[jay3ld]

I had some weird thing go on and Firefox started to display popups about assertion failures, text was missing. I could switch current open applications but couldn't open or close anything. I couldn't even click the restart button in the apple menu.
I had terminal open so I just typed "shutdown -r now" and it proceeded to reboot. I just got the spinning wheel though on the boot process and this would last for minutes. I pulled all usb devices out and tried to boot again, same thing. I finally googled how to boot into verbose mode (Apple+v) using another mac.
And on second thought I should of wrote down the error, but it was complaining about a missing application in /usr/sbin/mDNSResponder.
I even tried to do a PRAM or what ever it is called reset with Apple+option+p+r. No good.

Luckily I have firewire cables handy still and I grabbed one to boot into target disk mode. Then logging into root I tried to copy the file from a working mac (a g4 tower) system to the affected macbook pro.
Same issue. Even after trying it three times and making sure it was there. In fact I even checked before I copied it again that the file existed and it says it does.

Smart me, I just had ran a full time machine backup yesterday (Luckily as my last one was over a month old). I popped in my leopard upgrade disk and I am running it right now, hoping that it resolves this issue when it wiped and copied the data back to my hard drive.


What would of caused this?
Is it a possible bad sector on the hard drive?
Is there anything I can do to test any possible issues?


The past couple days my macbook has seemed to be running hotter than usual, I thought it was the games I was playing, although they are really old games and shouldn't cause that much of a fuss since they play just fine on a really old g4 tower that has only a 32 mb vid card I believe.

I recently have partitioned my macbook (about a week or two ago) and did boot camp so I can install XP to play video games on it. I do notice after I leave XP, my macbook is really hot and I sometimes have to leave it off for a half hour for it to return to normal. Otherwise the GPU (according to iStat) runs at about 160F.


Edit,
From this list:
http://lists.apple.com/archives/Maco.../msg00449.html
This is the exact error I am getting:
(timestamp) dns com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.mDNSResponder [xxx]): posix_spawnp("/usr/sbin/mDNSResponder", . . .): No such file or directory

[jay3ld]

That worked for the most part to do a restore from my time machine backup.

Things still seemed corrupted, I couldn't use firefox, finder was randomly crashing.
I finally created 3 admin accounts. Deleted the last one but left the home folder. Changed in advance settings for the my regular admin account I create to use everything the last admin account I just deleted. Then renamed the first account to use everything (including my home directory) again (I really wanted to keep the same short name as it works handy for when connecting to my macs computers where I use the same short name). I had to login as the root user and change permissions. I somehow got double ownership (The same folder/file owned by two people). I am not to worried as new files are created right and I assume when i run disk utility to repair permissions it will fix this right up.
I removed the unneeded admin accounts and have my original back. I don't know why this fixed it, but it did I guess and that makes me happy. I was thinking I might have to just do a regular install and manually copy my files and reset my settings manually. Glad I didn't have to because I can't even remember all the settings I have changed.


Things seem ok now. No random crashing. I don't know what went wrong at all.

[threestain]

I was using BBC iPlayer via Opera, and a very similar thing happened...

Trouble is two fold...

The mac won't boot. I have diskwarrior, but unfortunately only version 3, which is not compatible with Leopard. To upgrade and receive a new diskwarrior I need the serial number which is in my packed stuff in storage ready for a move... Plus the upgrade would take 4 weeks (live in the UK).

I also have no other mac and no other computer so without this I am truly stuffed.

Am going to take it to mac store on Sat in hope of fixing it, but otherwise it's a big gulp for £80 for new diskwarrior - anyone got any advice?

TiBook 1GHz running Mac OS X 10.5.newest...

[seanc]

Threestain, try booting into Single User mode and doing an /sbin/fsck -fy. Run it until it says OK - if possible. If it comes up with an invalid B tree, then you're stuffed without Disk Warrior I think.

I had a similar problem a couple of weeks ago, a Spotlight search gave me a kernel panic, which then resulted in not being able to boot up or write to the drive - hence not being able to repair it with anything but Disk Warrior. Luckily I had two MacBooks and a firewire cable.

Everything seems to be fine now, but I don't know what caused my problems.

[threestain]

unfortunately, it won't even boot into single user mode - gets stuck at:

BSD root: disk0s3, major 14, minor 2

just after got boot device...

damnit it appears fubarred....

will apple store help at all?

[seanc]

Originally Posted by threestain 

unfortunately, it won't even boot into single user mode - gets stuck at:

BSD root: disk0s3, major 14, minor 2

just after got boot device...

damnit it appears fubarred....

will apple store help at all?

It does sound broken. Is it the original drive?

I'm sure the Apple store WILL help, but I'd expect they'd charge you for it.

Where are you at the moment, a fellow MacNNer may be able to help you out.

[threestain]

no, it's a replacement drive (can't remember which one at moment, but think it may still be in warranty itself), but has been in for a while. mac is 6 years old so out of warranty anyway.

I might be able to get to a friend's who has a macbook pro, but not sure if will be able to help without diskwarrior.

how much do you reckon the apple store may charge?

Thanks for all your help!

PS I'm in Hammersmith in London