[jfobart]

Of course this would happen on Friday night....

So I reboot the G5 (running 10.4.7) because Photoshop was acting screwy....

The machine comes back up just fine, and I log in as I always do to my account. Only now, instead of my usual desktop display of icons, folders, etc... I'm looking at the standard Mac OS X account setup- my dock is gone, my wallpaper, my desktop icons, everything, gone.

So I do some searching... I find someone recommending to boot off the install CD and run Disk Utility. Sounds logical.

So I run Disk Utility. I run "Verify Disk" and it tells me the disk needs repair, so I hit Repair Disk. The disk can't be repaired fully.... I run it 4 times to no avail. Crap.

So I run Permissions- about 2/3 of the way through repairing permissions I get an error saying Disk Utility has lost contact with the Disk Managament and I need to Quit- but that quitting might cause the disk to be corrupted!?!

So I try quitting and rebooting- same thing, standard OS X login setup. I run the boot CD disk utility thing again.... still, same end result- I'm looking at the "default" setup for a new account.


And the salt in the wound is that I didn't do my normally scheduled backup via BACKUP3 tonight yet because I was working and was waiting till I was finished... Great!

I've also tried restoring from previous backups, and the restore always fails...


What am I missing? Where has my stuff gone, and worse yet, why can't Backup restore from the restore files it's been creating every week?!

Thanks for the help everyone...

[Tsilou B.]

Are you using FileVault? If you do, your files are probably gone - a disk error has corrupted your encrypted home directory and I've never seen anyone successfully saving any data in such a case.

You should never try to restore to a volume that is damaged beyond repair. This will only cause more damage and your important files may be gone forever. If Disk Utility cannot repair your volume, do not use the disk anymore. Just try to find and backup your data. Then reformat the drive (check the "Zero all data" security option in Disk Utility when reformatting, this will find bad blocks on your disk), reinstall Mac OS X and restore from the backup. (If you have DiskWarrior or something like that, you could try it before reinstalling, but only after the backup.)

Now, if you don't use FileVault, try this: Log in and open Terminal from the Utilities folder. Type in:

sudo find / -iname "xxx"

where xxx is the name of a file you were working on, including its extension. If you do not remember the exact name, you can use the * character like this:

sudo find / -iname "*important*"

This will find any file whose name contains "important", e.g. "A very important file.pdf". Of course, you should use a search term that's not too generic.

Then press the return key and enter your password when asked. (The password will not show up on screen, not even as "••••". ) Press return again and wait a few minutes. The find command will list the path of any files that match your search criteria. If the file you were working on is listed, you can simply navigate to that folder using the Finder and backup the file. If no files are listed, but you're sure that you really entered the correct file name, then your files are probably gone. If they were extremely important, you could try DataRescue.

[jeffreyfrabutt]

In my experience, drive don't just suddenly become corrupt unless they are about to fail. Salvage anything you can before it's too late.

[jfobart]

I'm not using FileVault- and the worst part is that this is happening on a WD Raptor, so it should be a very reliable drive. This one however is not quite 1.5yrs old... ugh.

Thankfully, my iTunes account is stored on another drive... but at this point I've definitely lost my email account unless I can revive it from a Backup file.

My thought is to get a new drive, install it, reinstall Mac OS X cleanly... then try and restore from my Backup3 backup files. If that won't resurrect my data, any other ideas short of sending the drive off?

I do have TechTool, but I haven't had a chance to run it yet.. I'm worried though with Disk Utility already having big troubles with this drive.

Thankfully it's just my boot drive and apps drive. It could be worse I guess...

[jasong]

Get another disk first, you need a usable disk to try restoring to. I was recently able to recover most of a 75 GB failed disk using Data Rescue II. It doesn't try to fix the disk, its sole purpose is to get your files off the bad one. Another option is to use a Unix utility such as dd or ddrescue to duplicate the disk to a known good drive, then try to recover your files from the healthy disk. I've had good luck with this method in the past (I'm the one people come to with their HD failures). Anyway, to echo what others have said, stop messing with your existing disk, everything you are doing decreases your chances of getting your data back.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by jeffreyfrabutt

In my experience, drive don't just suddenly become corrupt unless they are about to fail. Salvage anything you can before it's too late.

Not so - I've seen plenty of hard drives get messed up due to software errors when the mechanism itself was fine. It's less common nowadays with the journaling feature, but not unheard of. HFS+ is not the greatest file system around...

My recommendations:

1. If you want to try fixing the drive, try DiskWarrior from Alsoft: The Utility Company. It is a much, much, much more powerful tool than Disk Utility and can sometimes repair disks that are really hosed. Make sure you click the "Preview" button and check out the replacement directory to make sure it looks all right before you replace, though.

2. If you'd rather just try to rescue your files and then reformat, get Data Rescue II from Windows/Mac Hard Drive Data Recovery Software: File/Photo Recovery Software. It's pretty amazing at salvaging files off of dead drives (although your attempts to restore onto the damaged disk may have overwritten some of the files, so it's hard to say absolutely that they will be recoverable). Once you salvage the files to some other drive, you can go ahead and reformat.

[jfobart]

Awesome-

Thanks for all the help & tips everyone.

I'll definitely just work off the Powerbook this week- thankfully I'll be travelling during the week and won't be sitting around just waiting for the new replacement Raptor to arrive. I'll mess with it next weekend and I'm sure I'll have follow-up questions.

Thanks again for the help!

[jfobart]

Well, so I finally got home from my long business trip and have gotten around to working on the G5.

The problem drive was a 74GB Raptor, so I quickly ordered up a 150GB Raptor to replace it.

I removed the 74GB Raptor, installed the 150GB Raptor, rebooted to the OS X install CD and did a clean install on the new drive. Installed a few of my major apps (Photoshop, Office, iLife), and then started trying to pull over my old home folder files (ie, my Mail which is most important, plus other preferances, my Documents, etc)

During various parts of the install, the installer would hang while installing OS X. Twice I actually had to hold the power button 5 seconds to shut hte machine offf, reboot, and then start the process again.... finally got everything installed, ran Disk Utility 5x's and verified the disk and repaired permissions till there were no issues. YET, the first time I launced iTunes, and the first time I launched Mail, the both opened up and as the program was loading, I would suddenly get the spinning beach ball. I walked away for up to an hour, but I'd come back and still just spinning- so I'd do the 5sec power button trick again.

So then I started wondering if this was a hardware issue- perhaps a RAM problem? I have 2x256MB, and 4x1GB sticks. So I pulled all the 1GB's and went back to the stock 512MB of Apple RAM. Still getting weird hangups after waking the computer, trying to open iTunes, etc... so I pull the 2 256's, and put in a pair of 1GB's. Spinning beach balls continue. ARgh..... swap the 2x1GBs for the other pair- and STILL, I'm getting constant hangups.

Disk Utility says the disk is fine. I'm just loading DiskWarrior right now from the DW CD, but I'm doubting it's this brand new drive (though I guess crazier things have happened).

I'm relatively new to the Mac hardware troubleshooting scene, so I'm a bit at a loss for what to do next. I know the Apple Tech's have a hardware test CD- is that something that's on the install CD and can be triggered by holding down a certain key or combination of keys as the OS X install CD loads? Is there a different way to get my hands on a copy? Is there some other utility I should be using instead?

Or worse, have I missed something or overlooked something else that could be causing the problem??

Thanks for the help guys... I'm really lost and starting to get frustrated that even a new hard drive and a brand new clean install of OS X hasn't cured my system woes- AND that I can't pin down exactly what is triggering these spinning beach balls.

[wolfen]

Originally Posted by jfobart 

During various parts of the install, the installer would hang while installing OS X. Twice I actually had to hold the power button 5 seconds to shut hte machine offf, reboot, and then start the process again.... finally got everything installed, ran Disk Utility 5x's and verified the disk and repaired permissions till there were no issues. YET, the first time I launced iTunes, and the first time I launched Mail, the both opened up and as the program was loading, I would suddenly get the spinning beach ball. I walked away for up to an hour, but I'd come back and still just spinning- so I'd do the 5sec power button trick again.

Disk Utility says the disk is fine. I'm just loading DiskWarrior right now from the DW CD, but I'm doubting it's this brand new drive (though I guess crazier things have happened).

.

This is increasingly sounding like a drive cable or controller issue. Unless you know how to play with this I'd take it in to someone for diagnostics and repair.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by jfobart 

I'm relatively new to the Mac hardware troubleshooting scene, so I'm a bit at a loss for what to do next. I know the Apple Tech's have a hardware test CD- is that something that's on the install CD and can be triggered by holding down a certain key or combination of keys as the OS X install CD loads?

Yes. It's either a separate CD that came with your computer called "Apple Hardware Test," or it's on the same disk as the OS install DVD that came with your computer. If it's on the OS X install DVD that came with the computer, you hold down the "D" key when starting up with the disc in the drive.

[jfobart]

So I've tried a few things since my last post, but the G5 is still not stable.

Memory:
I had 4x1GB + 2x512MB for a total of 4.5GB of RAM. The 512 came with the G5, the other 4 1GB sticks I added and they'd all been running just fine for well over a year now.

I tried running with just one pair of each, so just the 2 512's, and then once with each pair of 1GB sticks.... still, same problem. The machine might run fine for 5 minutes or up to 45 minutes, but eventually it'll just dead hang, nothing brings it back or makes it responsive. (ie, if I'm in Photoshop, everything just stops working- no keyboard inputs, no mouse inputs. No beach ball, but it's still dead and can only be brought back by a hard reboot. If I'm in the Finder I might be trying to browse a folder of files... I select one folder, the next folder, the next folder (in 3pane view), all of a sudden when trying to read the contents of a folder, I'll get the beach ball and it'll spin for hours- again the only thing that breaks it is a hard reboot.)


Then I tried pulling 2x1GB sticks from my other G5, a known stable machine. Same problem... the machine ran great for about 2 hours. Then I was in Photoshop retouching an image, and all of a sudden the cursor just stopped moving and the computer was completely non-responsive to any inputs. Hard reboot was the only fix.


I have put in a new 150GB Raptor drive with a fresh intsallation of the OS and Applications (all my "data" is on a different drive). I've also put in a new SATA cable for the boot disk.

I can't seem to get the Apple Hardware Test to come up from the OS X install CD's I have (I have a boxed retail version of OS X 10.4, as well as the system disks that came with both G5's, which have OS X 10.3 on them)....



So I've ruled out the memory as the culprit. I think I've ruled out the boot drive, and the boot drive cable. Which leads me with:

1. faulty hard drive controller? (but it's integrated in to the motherboard, so I'm hosed either way here and need an entirely new motherboard)

2. faulty motherboard? (again, still looking at a multi-hundred dollar replacement)


My one last thought to try is a bootable SATA PCI card. If I can get the machine to boot off the internal drives and run without any problems, I think that would diagnose that it's a hard drive controller issue, but then I'd already have my workaround and just keep the bootable SATA card in and running. But if that doesn't work, there really isn't anything else in the machine that's swappable or replaceable short of the whole logic board, right?


Thanks for any and all guidance everybody. As you can tell, I come from a PC background where I spent years and years building and maintaining my own machines and family/friend machines. But I just don't have a lot of hardware level experience yet with the Apple products.

[NeilCharter]

Probably your best bet is to take it into Apple and get them to diagnose the problem. It could be anything on the motherboard and buying a new SATA controller may not sole your issue.

[kick52]

i have had this before, but mine was a software issue. for some reason, ~/Library/ had been moved to ~/Mercury/Library/

so, yeah. take it to apple.

[Y3a]

Did you reformat the drive before you started loading it?

[javbw]

General comments about the process you went through with this drive...

~ if you run Disk Utility, and it finds errors that it cannot repair with the STRUCTURE of the drive, stop right there and get it fixed, usually with diskwarrior and the like. The intel Compatible version just came out, BTW.

Trying to fix permissions, repair files, or reinstall the OS over a bad HD structure is asking for pain. People go and try to Archive 'n' reinstall over a bad disk structure all the time end up truning all their files into porridge. Only a wipe and reinstall solves things then, assuming the drive wasn't in the process of meltdown anyway.

If your house's foundation is cracked, and a wall is starting to come off the house, and you can't fix it, you don't go inside and start rehanging the pictures on the wall that are crooked and filling in the cracks, thinking "I'll jsut get that foundation fixed AFTER I finish painting the wall"...

Ususally, you'd go in this order for drive issues:

- Is my Hard drive visable to the computer whatsoever?
- Is my drive locking up the computer? (Stuck in a "not ready" state)
- Is my Drive Failing SMART Status? (Replacement required)
- Is my Drive Failing early on in disk Utility? (Bad VHB, invalid Nodes)
- Is my drive failing later on in disk utility? (Overlapped files)
- Is my drive Having excessive Permissions issues?
- Is Filevault disabled? Because every Mac user doesn't need it the kind of pain it brings.
- Is My Filevault Disk Image Corrupted?
- Are My Basic user files corrupted / not set correctly? (Keychain, Netinfo, Etc)
- Are All My updates / patches run on the OS AND the Apps?
- Are there Settings issues messing things up?
- Are my Documents / Files Corrupted? ( Bad Documents, iPhoto DB)
- Are The Applications installed Corectly?
- Are my application / Preference Settings Corrupted?


In This case, You never solved the visible #3 errors. Never move past that.

Also, if you have the old drive installed in the computer with the NEW drive, you need to verify #2 is not happening by removing the old drive while working with the new drive.

Beyond that, RAM / CPU / MLB Issues can explain things

- Remove all but Apple RAM. If it fails, Swap back in 3rd party, or remove as much RAM as possible to get the unit to pass the tests, and then test individually to find the culprit (the split half search monster)

Get AHT running to isolate the hardware from your drive / OS. AHT is found ONLY on the disks that came with it, not on ANY retail copy of the OS that came from a store. Each Version is very specific to the machine. It will either be a silver disk with "Apple Hardware Test" on it (put it in, hold 'c' at startup) , or hidden inside the #1 Software restore disk. put it in and hold down 'option' at startup to be givien the chance to select it.

New intel units do not have a stand alone disk, it is on their restore disk, and use 'd' to get at it, d for diagnostics, i suppose.

- Almost any Machine but the worst failing ones will pass AHT once. hit Control-L at the main Screen of AHT, and "Looping ON" will show up in the corner. once you start AHT it will never stop looping until you tell it to stop the test. Loop it overnight and see if it locks up. AHT will probably never find anything but the simplest of errors, but it is a good canary that it is not your Data or HD causing the issue. Remove / replace until it can pass an overnight AHT Loop. (note: when running the memory test, AHT can be very unresponsive - make sure the cursor is stopped in the same place for a good minute or two after attempting to wiggle the mouse to see if it stil running correctly)

The crashing / freezing you are reporting sounds like a RAM / CPU combo.

The thing to do would be to put all the RAM into that known Good G5 and see if it works fine there. that pulls not only all the other Apple hardware out of the equaision, but aslo the drives, cables, and the new install of the OS. Once the RAM is verified good, start looking at the MLB / CPU.



If this is beyond your troubleshooting skills, take it to an Apple Store and request long trem diagnostics on the unit.



John

[jfobart]

Well, a solution... so far at least.


I finally broke down and took the machine in to my local Apple store 2 days ago. Discussed with the tech at length all the things I'd done and tried. He & I both agreed we were down to most likely one of three problems:

1. hard drive controller
2. processor
3. logic board


They ran a bunch of hardware tests, including looping AHT overnight on the machine and could never repeat any of my problems (of course!). They called the next morning and said, "We've tried everything, there's nothing more we can do because we can't replicate the problem".

I asked them to keep it running on a hardware test till I arrived to pick it up... and then offhandedly mentioned maybe browsing through any of the log files to try and find a pattern for the troubles, because at this point we were still without even a pattern to try and detect the errors.

Viola! The tech called back 20 minutes later saying he'd found a module call that was consistently in the panic log over the last few weeks. It was calling to the hard drive controller. Ah ha!

So I quickly got on the phone to MacGuru's and ordered a SeriTek 1S2 bootable SATA card and had it overnighted. Picked up the G5 and said thanks to the guys at the Apple store.


I got the card this morning, and so far, we've been running just fine... it's only been an hour or two, but we're in the clear so far, so that's good. I wasn't able to run the Photoshop CS3 beta installer before (it kept hanging), but it ran straight through on the first try this time.


Hopefully this will solve it. Of course it would have been nice to have been forced to upgrade to a Mac Pro, but with a busted machine I wouldn't have gotten much for this one so it would have cost me a pretty penny to upgrade- money I don't have at the moment. But, hopefully soon I'll have the coin to make the switch to not only a Mac Pro but a MacBook Pro as well. We'll see!

Thanks again to everyone for your help and suggestions! Without them, I probably would have literally thrown this machine out my office window, or put a few rounds of .45 or .223 in to the side of it I was getting so frustrated with it!!