[guillaume.kh]

I am very worried about my hard drive.

I have a 15' powerbook running 10.4.5. There were no modification of any kind to the system, neither software, nor hardware, since last reboot.

I had left it on screensaver mode for the whole day and when i got back the system would just hang.

By this i mean i had the password input dialogue but keyboard and mouse buttons weren't responding. I could move the cursor though (spinning color wheel). I could hear the drive spinning furiously like it usualy always does when loading back the system.

I waited for some time but as nothing was happening, I had to power down the laptop.

Now everytime i boot, the system hangs at the grey screen with the apple logo and the spinning sign. It stays like that for as much as 30min (didn't try letting it stay longer this way). Heavy hard-drive activity is heard. At some point somtimes, hard-drive activity just stops (+/- 10min).

I checked verbose mode once, the system went as far as loading iScroll2 drivers. These never caused any problem in the past.

I tried booting from Install CD and launched Disk Utility. Here is the log:

Verify and Repair disk "HD"
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Overlapped extent allocation (file 4094340d)
Overlapped extent allocation (file 4126274d)
Overlapped extent allocation (file 4126287d)
Overlapped extent allocation (file 4126289d)
Overlapped extent allocation (file 4126276d)
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes files.
Checking volume bitmap.
Volume Bit Map needs minor repair
Checking volume information.
Invalid volume free block count.
(It should be 1086984 instead of 1086927)
Repairing volume.
The volume HD could not be repaired.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit


1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
Repair attempted on 1 volume
1 volume could not be repaired


These is having me really worried. I had no backup whatsoever of all my data

I haven't yet tried messing with firmware or PMU as I don't think it would help much.

If anyone can help, that would mean the world to me

[chris v]

DiskWarrior might be able to help. You'll have to buy a CD copy if you can't get your hands on one. Being paranoid, I keep a bootable backup HD with DiskWarrior on it around at all times. Directory corruption, while more rare since Apple enabled journaling (with OS 10.3, I think) still happens. Might not be anything mechanically wrong with your hard drive.

[Chito]

You need DiskWarrior. It'll fix many problems that DU cannot. It's going to cost you though. I don't think your drive is dead, but it needs some doctoring. You'll get many answers on this and most will say to get DiskWarrior.

[guillaume.kh]

First, thanks a lot for your answers.

Now, after turning my computer off and letting it rest for 2h, i tried to boot it again and it worked fine. Not perfectly though. It does seem like the hard-drive frequently hangs indefinitely. This could be the weirdest bug i ever saw.

I'll try DiskWarrior and make a backup as soon as possible. Any advice on the operations to do with DW once i get my hands on it?

[Chito]

Just click on rebuild and DW will rebuild the directory of the chosen disk. When it asks if you want to replace the directory tell it ok. Pretty straight forward and possibly the best Mac utility ever.

[guillaume.kh]

Thx.

Rebuild is currently under way.

The program said overlapped files could be damaged. I had several files in /private which were overlapped. I hope this won't have too many consequences.

[Detrius]

Originally Posted by guillaume.kh

Thx.

Rebuild is currently under way.

The program said overlapped files could be damaged. I had several files in /private which were overlapped. I hope this won't have too many consequences.

Disk Utility can't fix overlapped files. DiskWarrior can only remove the overlapping. However, you need to save a copy of the Disk Warrior repair details BEFORE you replace the directory. The issue may have been fixed, but the last time I used DiskWarrior for something like this (admittedly almost a year ago), DiskWarrior would crash if you attempt to save the report AFTer replacing the directory. If you don't get the report, you don't have a list of the files that were corrupted. You NEED this list, as most of the files listed are hosed and need to be replaced.

[jmiddel]

Hi Guillaume, I notice that you are new to this forum, so, if you are relatively new to this kind of stuff, I have a recommendation, if not, ignore this!

You absolutely must have a second hard drive to backup to regularly. I do it daily just for email and such, and every few hours for mission critical work.

So go to OWC.com or newegg.com and get yourself an external Firewire drive to backup to! They are really affordable now, and come in both the cheaper desktop or the tad more expensive portable versions.

You would not believe how much less anxious I am knowing that my data is safer. I also do carry my portable backup every where I go

Full disclosure: I have no personal or financial interest in either of those companies, they just have served me well over the years.

[chris v]

Originally Posted by guillaume.kh

I
These is having me really worried. I had no backup whatsoever of all my data

Yeah, I've gotta pile on, here. ^^^ This is the crux of the problem.

[steve626]

I have fixed overlapped files with Disk Warrior. In my case it involved cache files and there were no consequences. Although there are important files in /private/var, there are also many files that are temporary or not critical. Be sure to write down the names of the involved files.

Hopefully you have started doing regular backups after this experience. By the way, if the overlapped files are all in /private/var, then at least your *data* files should be ok. Back them up asap, to CD, DVD, some other drive, .mac somewhere, and soon. Then the worst case scenario would be that you have to reinstall your system and applications, but your actual data would be ok.

On the topic of backups, they are essential -- it's not a matter of "if", it's a matter of "when." In the past 15 yrs I have needed my backups twice (I'm not even counting the restoration of an individual file here or there that was deleted accidentally). One was when my old 7100 (with G3 processor) internal drive finally failed, and I had multiple backups on CD and on external drives, lost no data there. The other was when another Mac at work had a system crash and would not boot. After reformatting and restoring from a full retrospect backup that was less than a day old, my computer was back *exactly*. Now I make "clones" to external firewire drives and once in a while CD/DVD backups of all the data files.