Gray Screen ErrorType I/O to Target Mode - Files Gone ...

[sascha]

I have a Macbook, bought in Dec 2006 with Snow Leopard, 10.6.2

I had the spinning rainbow wheel going for a while, slow movement so i knew there might be a problem, but before i could properly address it I get the gray screen of death in which the apple logo and the spinning time wheel appeared, but no startup. I went into safe boot and performed fscky -- 3 attempts all failed to fix what were mostly directory/memory and thread errors ie missing files, misplaced files.

I do not have a copy of what came up, but the error was ErrorType I/O if that tells anyone anything.

I thought i might be able to do a re-install and be fine.

I go to my friends house and slave my Macbook out to his Macbook Pro (Target Disk Mode) and find that virtually all of my files are "gone" so i can not move my files to a harddrive (backup) so i can re-install.

After initial panic, I remembered that I had Filevault running. Have I locked myself out? Is it possible that fscky deletes files? (i know it shouldn't but panic has set in) if this is a Filevault issue, how can i re-gain access to my files in order to create back up/re-install?

Any ideas/experience with this issue?

Thanks a lot

 

[sascha]

http://securosis.com/blog/tutorial-how-to-use-mac-filevault-safely

I know, I have backups. Good ones. But I have work that is sensitive and important every day and so there are still files on that harddrive that are not backed up and that is my fault for not having read this very informative link above.

So yes, I am an ass for not having incremental backups nevertheless, I have an issue. If anyone can help, holler.

 

[djackmac]

Sounds like the HD is going. DiskWarrior is going to be your best bet. But I would put the drive in an external firewire enclosure and blast a fan on it to keep it cool during this process. Its very likely at the 5th step of rebuilding the directory structure, the message will be "speed reduced by disk malfunction". After running DiskWarrior it "hopefully" should bring up the files in a preview Window after it rebuilds the directory structure. But just use the preview that DiskWarrior provides and don't go through with the replacement of the directory because any more writes to the drive may bring it down completely. With the preview you may be able to go to disk utility on another machine and create a full disk image of the DW preview. Then maybe from the disk image you might be able to log in to the filevaulted account.

But on the bright side. If that's the original drive in the macbook, it might be eligable for a free replacement. But you better try to get what you need off of the drive because Apple will not honor the REP and let you keep the old drive.

 

[sascha]

Thanks i'll give it a shot and let everybody know what happens!