[mpancha]

So last night I decided to get apache/php/mysql up and running on my iBook so I could use it for its intended purpose as a webdev sandbox.

I got apache running, I got php running, and then I installed mysql using the os x package I found on mysql.com.

Once it was done installing, I tried opening text edit to make a few quick notes/reminders for myself but text edit would not open. Then I tried other programs (safari, word, ichat).. no luck. Tried System Preferences, nothing. SO I did the good old cold boot, and OS X would not boot up completely. I would get past the gray apple screen, then get the OS X screen and see the status bar fill all the way up, but it would jsut stay there.

After much stressing, I decided I would install 10.3, archive and install so I'd keep my music directory (I just finished importing all my CDS - yes, legitimate, I have the cover and paid for them with cash at a retail outlet- CDs) and do no tparticularly want to go through that ordeal again. I also had about 20 songs I got off iTunes, that I know iTunes will not replace for free and I dont particularly want to pay for them again. SO anyways, did an archive/install back to 10.3 in hopes of salvagin my data.

Got 10.3 installed, but when I get up to the login window it will not accept my password. So, I put the 10.3 install CD back in, and tried doing a Password Reset through the Installer (I dont remember which menu, but there's a menu with several system level functions, and one is a password reset). I reset my password to "password", for my user account and for root, saved changes, and I rebooted. Got back to the passowrd screen, and it wont take the password "password".

At this point I tried booting into Single User mode, entered the following commands:
/sbin/fsck -y
/sbin/mount -uw /
/sbin/SystemStarter

and while it was starting up the system, it got stuck in a loop trying to start apache server??????

After seriously contemplating drop kicking the iBook off my 3rd story balcony... I figured I may as well try and install Tiger on top of it (archive/install again) to see if I can at least get booted up this way, but no go.

That was all lat night. Today I'm sitting at work, and my iBook is besides me going through the Tiger install yet again. If I can't get it up and running, I'm going to have to take it to the Genius Bar at the apple store on the way home, and hopefully they can get me into Target Disk mode so I can copy my music to one of their laptops, and then do a complete Format and Install.



so anyways...

any ideas anyone on how I can jumpstart my iBook into OSX?

[OreoCookie]

1 Try an update installation, but keep only the data (not the apps or anything else).

If that doesn't work:
2. Backup your data onto another Mac, then try a fresh install.

If that doesn't work:
3. Run the Apple Hardware Test. Run Diskwarrior or Techtool and check the harddrive.

[mpancha]

Finally got booted into Tiger, I did the Archive/Install but I did not keep the user accounts.

Now, I just have to wait until I get home to copy my Data to my server @ home, and its fresh install time.

[mpancha]

Just wish I knew what caused everythign to go haywire... so I dont redo it.

so in the meantime, until I go home, I was playing some music out of my archived itunes folder.... and I just noticed that none of the ratings I had set over the lat 3 weeks were attcached to the aac files.

I thought all the data I saw in iTunes was attached to the music files themselves? or is that part of a seperate preference file?

[NeilCharter]

I agree that it is a big pain re-ripping your songs again. I keep my music on a separate partition so that I don't have to worry about damaging it doing a major install.

The rating for iTunes are stored in one of two files in the iTunes folder. For me, that folder is in User/Music whereas the files themselves are located on the separate partition.

Honestly the best way to back up your data is simply to copy your entire User folder since you never know what you might need after a clean install. When I took my PB in for a repair, I listened to the Apple Genius taking an hour to convince a client to completely back up his user folder, even though the guy said he had copied all the files he think he needed.

Isn't Apache is already installed on OS X? Do you need a more up to version?

I don't know about for PHP and MySQL, but since each are major apps I would recommend installing each separately and testing the system before installing the other.

Good luck

[Randman]

Originally Posted by NeilCharter

I keep my music on a separate partition so that I don't have to worry about damaging it doing a major install.

But if the hard drive fails, you're still screwed. A better way is to not partition and backup important stuff, such as music and user info, on a external hard drive (an iPod even) or on DVDs. It might be a little redundant but I have an external HD for backups (and where I keep a bootable copy of my hard drive plus extras such as games, video and apps I don't use regularly). And once or twice a year, I burn DVDs of my music collection and other important stuff and keep the disks at work, just in case something ever happened to the house, like a fire (heaven forbid). It took a little time the first time, but now I just have to update things with whatever changes from the last backups.
Doubly safe and no need for silly partitioning

[SMacTech]

Originally Posted by Randman

But if the hard drive fails, you're still screwed. <snip> Doubly safe and no need for silly partitioning

Partitioning isn't silly. If one doesn't have an external drive attached, how do you maintain a second bootable OS on a laptop?

I am not trying to overcome drive failure with partitioning. Just the ability to have a copy on the other partition should my development OS go all to hell in a hand basket, like the OP's did.

I of course have external FWs which are far more valuable in terms of backups regarding drive failure, than partitioning.

[Randman]

Originally Posted by SMacTech

how do you maintain a second bootable OS on a laptop?

I have a user profile created that I only access in case of emergencies.

[SMacTech]

Originally Posted by Randman

I have a user profile created that I only access in case of emergencies.

So do I, but it does me no good if the OS is hosed and it won't boot. Restart, holding down the option key, select my other non-development OS [ or backup ] to boot and I am back in business.

[Randman]

You're a developer, right? I can understand having a partition in that case. Anyway, in the same instance, I'd boot off the external HD or even my iPod, which has an emergency boot folder (including DiskWarrior) on it. That way I'm same if the OS is hosed AND/OR if the hard drive is hosed.

[mpancha]

I'm with all of you, this time around, once I get my music/docs off this ibook onto the server and I format, I'm going to go ahead and make a partition just for music. the documents I'm not worried about b/c they are always on the server as well.

Once I have some expendable cash, I'm going to invest in a FW HD, but until then, 2nd partition it is.

[Randman]

Originally Posted by mpancha

I'm with all of you, this time around, once I get my music/docs off this ibook onto the server and I format, I'm going to go ahead and make a partition just for music. the documents I'm not worried about b/c they are always on the server as well.

Once I have some expendable cash, I'm going to invest in a FW HD, but until then, 2nd partition it is.

[mpancha]

Originally Posted by Randman

huh?

[Randman]

I'm quite anti-partitioning. Unless you're a developer or do serious video work, I don't see the point in it. It doesn't protect anything from a hard drive failure, it's no match for a viable backup plan and it can actually cause more problems in OSX than it can solve.
Finally, it seems, imo, to be a mindset from people used to using Windows, or even OS9 when it was more practical.
Some people see the work partition and think it's magical protection when it isn't.

[DarwinX]

Originally Posted by Randman

I'm quite anti-partitioning. Unless you're a developer or do serious video work, I don't see the point in it. It doesn't protect anything from a hard drive failure, it's no match for a viable backup plan and it can actually cause more problems in OSX than it can solve.
Finally, it seems, imo, to be a mindset from people used to using Windows, or even OS9 when it was more practical.
Some people see the work partition and think it's magical protection when it isn't.

Randman, you know I typically got your back on most things, but here I do disagree to an extent. I do agree that in no way shape or form should anyone see it as a viable backup plan!!!! I too cannot stress that enough; however, it is nice to have all my documents on another partition especially when it comes to Systems Updates and the like. Should something go wrong with the OS itself, I can simply reformat the partition and re-install the OS and I don't have to go through an entire backup process while I'm at it. It is NOT a perfect solution, but it is nice having this option available. When Tiger was released I contemplated doing this, but with your positive review of the archive and install I went with that method and all has worked out well. But should 10.4.2 come along and it does something funny to my machine, it's just quicker to be able to format and do a clean install and not worry about my documents, music and the like. Just my 1 cent and the other 1 cent are for an external drive which everyone should have to backup onto!!!

[mpancha]

Originally Posted by Randman

I'm quite anti-partitioning. Unless you're a developer or do serious video work, I don't see the point in it. It doesn't protect anything from a hard drive failure, it's no match for a viable backup plan and it can actually cause more problems in OSX than it can solve.
Finally, it seems, imo, to be a mindset from people used to using Windows, or even OS9 when it was more practical.
Some people see the work partition and think it's magical protection when it isn't.

ah okay. That's just it, its not for "magical protection". Its for when I have to format OSX, I'm big on tinkering, and quite often butcher any OS I use, even OSX. I'm sure that the cause of all this was somethign I did with the mysql install, so that's why I'm not upset about having to reinstall OSX. But, I would like to have my music on a seperate partition so when I do a clean install, its not taking my music with it. Its not because I think it will magically save my music.

I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid

and like I said, once I have the expendable money for an external FW HD, the partition is going away, and the backups are on the HD. But until then, I have to make do with what I have readily available.

[mpancha]

where do I go to retreive:

safari bookmarks
iCal calendar
iTunes settings (smart playlists, ratings on songs, etc)
terminal preferences (colors/shading/fonts)
widgets

I'm only copying the bare necessities,and am not going to be sacing my enter user folder as I dont want any remnants of what caused this.

*note: this post is before I started digging around for this stuff on my own in case I dont figure it out myself.

Thanks.

[mpancha]

Leave it to apple to make things be right where youu'd expect.

everythign I needed was in the library.
the itunes ratings and all that, to keep those you just have to copy the "Itunes" folder in your "music" folder (or wherever you store your itunes music)

[NeilCharter]

Randman,

I didn't say that a partition would help you if your drive failed. Obviously it won't. mpancha was complaining about having to re-ripped his music library because of a failed INSTALLATION not hard drive. As it happens I have most of my songs backed up. Backing up 15 gigs of data to CD-RW takes a while I can tell you. When I got my PB, I could use the superdrive to back via DVD. That is a bit easier.

mpancha,

Yup most of the preferences are in library. It is kinda weird that the itunes ratings isn't in there also. The library and the user folder is something from UNIX. Which is why backing up the whole user folders is a usefulway of backing up (unless of course you have large working files that get replaced rapidly - then you wouldn't want to back those up in your regular scheduled backup). I usually back up documents, desktop, library, music, pictures and sites and leave out the movie folder.

[AmericanPsych0]

For what it's worth, the thing you explained--about none of your apps opening--has hit me twice in the past few days. It's annoying as Hell, 'cause all the apps just bounce continually, even stuff like System Preferences. Everything else works fine. Any apps that are still open run, all menus open up, etc., but when I tried logging out or restarted, it wouldn't. I'd click it and it'd do nothing. But mine hasn't failed to start up, though.

[Randman]

For those that partition, wouldn't creating a different user (either for testing purposes or restoring things) work the same way without the limitations of a partition?

[theolein]

I for one, partition every Mac I use, Randman. There's more to OS troubles and data loss than hard drive failure. I keep my music and my development data on separate partitions, for the simple reason that it saves me having to reload all of that from an external HD if the OS goes haywire. I do still back everything up to an external HD which is partitioned in the same way as my main HD, but claiming that partitioning is somehow going to cause problems is just plain FUD.

And your alternative solution- creating another user- instead of partitioning shows that you have some nameless dread against partitioning that isn't backed up by facts. From an OS point of view, every external device that you mount is the same as a partition, in that it's another volume in /Volumes.

If partitioning were somehow dangerous, it wouldn't be as easy as it is to make them in Disk Utility.

[Randman]

I never said partitioning was dangerous. I said it was unneeded for most people.

I also said it can be a headache (if the space runs out, permissions garbled, etc). I said partitioning, for the most people, is simply unnecessary.

If you do it and it works for you, fine. But too many people, especially those with a background on the Windows side, think partitioning without looking at the pros and cons of it in OSX. I'm simply expressing the view that partitioning is unnecessary, especially when people talk about partitioning and sounding like that's their backup plan, and that can be dangerous.

[theolein]

It's actually more of a pain, software wise, to partition a windows system than it is a Mac system. Windows can get very cranky if data is on another partition when the software or registry expects it to be on the c partition. The best, the very thing, about partitioning, is that you can make a drive image of a working OS install on a particular partition and keep your data separate from that partition, but bakced up onto external media. When you have OS problems and you don't want to go through the huge pain of reinstalling all your software and your OS, you just copy from your working drive image into a formatted partition. It's a major time saver, and given that people do have problems with the OS on certain occasions after a point upgrade, it can save your bacon.

[NeilCharter]

I would have to agree that for most people that partitioning is uneccessary for most people, but it is a convenient way to store data that doesn't neccessarily need to be in your user folder. I have a 60 gig partition that contains my music, a copy of my user folder and OS 9 system. When I installed Tiger on my G4 sawtooth, it went on a spearate 60 gig drive. Panther is still on another 60 gig partition on the same drive that the backup / music partition is on.

I have the flexibility to do this since I have 2 drives totaling 180 gigs. Granted most people don't have that much space, but since I do, I'm taking advantage on the situation. I was able to install Tiger onto a clean partitiion knowing that I have backups on other drives as well as on other media.

The suggestion of using a partition was giving the guy an alternative way to deal with large sets of data like the music library.

[mpancha]

Originally Posted by Randman

For those that partition, wouldn't creating a different user (either for testing purposes or restoring things) work the same way without the limitations of a partition?

not really. The whole goal is if I have to again format OSX, I can safely do a clean install, whipe all the data on the OS drive/partition whatever I may use, and still have my data readily accessible. In this case, accessible via the partition.

I actually decided, that since I'm scrapping my PC due to a big move coming up soon, I'm going to salvage one of the 60 gig HDs I have in the PC, and get a FW case and make myself a FW HD next chance I get.

[Randman]

Originally Posted by mpancha

I can safely do a clean install, wipe all the data on the OS drive/partition whatever I may use, and still have my data readily accessible.

You can do the same thing from a backup with the added protection should the hard drive fail. In that case multiple partitions would do you ZERO good.

[theolein]

Randman, you just don't get it, do you? He DOES back his data up. Let me repeat that. He does back his data up. Got it now? (Sorry, I'm not trying to make a fool of you, but you are being quite obtuse)

His (and my) idea of putting data on another partition saves times during clean installs, in that the OS and applications partition can be formatted leaving the data on the other partition intact.

It also saves times during a restore from external media, in that only the needed partition needs to be restored, not all of them. All partitions get backed up.

[Randman]

Other people read this thread and it's for them as well. GET IT? There are people who think partitions will protect them from a hard drive failure. GET IT?

You're focusing on one thing and missing the bigger picture. Jesus.

[SMacTech]

As I stated, I don't partition for protection from hard drive failure, GET IT!. I am a developer, but even normal users can benefit from it. But you go on your anti-partition crusade, as you are focusing on one thing and missing the bigger picture, as well.

I see nothing wrong with NOT partitioning too. One additional benefit of it is, I can still have two backup copies of my data, one copy on a partition, another on external media. You cannot see the benefit with your myopic understanding of other's needs and focus on hard drive failure negating its benefits as a sole reason not to do it.

I can't remember the last time I had a hard drive failure, but certainly can attest to several occasions having a borked OS that won't boot. When I am traveling with a laptop, my external hard drive is left at home. Having a partitioned drive, with mirrored contents of my user folder on it, along with a working OS has saved my butt twice that I can recall.

[power142]

I hope I don't get labeled as obtuse, but I've read down this thread and maybe I'm missing something..... but what was the point in partitioning again? The only reason I can think of is if you want to be able to boot into different versions of the OS... can't think that many people do this in general computing.

I manage a number of Macs (all running OS X) and while a couple of them have system disks that aren't large enough to be useful (8GB SCSI) and therefore have additional disk(s) for user files, none of them have more than a single partition per disk. With these Macs, I've never had a problem with the OS to the extent where an "Archive and Install" couldn't make everything rosey again. I've had a couple of hard disk failures over the years, which is unpleasant, but I encourage backing up user data to a (large) network drive.

Anyhow, this is a long way from what the original poster was asking....

[Randman]

Originally Posted by SMacTech

I see nothing wrong with NOT partitioning too.

Hence, your unwillingess to see other points of views. You may use partitions, but to accomplish what you said, you can doit without partitioning as well.

You two are so I'm out of this thread. Laters

[mpancha]

"myopic" ... this forum is the only place I ever see the word "myopic" used.

completely irrelevant to anythign on this thread, but I just realized I see that word throughout the forum, and this forum is the only place I see the word ... heh

[SMacTech]

Originally Posted by Randman

Hence, your unwillingess to see other points of views. You may use partitions, but to accomplish what you said, you can doit without partitioning as well.

You two are so I'm out of this thread. Laters

Um, not so Randman. I didn't say anything was wrong with your method, but you stated you were quite anti-partitioning and against our reasoning.

So you like to attack those that have reason to violate your anti-partitioning stance, call them screwy, when all they are trying to do is validate their purpose, while not condemning yours.

Thanks for calling me screwy. You are a lot of help.

[theolein]

Originally Posted by Randman

Hence, your unwillingess to see other points of views. You may use partitions, but to accomplish what you said, you can doit without partitioning as well.

You two are so I'm out of this thread. Laters

Randman, sorry that this has gotten to a flame fest (I'm a bit to blame for that, so sorry again). I DO understand your point of view, and I have nothing against it. There is nothing wrong with only using a single partition, and you are dead right that a hard drive failure will not protect you if you are using multiple partitions.

My point is that partitioning CAN add an extra level of safety from data loss, IF used thoughtfully.

None of this has ANYTHING to do with backing up one's data. ALL data should be backed up regularly, regardless of partitioning or not.

Partitioing is merely, in my humble opinion, a way to save time during restores, and to add more flexibility to the way I secure my data. That's all. SMactech has his own method, which involves mirroring the data on one partition in another partition, which is a very good idea in his case.

So, to sum up. No one says that partitions will save one's hard drive in case of a hard drive failure.

But we do say it can add an extra level of flexibility. That's all

[NeilCharter]

Well put Theolein

[Gee4orce]

Sounds like it could be a permissions problem caused by one of the installers ? The safest option - but the most work - os to download the source and compile everything yourself. I've set up the exact configuration you're talking about in the past, and it's worked fine for me....