Huge Crash: I Thought Macs Were More Stable then PCs ?

S

slevytam

Registered
Hi,

I have a Macbook running osx and vista using bootcamp. All things were fine until osx froze recently while i was doing a file transfer from my cell to the computer. In order to attempt a reboot i shut down the macbook using the power button.

When the system attempted reboot it just sat at the mac logo with the turning activity indicator. I let i go for at least 10 minutes it never started osx. I tried this a few times no go. It will not boot into osx. I then tried booting into windows. It gave a corrupt file error.

I decided to attempt fixing osx first. I tried a disk utility repair disk. I get: Invalid Sibling Link. Volume Check Failed. Error: File System check on boot helper partition failed.

I then tried Diskwarrior. I succesfully rebuilds the directory but tells me it cant replace the old one do to a disk error or something like that.

What should I do! Please help. I have never had such a bad crash on a PC ever. With a PC I could reinstall windows ontop of the old one and it would fix the system file issues. Can I do this with osx ?

Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks,

slevytam

Note: A format is really a last last resort as I have a ton of program and files on this system.....
 
You probably could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you had just Force Quit the application that you were using to sync the Mac and the phone. Turning off the power (no matter what the OS) is not recommended except for extreme cases where not even a Force Quit is possible. Abruptly shutting off a computer in that manner will cause the problems you've experienced, especially if something was happening in the background that was filesystem-related (such as a direct file transfer from one device to another).

The other issue is that you have to remember that Boot Camp is still beta software, which means anything can happen. Apple says on their site that it's beta software and to beware of the issues that come with using beta software. This is why they advise that you backup you important data. As of this point, the only stable way of using Windows on the Mac is through Parallels, at least until Boot Camp is final in the next release of OS X (10.5, aka "Leopard).

What you can do with Mac OS X if you have to reinstall the OS is to perform an "Archive and Install." This installs a new System folder while leaving everything else intact. Mind you, you might have to redo the whole Boot Camp setup and make sure that Windows finally shows up again, but as I mentioned Boot Camp is still in beta so use at your own risk. Even beta software in Windows is likely to cause crashes like the one you're having (I've had issues like this with beta drivers in Windows, so I speak from experience).
 
Hi,

Just to note... I did attempt a Force Quit but it wouldn't even show up.

I just tried to do an archive and install; however, the drive does not even show up as an option to install to!

There has got to be some program that will do a scan of the partition and repair the errors in the file system etc...

Please help!

Thanks,

slevytam
 
When you're doing the Archive and Install, are you booted from the installation disc or from the hard drive? If your answer is the latter, then there's your problem. You need to be booted from the installation disc. Otherwise, it won't let you do it since the System folder currently in the hard drive is in use.

To boot from the installation disc, simply hold down the C key when you hear the Macintosh startup chime.
 
Since he can't _boot_ from the harddrive, I'd suspect he's doing it through the DVD.
 
fryke said:
Since he can't _boot_ from the harddrive, I'd suspect he's doing it through the DVD.
Click to expand...

True....forgot the original poster had mentioned that. The only things I can think of at this point is to try and boot into Safe Mode (hold down Shift during the Mac startup chimeand see if it completes any boot process in this mode. This mode performs a disk check and repair in the background, so maybe that might do it. Then there's Single User Mode (hold down Apple-S during the Mac startup chime), but that would require you not being afraid of the UNIX command shell.

Or, you could hold down Apple-V during the Mac startup chime to go into Verbose mode. This mode shows you everything that's happening in the bootup process so you might be able to see exactly what's failing when it tries to boot.

If you can get this far, then you might be able to investigate what's exactly wrong and repair accordingly. If not, then unfortunately it might either be a bad hard drive or something that requires a full install.
 
Hi,

Thanks for your replies.

My attempt to do an archive and install was with a DVD. I have not been able to successfully do a safe mode boot; however, i can do a single user mode boot. This gets me to the command prompt. I have tried fsck however it won't complete sucessfully. Are there any other commands that i might be able to try?

Thanks again !
 
At this point, I suspect that your hard drive might have taken a bad hit from the abrupt power-down. Does it make any strange repetitive click noises if you listen closely to it? If so, then you might need a hard drive replacement. At this point, see about taking it in to an Apple Store for them to look at.
 
Hi,

I tried Drive Genius and finally a bit of success. I did a rebuild and it was successful. I then did a drive repair and it too was successful. I then did a verify and it was successful as well.

I just tried and repair permissions and I get this.

"Permissions are not enabled on the disk (-9973)"
Repair Permissions Failed

Can anyone help me further ?

Thanks,

slevytam
 
Hi,

I am in fact using 10.4.8 (sorry). I did attempt this with a install disk; however, the only disk I have is mounted on a usb drive if that makes a difference. I am on vacation and dont have the original disks with me. Neither do I have a blank dvd.

When I attempted the repair permissions booting from the disk it comes up with a dark grey window saying that I must restart my computer.

This is driving me crazy!
 
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