here's some more bad screenpics. (is it possible to make screendumbs while booting from CD?)

And this is what the terminal showed when listing the directory;

[OSXServer:~] admin% cd /private/tmp
[OSXServer:/private/tmp] admin% ls
501 apacheadmin.lock slp_ipc
afpserver_PIPE slpRAdmin_ipc