Need to repair B-directory problems

[mclan]

When I ran Disk Doctor (after several months of not checking my hard drive)I was given a warning that there was a problem with my B-directory, and directed to boot up from the Norton Systemworks or Norton Utilities disk. However, when I tried to boot up from the Systemworks disk, it was not recognized--even though I had selected it as my start-up disk.

This has never happened before! I had booted from the Systemworks disks several times in the past. I had recently installed the new "upgrade" for Systemworks, Norton Internet Security. I thought that might have had a bearing on why the G5 wouldn't start from the Systemworks disk, so tried to start up from the installer disk that came with the G5 (purchased October 2004) in order to fix the directory problem with Disk Utility. No problem getting the machine to start up from the installer, but there was no "First Aid" or Disk Utility on the installer menu. Only a hardware tester.

Can you give me some help on what I should do in order to get my directory problems taken care of? Thanks!

G5 Dual Processor, running OS 10.3.9

Cathy Miller

 

[eric2006]

Don't use Norton Systemworks. It causes much more problems than it solves. Uninstall it. OS X has built-in permissions/disk repair. Just boot from the OS X system disk, and you can access Disk Utility from a menu. It is also in your utilities folder, but it cannot fix the active system hard drive.

 

[mclan]

Hi eric2006,

Thanks for your help.

Alas, my ticket was closed before my problems were resolved, so now I see I'll have to start at square one again. I tried to keep it open, to no avail. Sigh. I had been working with Dale, he was great.

Dale also suggested I uninstall Systemworks, also the new Norton Internet Security I had just purchased. He also said I might try booting up in Safe Mode to see if the G5 might repair itself with Disk Utility, but he was skeptical. (If you'll read my original ticket question above carefully, you'll see that I did boot up from my installer disk, but that there was no disk utility, no first aid, nothing but to proceed with an re-install, which I did not do.)

Dale suggested either upgrading to 10.4 or purchasing a utility called DiskWarrior. I decided on Disk Warrior, it should be here on Monday or Tuesday.

In the meantime, thought I'd try the Safe Boot (holding down shift key at start-up). Well, the little gray whirley-gig started spinning, and spinning, and spinning and the fans begin to ramp up, and up, and up. After about 60 seconds or so, I thought I'd better turn the machine off (even though the little gray boot-up icon was still spinning) or else the entire machine would experience lift-off. I restarted the G5 normally, and it booted up fine.

I decided not to try Safe Boot again until I conferred with Macosx.com because of an old fan problem. When when I first got my Mac in fall of 04, I had a bad fan problem that took two trips to the Mac doc to get fixed. (Super high revving that wouldn't stop.) Few days ago when I tried to boot from my G5 install disk, I ran a hardware test that was on the install disk. I got a message via the hardware test telling me that there was a problem on the logic board with the fan (or fans.) The fans were running like crazy during the test with no revving down taking place, so I just shut the G5 down and restarted. No problems.

Anyway, I decided I'd ask you before I tried booting in safe mode again. Should I try, or leave well enough alone until DiskWarrior gets here? Thanks again for your help!