[posthumanus]

Hi there,

Daughter's MacBookPro got the question mark on boot after updating. Booted it from an external HD but the MBP didn't show up on the desktop.

Tried disk utility from extHD and got:
"Error: Partition map repair failed while adjusting structures to fit current whole disk size"

Am cautious about trying to boot into recovery mode. Will this risk any of her data?

regards

posthumanus

[reader50]

Please tell us she's all backed up with Time Machine, or other utility? If she's all backed up, reformat and restore from backup.

Partition map damage is getting into dangerous territory. One botched repair attempt and the data may be gone. The recovery partition (even if reachable) will likely have the same version of Disk Utility that already failed. ie - getting there won't help you.

I'd suggest trying Disk Warrior if you have it. If that doesn't work, Data Rescue will recover data to another drive. Followed by reformatting the problem drive.

[posthumanus]

Thanks for the advice

Sadly, she had not backed up anything.

I'm sure that will change in future though

Cheers ...