OSX shut me out!

C

cutter

Registered
I was wondering if anyone else had similar problems such as this. First of all, the configuration is OSX (10.1.3) is on one partition on the master drive, and OS9 (9.2.2) is on another partition on the same drive. The problem is: I recently reinstalled OSX on it's partition, and hadn't booted into OS9 since the reinstallation. Yesterday, I rebooted into OS9, and when I tried to reboot back into OSX, the startup disk control panel wouldn't let me select the partition.

Rebooted using the system CD, and the startup disk control panel would now let me select the OSX partition, but upon reboot, i was faced with the flashing question mark, and after a bit it booted with the OS9 partition again.

I've repaired the OSX partition with disk first aid, and it said it found minor problems with BTree and Catalog, and stated they were repaired, but alas, I still can't select the partition under startup disk, and still get the question mark.

I then tried rebuilding the directory with DiskWarrior, which said it successfully located and rebuilt a new directory, but the same results persist.

Now I'm stuck in OS9 with no hope of rebooting to OSX without a complete reinstall. Has anyone else had this problem, or can offer any insight? Please help!!!

Thanks!

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Brian
 
depending on your current mac model, you should be able to boot into osx by holding down "x" during a reboot.
 
Didn't really think that solution would work, since the computer fails to boot into OSX from OS9 in ANY situation (restarting, shutting down, etc. works fine within OSX).

Is there any commercial software besides diskwarrior that helps correct problems like these?

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Brian
 
Start up holding down the Command key + S.

Run fsck -y when you get the command prompt. If it says your system files have been modified repeat fsck -y until it no longer says this. Then type reboot and press return. Hope fully your system X will startup.
 
Well, I finally found a solution to the problem...

First of all, trying to re-install another version of OSX over the existing system made almost the entire drive corrupt, and I could only copy some of the files off of the drive without getting a disk error.

I ended up moving all the important files that weren't corrupt onto another drive I have, and completely re-zeroed the one that OSX and 9 were on. I think the problem was that over the last couple months, I had deleted and re-created some partitions a few times without completely wiping to drive. Plus it hadn't been defragged in a while, so basically the drive was really messy and it came back to bite me.

God, hope i don't have to go through THAT again for a while...

Thanks for your help guys, I appreciate it.

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Brian
 
Now that you have OS X 10.1.3 just how you want it, consider making yourself a rescue disk or image of what you have now.

I have screwed my OS X several times and went through the bloody re-install drama and it is a real pain. With a rescue disk I don't give a dam if OS X goes bad. A couple of clicks of the mouse puts it back exactly the way I want it with all my hard earned setting just right etc.
 
A rescue disk sounds like it would be a really good idea, since I've screwed myself over with this kind of thing several times now. Could you give some insight on how to make a proper one? Like making an image with disk copy?

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Brian
 
Go to www.bombich.com. Everything is there on how to do it. Several methods are given. I use Apple Software restore method because it was the easiest for me to understand. With this I can get my OS X 10.1.3 with all its setting in place plus a cut down Classic and OS 9.2.2 full install onto one bootable CD.

Allow yourself plenty of time to do it...don't rush..easy to make mistakes. Placing all systems on one CD really means having partitions though if using Appple Restore. I mean if you have gigs of Apps and documents and they are all reside where OS X normally places them, then they are obviously not going to fit on a 650-700meg CD which you don't want anyway.......just the three separate systems files.

Of course the two system 9 files can just be dragged and dropped to and from the CD to hard drives/partitions and stay blessed and workable unlike the bloody OS X as you well you know, permissions and all resource forks and all that jazz.
 
JJJ - thanks for the tip, i'll check that out.

testuser - When I mention "this kind of thing," I'm referring to when I come this close [ ] to losing a lot of the important stuff on my machine. The main problem is that I don't do any backup very often, and also I can get pretty careless about forced restarts and other unfriendly things like repartitioning parts of a drive when there is still lots of important stuff on it ;-)

I'm pretty sure it's not a hardware problem...the two drives I have in my computer have functioned perfectly for quite a while. Plus the affected drive was completely erased without incident, so I don't think there isn't any physical damage.

I think I learned my lesson on this one.

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Brian
 
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