How do I repair system disk WITHOUT a CD?
So I heard a weird noise coming from the bottom left corner of my powerbook (12 inch, 1.33 GHz). It sounded like the top of a glass bottle clicking. Not a good noise. So immediately I opened disk utility and verified disk. After hanging for about 3 minutes, this is what it told me:
Verifying volume ?Macintosh HD?
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
%)
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Volume Header needs minor repair
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
\tVolume needs repair
OK, so hopefully its minor repair (**cross fingers**)
But my OS X install CD is at my parents house, in another city! How can I repair the disk without the CD? I'm afraid to use my laptop at all until I repair the disk.
Is there anything I should do in the meantime?
Thank you all, even if you're just reading and have no idea how to help me.
Verifying volume ?Macintosh HD?
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
%)
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Volume Header needs minor repair
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
\tVolume needs repair
OK, so hopefully its minor repair (**cross fingers**)
But my OS X install CD is at my parents house, in another city! How can I repair the disk without the CD? I'm afraid to use my laptop at all until I repair the disk.
Is there anything I should do in the meantime?
Thank you all, even if you're just reading and have no idea how to help me.
Comments
http://www.westwind.com/reference/OS...ngle-user.html
So basically, if I want to repair the disk, I start up in Single User Mode, and I'll be greeted with a prompt? Then I just type:
sudo diskutil repairDisk /Volumes/Data
Which should:
Repair the file structure on the volume "Data" (note: this unmounts the volume during repair)?
Is there any risk in doing this?
Use the command 'fsck' to repair your disks, by entering in:
fsck -yf
Then give it a while for it to check and repair the disk. If it says that the filesystem has been 'modified', run fsck again until it says 'Disk checked OK'. To get out, just type in 'reboot'. This shouldn't be dangerous, and your disks shouldn't be mounted at all in single user mode.
Just boot into single user mode, and you'll see a message that tells you to do two things: check disk with fsck, and mount the disk for use with mount. Just do the former. If it says it repaired an error, try it again, until it reports all AOK, then type 'boot' to continue the boot process. ('reboot' works as well, but 'boot' just continues from that point on - saves a few seconds. You can also hit Ctrl-D to 'log out' of single-user mode, and continue the boot process.)
fsck is the underlying tool that Disk Utility uses, so this is *exactly* the same as running Disk Utility on your boot drive, except that you have the added safety of not being able to write to it accidentally, other than what fsck does.
If at any point you get nervous, just enter the 'boot' command, and it'll continue as if you had rebooted normally. No harm, no foul.
Just do the first, skip the second, and you've checked your drive without the need for a boot CD.
I think fsck is a bit easier though