Running hardware test… Hardware OK
Running disk verification… Verification failed: Fatal error
Repairing disk… Disk repair failed: Fatal error
F*ck!
That’s been my life for the past two days, after my filesystem has been severely damaged. I wouldn’t care about having to reformat the whole hdd, but there are a bunch of files and hundreds of emails which would be lost. For the time being, I’m running my laptop on a Ubuntu Live CD, at least, that way, I can check my e-mails. My problem, in a nutshell, is having unintentionally interrupted the updating of the system (OS X 10.4.4 to OS X 10.4.5) and now being unable to boot.
Anyone has an idea how I could recover the files? (If anybody knew how to rebuild the system would be great, but I don’t mind reinstalling it as long as I get my files.)
I’ve of course tried all the classic methods: Disk Utility could neither repair nor rebuild the system, booting from the Install DVD succeeded (but it didn’t find a harddisk to reinstall onto), booting in safe mode was unsuccessful, DiskWarrior couldn’t repair the disk and I didn’t have any chance with the single user mode either. I’ve been told that I might try to recover my files using Ubuntu, but I haven’t found out yet how I should do that.
How great are the chances that I might recover the files after having partitioned the hdd and reinstalled the system?
Damn it, the first thing I’m going to do when this shit works again is buy an external harddisk. :-(
target disk mode ? ok if u cant get the damn thing to start that wont help either…
using disk warrior cant u create a second partition out of your free space and run an osx installation there ?
With the ubuntu live CD, try mounting the HDD an see what happens… As I’ve no idea, what exactly has been corrupted during the update, I can’t tell you if Ubuntu will be able do read the fs or not… Just give it a try…
Notice: to boot a HFS on ubuntu you should read: http://jclark.org/weblog/Miscellany/ubuntumount.html, and try to google for hfstools (and don’t remember the exact name), that might help you.
Target disk mode doesn’t work, as I can’t even boot. Disk Warrior gives me an error if I only try to scan the disk. Partitioning the whole thing with Disk Utility might work, but I would lose all of my files.
My desperation has come to the point that I’ve even tried to defragemnt the disk. Curiously that worked, but it didn’t help me.
try the other one .. not disk warrior but the thing i downloaded last time u remember ? it is praised for its function to partition free space without you losing any data on the area already taken !!!
You could take the harddisk out of your computer and put it into another box, then use Ubuntu (It has HSF+ support I think) to mout it. But it might also be that the filesystem is just broke, in that case I don’t think there’s a lot you can still do about it.