Mount error

October 12, 2005 8:48 AM

Failure to mount (error 35)? Help me Mac-xors!

I have a 300 mhz G3 running 10.2.8. I have two hard drives, one a 6gig boot drive, the other a 18gig media drive. Two things seem to be off, and I'm not sure what exactly to do. It could just be me being a sub-moron.
The first thing is that programs don't seem to install, but rather stay as .dmg files. The second is that when I try to mount these .dmg files, I get error 95, a "failure to mount." This doesn't happen every time I start the computer, but it seems to be happening more often, and it's a pain in the ass (I can't use my POP mail). I've repaired the permissions file on the boot disk and restarted, which has worked in the past but didn't work this time (also, occassionally just repairing the permissions will do it. I'm also not quite sure why it seems to repair the same permissions every time it repairs them, but oh well).
What should I do next? I can rustle up the install discs for OSX again, but it'd be kinda a pain. If I delete Thunderbird and redownload it (assuming the disc image is corrupted or something) will that wipe the messages that are in the Library?
Thanks in advance.

posted by klangklangston to computers & internet (11 comments total)

Reinstalling Thunderbird shouldn't affect your existing messages.

But, I'm really confused. Why are you running from disk images?
posted by mkultra at 9:28 AM on October 12, 2005

They mount every time I open 'em up, and for some reason they won't install (I drag the icon to the applications folder, and it stays there while the computer is on, but when I restart it's back to the disc image. But usually when I start it up, I can mount it again and run it. For some reason I can't this time.)
posted by klangklangston at 9:46 AM on October 12, 2005

Have you tried "installing" the app somewhere other than /Applications?
posted by mkultra at 10:13 AM on October 12, 2005

Count me as confused as well: you double click on the .dmg file and are presented with something to install, yes? (If we're takling about Thuderbird, the application itself.)

You drag the program to your applications folder and it shows the "plus in green dot" cursor, yes? Upon release a prgress box showing the program being copied?

You then eject the disk image (with the download .dmg hanging around until you delete it.)

You then launch the program from the finder.

I just installed and launched Thunderbird and noted two things: 1) import is available, so back up your data and give the whole thing a whirl again. (You can try this in a new user account -- I have one called "testy" to , well, test things. 2) The skinny on Thunderbird Configuration Files
posted by Dick Paris at 10:30 AM on October 12, 2005

Ok. So the first step is going to be trying to install things again once I can get discs to mount.
posted by klangklangston at 10:50 AM on October 12, 2005

I think, from what you describe, that you have been dragging the wrong icons to your applications folder. Please excuse and disregard if I am mistaken.
You should have dragged the application icon (the one you double-click on to start the app, that looks the same as the one that appears in the dock when Thunderbird is running), not the .dmg file or the icon that appears on the desktop when you mount the disk image.

I think you should remove the .dmg file from your Applications folder, download a fresh one and install it correctly. ie. mount the disk image, and drag the icon (blue bird carrying mail) from the window that appears when the disk is mounted to the Applications folder. Then all should be fine. Your mail should be stored elsewhere and should not be affected by this process.
posted by nowonmai at 10:56 AM on October 12, 2005

Nowonmai: I'm totally planning to do that as soon as I can get discs to mount. I've tried downloading a new version of thunderbird, and that won't mount either.
posted by klangklangston at 11:23 AM on October 12, 2005

So no .dmg files will mount now, not even freshly-downloaded ones? That is a bit weird. To me it suggests a problem with permissions but is really beyond the extent of my knowledge. "Repair permissions" would not help with disk images - it only knows about files that have been installed from a .pkg type installer.

Do you have Toast (the CD-burning software)? That can sometimes mount discs that for one reason or another stump the system.

Other tricks I try with pesky disk images:
"Lock" the disk image file as soon as it is downloaded and before you try to mount it (control-click, choose "get info" from the menu).
Burn the image to a CD (use Toast if you have it, or Disk Utility which is in the Utilities folder inside your Applications folder if I remember correctly) and use the CD to install from.

Thinking about it, I seem to recall numerous problems with disk images back when I was using OS X 10.2 - this is of no comfort to you but I solved them by upgrading to 10.3 .
posted by nowonmai at 11:50 AM on October 12, 2005

It also won't recognize discs in the drive... This doesn't feel good.
posted by klangklangston at 1:02 PM on October 12, 2005

I think you have some bad memory or there's something corrupt on your hard drive. If things won't mount and they're the right size, I'd suspect that the bits are screwed up in the file somewhere. If it works part of the time with the same file, it might be getting corrupted in memory.
posted by mikeh at 1:50 PM on October 12, 2005

Well, things are mounting again and I've made sure that everything is installed in the proper spots.
The trouble, as far as I can figure it, was that since the original .dmg files were stored on the media drive, when I was thinking that i was installing them, I was really putting shortcuts on the boot drive to the media drive. Which is fixed. But I don't think that's the source of the problems I'm having with mounting; I've seen a couple things on the net about how 10.2 has this problem and some other things to try. Apparently, there's a way to mount things through the terminal, and I should also try logging off and logging back on next time.
So, like I said, it's stopped, but I might be back here again (hopefully not until I have another AskMe question...)
posted by klangklangston at 5:19 PM on October 12, 2005