Serious problem in Macland
The new MSN for OS X installer has completely borked my iMac DV SE's hard drive.
The installer froze; the Finder and Dock were unresponsive, so I rebooted the system. Kernel panic. I rebooted again to greet my desktop, but any attempt to use the Finder would result in another immediate lockup.
I restarted the iMac in Firewire disk mode and plugged it into my iBook so that I could run the Disk Utility on it. I fixed permissions, which took about three hours(!) on the 30 GB drive, but it did eventually finish.
Then I tried to repair the disk itself, but anytime the Disk Utility tried to access the drive, it would freeze immediately. Trying to force-quit the app did nothing until I unplugged the Firewire cable; fortunately any volumes on the drive were unmounted, so the OS didn't complain.
Finally, I booted from the Jaguar install CD and chose the archive and install option. The installation proceeded well until files began to be written to the drive, when the installer stopped dead at "writing files to disk" with no audible disk activity.
I can still access my files in Firewire disk mode from the iBook, but the iMac will no longer boot into OS X. My previous (sorta working) system is sitting on the drive in a Previous Systems folder.
What can I do with this (effectively) dead Mac?
The installer froze; the Finder and Dock were unresponsive, so I rebooted the system. Kernel panic. I rebooted again to greet my desktop, but any attempt to use the Finder would result in another immediate lockup.
I restarted the iMac in Firewire disk mode and plugged it into my iBook so that I could run the Disk Utility on it. I fixed permissions, which took about three hours(!) on the 30 GB drive, but it did eventually finish.
Then I tried to repair the disk itself, but anytime the Disk Utility tried to access the drive, it would freeze immediately. Trying to force-quit the app did nothing until I unplugged the Firewire cable; fortunately any volumes on the drive were unmounted, so the OS didn't complain.
Finally, I booted from the Jaguar install CD and chose the archive and install option. The installation proceeded well until files began to be written to the drive, when the installer stopped dead at "writing files to disk" with no audible disk activity.
I can still access my files in Firewire disk mode from the iBook, but the iMac will no longer boot into OS X. My previous (sorta working) system is sitting on the drive in a Previous Systems folder.
What can I do with this (effectively) dead Mac?
Comments
Thats why I'm sticking to OS-9.2
Back up what data you can. Try to erase the disk yourself, first normally then with "zero all data". If neither work, your drive is dead and it's a trip to the repair center. In that case, it's neither Mac OS X nor MSN's fault.
Barto
Originally posted by aquafire
I so HATE OS-X....for all the reasons you've encountered.
Thats why I'm sticking to OS-9.2
Woah. Calm down. It sounds like he's got a messed up drive in need of repair due to a crappy Microsoft installer.
if only some sort of MicroSoft precedent in quality control of software and installers existed.
oh wait... i have to stop laughing first.
--
seriously...
have you tried the FSCK -Y method from single-user mode boot (hold CMD-S during startup)?
may require multiple runs until it says "your disk appears to be ok"
might require DiskWarrior if that won't help
Also, you should have repaired the disk itself, [b]before[b] trying to repair the permissions. That might have even mucked things up further...
This wouldn't be such a problem if I had a way to back up all of my data, but I'm burner-less and don't have access to another drive that's big enough to hold all of it.
I'll see what I can do, but I'd hoped a DiskWarrior purchase wouldn't be necessary.
I pulled some crazy mojo with invisible files and the OS 9 Disk First Aid and managed to get a clean copy of Jaguar installed and running like a charm.
Looks like that MSN installer did some nasty stuff with my drive's boot information (or something like that). Anyway, I've got a lot of preferences to reset and some OS updates to install.
Originally posted by Daver
Looks like that MSN installer did some nasty stuff with my drive's boot information (or something like that).
It's only natural of a messenger app to modify the kernel and correct BootROM.
IE was the last MS thing I installed on a Mac.
Originally posted by aquafire
I so HATE OS-X....for all the reasons you've encountered.
Thats why I'm sticking to OS-9.2
Yeah.. cuz ya know, when there is a hardware problem(wich this sounds like, I had this problem when a hd went toast) ya know its osx's fault..(uhh, when I had the same problem, 9 wouldnt work either). try formatting the HD(this may/may not work could be some bad clusters or something).
Originally posted by costique
It's only natural of a messenger app to modify the kernel and correct BootROM.
IE was the last MS thing I installed on a Mac.
Naturally, I know.
MS-free for 2003!