[Hachimaki]

Hi folks,

Long-time lurker, first time poster; I bought my first Mac (a 12-inch Powerbook) earlier this year after using Windows and Unix platforms for about a decade, and I've found these forums immensely useful for helping me find my feet ever since then. So, I turn to you in my hour of need!

Essentially, my Mac (PB 12" 1Ghz, OS X 10.3.5) wouldn't boot up on Sunday morning. Got to the screen with the grey-on-light-grey Apple logo and the rotating icon underneath it, and hung there. So, I booted the Apple Hardware Test CD, and it reported nothing wrong even on an extended test; then I tried booting the Software Install and Restore partition on the disc, and ran the disk checker, which promptly crapped out and announced that it couldn't fix the disk. Bugger.

A trip to PC World and a copy of Norton Utilities 8.0 later, I ran Disk Doctor over the drive and it found a whole stack of errors in the directory structure, which it fixed. Ran it a second time and it found more errors, and fixed them... And then it, too, crapped out and announced that it had encountered an unknown error and couldn't continue. Bugger.

It had obviously fixed SOMETHING though, since it can now actually boot the drive far enough to give me a terminal prompt, but won't actually go into the GUI itself.

I'm resigned to the fact that I'm going to have to reformat and reinstall - this drive is an ex-drive. However, I really need to get whatever data I can off it first - and here's the problem...

Norton Utilities won't recognise my external drives. I've got three drives (FAT formatted - they're the drives out of my old PC, which I pulled out and put into external enclosures when I switched), which I've connected via Firewire and USB2 to no avail - Norton sees them being hooked up, thinks about it for a while, the activity lights come on, Norton announces "Updating Disk List..." and then, er, nothing happens. Which is a bit of a problem, since they're the only way I have of getting data off the drive using the Volume Recover or Disk Explorer tools....

Thoughts? Suggestions? I'm pretty much at a loss here, personally; and of course, all of this has reduced me to dusting off my old PC and using it, which is now a singularly unpleasant experience I might add!

[Spheric Harlot]

Norton Utilities for Macintosh has actually been taken off the market.

For very good reason.

Take it back and get a refund; I'm surprised you could get a copy at all anymore. DO NOT LET IT TOUCH YOUR HARD DRIVE EVER AGAIN.

Use the refund towards a copy of DiskWarrior. It will probably fix all your troubles in about three minutes.

Seriously.

[Ω]

Norton is the spawn of satan.

"Seriously"

[Hachimaki]

Ah. Okay - should have asked here first really, I guess! Doh.

I don't suppose you've got a link to something about it being pulled off the market? I fear that trying to get money back off the register-monkeys in PC World is going to be a right nightmare...


I'll check out DiskWarrior - I spotted another package on the shelf there as well, TechTool 4.0 - is that any good?

[Randman]

Both DW *my choice* and TT4 are solid apps. Norton has a horrible track record with OSX. It was good in the OS9 days but those days are long ago.

[Arkham_c]

Originally posted by Hachimaki:
Ah. Okay - should have asked here first really, I guess! Doh.

I don't suppose you've got a link to something about it being pulled off the market? I fear that trying to get money back off the register-monkeys in PC World is going to be a right nightmare...


I'll check out DiskWarrior - I spotted another package on the shelf there as well, TechTool 4.0 - is that any good?

http://www.macnn.com/news/24213
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2004/04/14.2.shtml

DiskWarrior is the best tool on the market for disk catalog errors, bar none.

[Spliff]

Definitely pick up DiskWarrior or Techtool Pro. It's been my experience that DiskWarrior can fix just about any problem. The only times it's never been able to fix a problem has been when either the hard drive or logic board have been failing.

[Old Toad]

I heartily second the recommendation regarding DiskWarrior (see todays http://www.macosxhints.com/ site.

I suggest you try running the File System Check from the Single User Mode:

FSCK - File System Check

To start up in single-user mode
1. Restart the computer.
2. Immediately after the startup sound, press and hold both the Command (Apple) and "s" keys on your keyboard. The computer will display a series of text messages, at which time you may release these keys.

When the computer has started up, it will display a command line prompt (#). The computer is now in single-user mode.

How to Run the File System Check from the Command Line

Once you have reached a command line, follow these steps to use fsck:
1. At the prompt, type: fsck -y -f (NOTE, there is a space between the k and the “-” and the y and the next “-”)
2. Press Return.

The fsck utility will go through five "phases" and then return information about the disk's utilization and fragmentation. Once the check is finished, if no issue is found, you should see "** The volume [name of volume] appears to be OK."

If fsck alters, repairs, or fixes anything, it will display the message:

***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****

IMPORTANT: If this message appears, repeat the "fsck -y -f" command until this message no longer appears. It is not unusual for your computer to require several "passes" of fsck, because first-pass repairs may uncover additional errors. Run it until you get two consecutive times with an "OK" result.

3. When fsck reports that no problems were found, type: reboot
4. Press Return.

Hope this has been of some help. Good luck.

[TimmyDee51]

I absolutely swear by DiskWarrior. In my old job, I saw it fix disks that Norton had "fixed" and those that seemed absolutely unrecoverable. TT4 is good, but DW is the king.

[CharlesS]

Another recommendation for DiskWarrior. It's the best, as you can see by my patented Smiley Comparison Test™:

DiskWarrior: 5 Smileys ( )
TechTool Pro: 3 1/2 Smileys ( )
Norton: 2 Angry Smileys ( )

Seriously, DiskWarrior has fixed my drives when Norton Disk Doctor [Kevorkian] has destroyed them in the past. However, sometimes Norton mangles the directories badly enough that the information that tells what folder a file is supposed to be in gets hosed and you end up with a whole bunch of files in the "Recovered Files" folder. But at least you can recover your files.