[Nodnarb]

First off, I know this isn't the right forum and I'm really sorry; however, I'm posting from the windows parition of boot camp on my mac as my macbook will not start. I don't have my install DVDs with me (at college) and they are at home and I was hoping for some quick help.

This afternoon, I was using my macbook to write a paper, and browse the web (I had iTunes downloading iPhone 1.1.4 too) and that's ALL my computer was doing at the time. After the iPhone update downloaded, it wouldn't install on my phone so I restarted my computer (I read in a forum that error 1602 or something required a restart)... So, I restarted my computer and...

I get the gray Apple screen, the beachballish thing underneath it, and then the computer goes black. It did that like 5 times in a row. I held option and rebooted into windows, and looked in google and everywhere on what to do. I reset PRAM, and did like 5 other commands from Apple's and other's sites but to no avail.

The main difference I see is that my computer begins starting up (I hear the chime, see the gray screen and Apple logo) whereas the other ones I read about did what my old iBook did, which is just run the fans and not turn on at all.

I know I can install from a disc, but seeing as I don't have the leopard CD here, I don't know what to do to get my mac up and running so I can access all of my stuff from school (it's all backed up, but I just can't get to it!)

So once again, sorry for the out of place post, but I need help ASAP, prefereably before class tomorrow morning!

Thanks a lot everyone!

[Eriamjh]

Reboot and hold CMD-V to see what you can see.

What do you see?

[TheoCryst]

In the meantime, you can install the demo version of MacDrive from here: Mediafour | MacDrive. It should give you access to your OS X partition and any documents/data you absolutely need for tomorrow.

[Marc Speth]

Or you can just hold the shift key while you boot to perform a "safe boot"

I've had to use that trick a couple times now. What happens (if you're lucky) is that the machine starts up in safe mode and resets or initializes whatever is ailing it, and then when you do a normal reboot everything is fine.

I understand there is a 'reboot in Single User Mode" by holding the S key during bootup, but I've never needed this so I can't tell you what to expect, But my friend says that this lets you startup so you can start rumaging through files and try to determine the and fix the problem that is hosing up a normal boot.

(I think I'm gonna try a Single User start just to find out what it does - for my own education)

[Nodnarb]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh 

Reboot and hold CMD-V to see what you can see.

What do you see?

Ok a lot of stuff was flashing but the two main things I could see near the end were "Runtime corruption dectected on Macintosh HD" and then "Killing all processes" right before it shuts off.

No idea what that means though.

I already tried Safe booting, it did nothing.

Thanks for the link to the software, I'm going to go check that out right now.

[Art Vandelay]

Boot into Single User Mode (Command+S) and follow the instructions to repair the drive. You've got some type of corruption that is causing the OS to give up and shut itself down.

If it's really bad, you might not be able to boot far enough in SUM to run fsck before it shuts down again.

[Nodnarb]

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay 

Boot into Single User Mode (Command+S) and follow the instructions to repair the drive. You've got some type of corruption that is causing the OS to give up and shut itself down.

If it's really bad, you might not be able to boot far enough in SUM to run fsck before it shuts down again.

Ok well I did that and heres what I got:

The same message "Runtime corruption detected on Macintosh HD - fsck will be forced on next mount" was repeated about 10 times and then it said

the only options are: "If you want to make modification to drives sbin/fsck -fy OR sbin/mount - uw"
and "If you wish to boot the system [exit]"

exit just goes to "kill all processes"

I have no idea what any of this means, but hoping some people here are much smarter than me.

[Art Vandelay]

Type the command "/sbin/fsck -fy" like the directions indicate. Keep running that command until all errors are fixed. If you get it fixed, then type "exit" to continue booting normally. If it doesn't get fixed, then you'll need a boot DVD to try getting any further.

[Nodnarb]

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay 

Type the command "/sbin/fsck -fy" like the directions indicate. Keep running that command until all errors are fixed. If you get it fixed, then type "exit" to continue booting normally. If it doesn't get fixed, then you'll need a boot DVD to try getting any further.

Posting from my phone so excuse any typos please...


Ok, I ran that command maybe 5 times and then it got my back to the first screen to type exit to reboot... Same thing happened, and eventually (not 100% sure of exactly what I did) the computer ran what looked like a bunch of weird commands in that single user mode.

Then when I fry and restart now, it just gives mr the message "your computer needs to be restatfed please hold down the power button" in like 5 different languages...

So is my best bet to just make a trip home and get the DVD? Once I have that, whats the best option? Reinstall from time machine? Archicd and install? Kind of new at this if you guys can't yell, I've never had to deal with any of this since my windows days.

Thanks again for all the help.

[starman]

Time machine will only save your documents and such, I believe. I have it on my Mac and I don't think it saves your whole OS.

Best suggestion for NOW: buy/borrow a cheap external USB hard drive and go get your DVDs (or see if someone where you are has an OS you can install). Install a fresh OS on that external drive and get the data you need off your internal drive. Sometimes, the data on the drives are just shot beyond repair and it's best to get what you can off it. It happens to me very rarely and you have to weigh the time to fix it (if possible) vs. just starting over.

[Chuckit]

When you get your computer booted from the installer and reformat, run a diagnostic on the disk to see if it's failing. It could just be that the hardware is going kaput.

As for restoring: I think the 10.5 installer has an option to restore from a Time Machine backup. That would probably be easiest.

[Nodnarb]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

When you get your computer booted from the installer and reformat, run a diagnostic on the disk to see if it's failing. It could just be that the hardware is going kaput.

As for restoring: I think the 10.5 installer has an option to restore from a Time Machine backup. That would probably be easiest.

If the hardware is failing, wouldn't that mean the Windows partition shouldn't work either? I'm only asking because it is a relatively new MacBook, I think just over a year old, and that would be crappy if it is failing already (I do have applecare, however).

And yeah, I saw that option restore from time machine when first setting up leopard, and that's why I tohught of it (and I luckily backed up the night before this happened, so I maybe would lose like the changes on 1 paper I made, but I already had to re-do that last night, so I think that would be great if I can just load from that).

So just to be clear, I might make the drive home this afternoon (only about an hour away) to get the CD. I put in the CD, then Start up the computer (Holding "C" ???) and... then will there be instructions on how to continue, or what's the next step after that? Especially the reformatting and diagnostics you're talking about, I don't really know what you mean from just the installer disk (like without going to disk utility and stuff).

Sorry if I'm being a pain, I just want to have like a handwritten set of instructions with me so I can do this later without having to stop and keep getting into windows to check instructions from either this thread or elsewhere.

Thanks.

[Nodnarb]

Ok, so this is getting weirder.

I put the DVD in, and it started from the DVD (upgrade of leopard). It said it could not upgrade because 10.4 or later was not found on the computer? So I can't even get to the part with the time machine backup.

Also, I have no idea what this means but I'm hoping you guys do: I did the diskutility, and it won't work in the Macintosh HD. Windows HD can verify, repair, etc, but Macintosh HD says: "... Checking catalog file/ [in red] Invalid key length/ Volume check failed"

It said something about invalid key length in single user mode last night too.

What the heck is going on???

[Nodnarb]

Wow, I think I just got lucky as hell.

There's a menu before the installer even works (which it won't, since it's an upgrade DVD, and can't see my original install) that says restore from time machine backup.


I'm typing from my moms computer right now, but if this works, I'm going to be soooo happy. Really, I don't know what I'd even do without time machine. Most likely I'd be re-installing Tiger, then leopard, then picking and choosing files from my old backup (not on time machine, just random crap I used to have on an external). To (hopefully) have my computer just as it was 2 days ago is going to be amazing. I'm crossing my fingers nothing goes wrong with the restore!

[analogika]

If you're restoring to a corrupted disk, your install will be corrupted.

The Mac partition has directory damage.

Stab in the dark: how much free space did you have on your disk when the iPhone update refused to run?

[Doofy]

Sorry dude but someone's got to say it...

If you insist on putting the Microsoft virus onto your machine, you're gonna get these kinds of problems.

[Nodnarb]

Originally Posted by analogika 

If you're restoring to a corrupted disk, your install will be corrupted.

The Mac partition has directory damage.

Stab in the dark: how much free space did you have on your disk when the iPhone update refused to run?

Like 30+ gigs, so that's not it... But that's what I was afraid of, that somehow the disk is not working so the restore won't either.

So how do I fix that? Or can I...?

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Sorry dude but someone's got to say it...

If you insist on putting the Microsoft virus onto your machine, you're gonna get these kinds of problems.

Funny thing is, windows was what saved me last night to get some last minute work done when my mac crapped out on me... I even had a windows-loving buddy sitting there getting a kick on the situation, that I needed windows to "save me" by coming on here and asking about it and everything.

My question is: The entire HD is obviously not faulty if windows is working fine. So, it must be something stupid that happened to the Mac partition, so how do I go about fixing that (assuming this restore doesn't work)?

I do have applecare, so I could always take this to Apple, I'd just rather not be without a computer for a couple of weeks (one week to get in by appointment, another for their slow turn around as of late).

Blahhhhhhh this sucks

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Nodnarb 

Funny thing is, windows was what saved me last night to get some last minute work done when my mac crapped out on me... I even had a windows-loving buddy sitting there getting a kick on the situation, that I needed windows to "save me" by coming on here and asking about it and everything.

Funny thing is, it may have been Windows which jumped partition and caused the damage in the first place. Past suspicions on a few file errors have led me to ban all Windows machines from even communicating with the Macs over ethernet.

Originally Posted by Nodnarb 

My question is: The entire HD is obviously not faulty if windows is working fine. So, it must be something stupid that happened to the Mac partition, so how do I go about fixing that (assuming this restore doesn't work)?

Sounds like a job for DiskWarrior? Pop down to your local store and grab up a copy - you need one anyway (every Mac owner does), even when everything's running sweetly.

[Nodnarb]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Funny thing is, it may have been Windows which jumped partition and caused the damage in the first place. Past suspicions on a few file errors have led me to ban all Windows machines from even communicating with the Macs over ethernet.



Sounds like a job for DiskWarrior? Pop down to your local store and grab up a copy - you need one anyway (every Mac owner does), even when everything's running sweetly.

Well, I'm up and running on my time-machine-restored macbook. I'm so glad it worked, I haven't done a restart yet to make sure it'll work next boot up, but all seems well as of now.

Have you really heard of a windows virus "jumping" partitions, and leaving the windows perfectly fine and destroying the Mac side? Where'd you hear that?

I'll have to check out disk warrior when I have time, but I have no idea what it does... What are the benefits, why does every mac user need it?

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Nodnarb 

Have you really heard of a windows virus "jumping" partitions, and leaving the windows perfectly fine and destroying the Mac side? Where'd you hear that?

You misunderstand - Windows is the virus. Put Windows near a perfectly healthy hard drive and it'll screw it up (file structure/integrity wise) in next to no time. I learnt the hard way.

Originally Posted by Nodnarb 

I'll have to check out disk warrior when I have time, but I have no idea what it does... What are the benefits, why does every mac user need it?

It's designed to diagnose and repair directory corruption problems. In this current episode of yours, there's a chance you could have simply booted off the DW disk, repaired the HD structure and been sorted.

[Nodnarb]

Ok, so the main problem was fixed, but I have been having kernel panics (with the message "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button...") almost daily now. What are my steps to fix it?

I checked out disk warrior, but I don't really have $100 lying around to try out that software. What are the steps to fix (almost) regularly occurring kernel panics?

And to a mod: As this is no longer an urgent problem, I'm sure you don't want it sitting in the lounge, so could you please move it to the correct forum (I guess Mac OS X). Thanks!