BAD KITTY!! So, how do I resurrect my Macintosh?
May 16, 2010 10:59 PM Subscribe
I blew up my Macintosh trying to upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard. How do I get it back to retrieve a few files before I blitzkrieg it all in a disk repair and OS reinstall?
It's been a pretty bad few months. I've been fighting illnesses, trying to balance work and school at the same time, dealing with work stress, and exhaustion. In fact, I have a doctor's appt re: the illnesses on Tuesday. Consequently, I don't have a back up of anything. Yes, I know I should make back ups, but life happens and I couldn't.
So then, for school, I decide to bootcamp my MacBook to install Win7, so I can install Visual Studio, so I can do my C# class homework. But first, I needed to upgrade to Snow Leopard, supposedly the EASIEST THING EVER. Therin lay my fatal mistake. Now I don't have a booting computer at all. Oopsie!
This is what happened. I tried to do the upgrade, and it failed. Now when I boot without the Snow Leopard DVD in it, it just grinds for a bit at the apple screen with a little circle underneath, and then turns black. I can boot into the DVD, but it won't install. When I run the Disk Utility, I get this message:
"Invalid Record Count. The Volume Asgeir could not be verified completely.
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume is required.
Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk...disk, and restore your backed up files." (This sentence is typed exactly as it appears on the screen.)
Now, I know I'll lose my iTunes music, it's all on my iPod. The only stuff I do want are a few gigs of photos that I've had on the machine. Is there any way to boot the Mac into a 'safe mode' of sorts so I can back up the photos, then I can bulldoze over my HD if I need to.
The machine in question: it's the 2 year old black MacBook with the Intel chip, and up to date with all the software security updates, etc. I have AppleCare on it, but getting to an Apple store is massively inconvenient, and wouldn't happen until Tuesday at the earliest. This Mac only had 1 partition on it, and more than 130 GB of free HD space. I do have a 5 year old PowerBook G4 as a backup Mac, which has the previous pre-Leopard kitty OS on it, and it works well. While I'd love to not have to blow away the disk, I will if I have to. I just want these photos first.
So, what can I do? I imagine that Firewire transfer is the way to go here, but if there's other things that are recommended here, I'd love to hear them. Thanks.
It's been a pretty bad few months. I've been fighting illnesses, trying to balance work and school at the same time, dealing with work stress, and exhaustion. In fact, I have a doctor's appt re: the illnesses on Tuesday. Consequently, I don't have a back up of anything. Yes, I know I should make back ups, but life happens and I couldn't.
So then, for school, I decide to bootcamp my MacBook to install Win7, so I can install Visual Studio, so I can do my C# class homework. But first, I needed to upgrade to Snow Leopard, supposedly the EASIEST THING EVER. Therin lay my fatal mistake. Now I don't have a booting computer at all. Oopsie!
This is what happened. I tried to do the upgrade, and it failed. Now when I boot without the Snow Leopard DVD in it, it just grinds for a bit at the apple screen with a little circle underneath, and then turns black. I can boot into the DVD, but it won't install. When I run the Disk Utility, I get this message:
"Invalid Record Count. The Volume Asgeir could not be verified completely.
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume is required.
Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk...disk, and restore your backed up files." (This sentence is typed exactly as it appears on the screen.)
Now, I know I'll lose my iTunes music, it's all on my iPod. The only stuff I do want are a few gigs of photos that I've had on the machine. Is there any way to boot the Mac into a 'safe mode' of sorts so I can back up the photos, then I can bulldoze over my HD if I need to.
The machine in question: it's the 2 year old black MacBook with the Intel chip, and up to date with all the software security updates, etc. I have AppleCare on it, but getting to an Apple store is massively inconvenient, and wouldn't happen until Tuesday at the earliest. This Mac only had 1 partition on it, and more than 130 GB of free HD space. I do have a 5 year old PowerBook G4 as a backup Mac, which has the previous pre-Leopard kitty OS on it, and it works well. While I'd love to not have to blow away the disk, I will if I have to. I just want these photos first.
So, what can I do? I imagine that Firewire transfer is the way to go here, but if there's other things that are recommended here, I'd love to hear them. Thanks.
What's wrong with firewire transfer? That is by far the best way to go.
Turn both computers off.
Connect them with a firewire cable.
Turn the PowerBook on.
Turn the Mac??? on, hold T until the firewire icon shows up.
If you have problems, look here.
Note: you'll probably get more/better advice if you spare us the irrelevant backstory and "woe is me" attitude.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 11:27 PM on May 16, 2010 [3 favorites]
Turn both computers off.
Connect them with a firewire cable.
Turn the PowerBook on.
Turn the Mac??? on, hold T until the firewire icon shows up.
If you have problems, look here.
Note: you'll probably get more/better advice if you spare us the irrelevant backstory and "woe is me" attitude.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 11:27 PM on May 16, 2010 [3 favorites]
You can run some programs from the install DVD, like Terminal. Are you familiar enough with the command line to see if your Mac's disk is mounting? If so, you can scp or rsync any fies you're interested in keeping to another machine, then wipe and reinstall. If not, maybe you can run fsck by hand and get a working (but presumably non-bootable) filesystem, but that's getting into dodgy territory.
OTOH, I can't think of any advantage of doing it from the command line vs. booting your newer machine in firewire target mode and looking at the disk from your 10.4 machine, which seems like an easier way to go.
posted by hattifattener at 11:30 PM on May 16, 2010
OTOH, I can't think of any advantage of doing it from the command line vs. booting your newer machine in firewire target mode and looking at the disk from your 10.4 machine, which seems like an easier way to go.
posted by hattifattener at 11:30 PM on May 16, 2010
Go to an Apple Store. The Mac Genius will help you. Don't forget to make an appointment. :)
posted by jchaw at 11:31 PM on May 16, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by jchaw at 11:31 PM on May 16, 2010 [1 favorite]
You need a person with geek skills and a current copy of DiskWarrior. Since you are in a CS class, you probably have access to those people, or to folks at your college computer lab who will look the other way while you borrow the DiskWarrior disk. (Bribe them with beer.) Have your chosen geek run DiskWarrior on the machine until it clears up.
If you go to the Apple Store, they might be able to do this for you if you ask politely.
Next time, run Disk Utility before you try an OS upgrade; if it reports anything unrecoverable or unrepairable, run DiskWarrior first until it comes up clean.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 11:51 PM on May 16, 2010
If you go to the Apple Store, they might be able to do this for you if you ask politely.
Next time, run Disk Utility before you try an OS upgrade; if it reports anything unrecoverable or unrepairable, run DiskWarrior first until it comes up clean.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 11:51 PM on May 16, 2010
+1 for disk warrior, +1 for backups, +1 for spare us the sob story
posted by epo at 3:23 AM on May 17, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by epo at 3:23 AM on May 17, 2010 [1 favorite]
The backstory is unnecessary because it's distracting from the real goal of the question, which is to receive an answer to a technical question.
But how useful is it to attack the OP on the way he's formulated the question? This person has been under stress, just fucked up his computer and wants to figure out how to sort it, and he's venting a little.
By the way: How To Ask Questions The Smart Way (with a nice section on how to answer questions).
posted by mkdirusername at 5:05 AM on May 17, 2010
But how useful is it to attack the OP on the way he's formulated the question? This person has been under stress, just fucked up his computer and wants to figure out how to sort it, and he's venting a little.
By the way: How To Ask Questions The Smart Way (with a nice section on how to answer questions).
posted by mkdirusername at 5:05 AM on May 17, 2010
Since you have the install DVD, boot from that. (Option key on startup, then select.) Then grab what you need.
What have we learned? If you have time to install a new OS, you have time to make a backup.
But how useful is it to attack the OP on the way he's formulated the question?
Not sure I'd call it an attack. It's for his, and others', future reference. Nice link, BTW.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:49 AM on May 17, 2010
What have we learned? If you have time to install a new OS, you have time to make a backup.
But how useful is it to attack the OP on the way he's formulated the question?
Not sure I'd call it an attack. It's for his, and others', future reference. Nice link, BTW.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:49 AM on May 17, 2010
ChurchHatesTucker, you're right -- not really an attack. I miswrote.
And at any rate, it's not my place to comment on how people choose to talk to others (unless they ask for it).
posted by mkdirusername at 8:06 AM on May 17, 2010
And at any rate, it's not my place to comment on how people choose to talk to others (unless they ask for it).
posted by mkdirusername at 8:06 AM on May 17, 2010
Response by poster: What have we learned? That I shouldn't post to ask.me when stressed, apparently.
I added the 'woe is me' bit because I've been stressed, and probably not thinking the best way as to how to approach this. But I'll get a firewire cable and see how that works. If not, I'll make an appt. tomorrow. And I'm familiar with the command line, but not with the commands to do it.
posted by spinifex23 at 8:33 AM on May 17, 2010 [1 favorite]
I added the 'woe is me' bit because I've been stressed, and probably not thinking the best way as to how to approach this. But I'll get a firewire cable and see how that works. If not, I'll make an appt. tomorrow. And I'm familiar with the command line, but not with the commands to do it.
posted by spinifex23 at 8:33 AM on May 17, 2010 [1 favorite]
Macbooks are easy to remove the hard drive from. I would take the drive out, use an external drive adapter and copy the desired files to another place (another drive, DVD-Rs, big flash drive, etc)
It's usually considered pretty important to fix permissions before and after any upgrade or update. It's a really good idea to unplug anything that didn't come with the computer as well. (USB mice are OK, FireWire drives used to be a huge no-no. I still unplug them)
Try the target disk mode first. Fix permissions and try to repair from the G4. If no joy, copy stuff to the G4 or burn DVDs. Still no joy? Get an external adapter and pull the drive.
posted by KenManiac at 8:35 AM on May 17, 2010
It's usually considered pretty important to fix permissions before and after any upgrade or update. It's a really good idea to unplug anything that didn't come with the computer as well. (USB mice are OK, FireWire drives used to be a huge no-no. I still unplug them)
Try the target disk mode first. Fix permissions and try to repair from the G4. If no joy, copy stuff to the G4 or burn DVDs. Still no joy? Get an external adapter and pull the drive.
posted by KenManiac at 8:35 AM on May 17, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks, Ken. I'll try those things.
I just called AppleCare, and one thing that they mentioned is that I may have a bum install disk. So, since I have to go buy a Firewire cable anyways (and possibly an external backup HD, which I've been meaning to get for months anyways), I'll return the disk and get another copy, and go from there.
posted by spinifex23 at 9:01 AM on May 17, 2010
I just called AppleCare, and one thing that they mentioned is that I may have a bum install disk. So, since I have to go buy a Firewire cable anyways (and possibly an external backup HD, which I've been meaning to get for months anyways), I'll return the disk and get another copy, and go from there.
posted by spinifex23 at 9:01 AM on May 17, 2010
I just called AppleCare, and one thing that they mentioned is that I may have a bum install disk
Hrm. Not have heard of that (aside from the general complaints about installation X)
Good to do the Apple Store/Care, but there's no harm in trying a boot from the install disk. If that works, your problem is on the HD. (And grabbing an external HD is overdue.)
ChurchHatesTucker, you're right -- not really an attack. I miswrote.
No worries, I got busted recently for posting a 'bookmark' comment on the green. I was miffed at first, but realized that the critique was spot-on. This is how we learn.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:17 AM on May 17, 2010
Hrm. Not have heard of that (aside from the general complaints about installation X)
Good to do the Apple Store/Care, but there's no harm in trying a boot from the install disk. If that works, your problem is on the HD. (And grabbing an external HD is overdue.)
ChurchHatesTucker, you're right -- not really an attack. I miswrote.
No worries, I got busted recently for posting a 'bookmark' comment on the green. I was miffed at first, but realized that the critique was spot-on. This is how we learn.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:17 AM on May 17, 2010
Response by poster: Turns out I won't be able to make any updates on this until next week at the earliest, but I'll try some suggestions then.
posted by spinifex23 at 10:17 PM on May 20, 2010
posted by spinifex23 at 10:17 PM on May 20, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
It may not help if the hard drive is really toasted..
posted by cj_ at 11:27 PM on May 16, 2010