Ticket Options
Question Profile
| DATE | Feb 15, 2008 |
| TICKET | #336168 |
| STATUS | Closed |
| SUBJECT | Partition 1 of a Hard Drive Dissapeared |
| CAT | Computers, Operating Systems, Applications or Connected Devices |
| TYPE | Operating System Features, Bugs and Problems |
| DESC | Apple |
| DESC | 10.4.X (Tiger) |
| PLATFORM | Apple Macintosh (PowerPC G3,G4,G5) |
| MODEL | apple |
| PROC | dual 1,8 |
| RAM | 1 GB |
| DRIVE | 200gb |
| NAME | Bryn |
| USERNAME | bryn772 |
| TECHNICAL | Little Experience |
| ISSUE | Some Troubleshooting |
Question Details
TICKET ARCHIVE -> Partition 1 of a Hard Drive Dissapeared
bryn772 - Feb 15, 2008 - 12:50 am
I have a mac g5 with a partitioned hard drive. Partition 1 is running 10.3.9 and is my day to day drive, Partition 2 is running 10.4.6 and is exclusively my music recording drive.
Recently when using 10.4.6 as my start up disk, when I would go to select 10.3.9 as my start up disc the option was not there. I over came this by restarting the computer and holding down the option key. They allowed me to select 10.3.9. More recently though when starting up the computer it comes to the selection screen but then just hangs. That is the clock never stops turning around.
When I run disc utility in 10.4.5 the 10.3.9 partition appears but it is a silhouette. It says it is not mounted. I can run all the verify and repair checks on it and the results say there are no errors.
Can you please help me?
Recently when using 10.4.6 as my start up disk, when I would go to select 10.3.9 as my start up disc the option was not there. I over came this by restarting the computer and holding down the option key. They allowed me to select 10.3.9. More recently though when starting up the computer it comes to the selection screen but then just hangs. That is the clock never stops turning around.
When I run disc utility in 10.4.5 the 10.3.9 partition appears but it is a silhouette. It says it is not mounted. I can run all the verify and repair checks on it and the results say there are no errors.
Can you please help me?
Stuartpau - Feb 15, 2008 - 8:12 pm
HI, I need a couple of questions answering be fore going too far with this question.
You state that you use the partition of your 10.3.9 as your general working drive, and then use the other partition a 10.4.6, exclusively as a recording drive.
By this do you mean that you reboot to 10.4.6 and then record to that drive?.
The reason, I ask, is that it is not a very good idea, to record to your startup drive.
Most of us who do music Video or Audio, generally install our music software on the main internal drive, and then use a totally different drive to record to, as the amount of work the drive has to do, to record to a drive that is running the OS and the Music software, can easily overpower a drive and often gives pretty poor recording quality. You also cannot use a separate partition of a startup drive to record to as although it appears on your desktop as a separate drive, it is still just one drive.
You may have had success in doing it this way, but in the end, you do stand the chance of damaging the structure of the Drive. I don't mean you are going to physically damage the drive, but cause the OS to write some inappropriate data somewhere and end up causing some corruption on the drive.
Disk utility is OK, but it is definitely not capable of dealing with some of the more complex issues that can cause drive problems, for this I recommend an application called Diskwarrior.
Also when you use the option key to select a diferent startup partition or OS, it can take a long long time before the system decides that there are no other drives available for it to boot from. Also if one of your Boot partitions is developing problems, then the option startup, may be having problems trying to see if the partitions you select really do have a fully valid OS on them.
As a point of interest most people that are recording professionally are using 10.3.9 as it seems to have been the best OS so far for Audio work.
Of course there any many people using 10.4.? myself included, but for my main recording station I use 10.3.9 as my main OS.
There are so many hidden toys in 10.4 that it eats into your CPU power and can cause glitches in the recordings.
I would really recommend that you get Diskwarrior for 10.4.7 and also ask Alsoft the makers if this version will also work for 10.3.9 as often with Diskwarrior, you need to have the correct version for the OS you need t o work with. It should tell you on their Web site (Google for Alsoft Diswarrior).
If that can't fix the problem, you may have to get as much data off your HD as possible and reformat the drive and rebuild it.
There is also a very useful utility called SuperDuper which is capable of creating a clone of your startup drive, which can then be written to another drive. Of course you will need to have a spare drive for the clone or clones to be placed on.
I strongly recomend that you install a second drive into your G5 if you plan on running one OS for Music and another for your day to day work and keeping each OS on a separate drive.
That way if you boot into your Music boot drive, you will be able to save your recordings on you day to day drive.
By getting an additional drive, you should be able to partition your work drive into 2 partitions, one for your day to day work, and one that is blank and solely for recording to.
Then when you are recording you can boot up the new drive into OS 10.4, launch whatever you use for recording, and save the actual recording to the new partition, really reducing the workload on your drives and also the workload on your CPU, especially if you are usig Softsynths or specialized Reverbs for effects on your music.
By having 2 actual separate drives you will always have a spare drive to boot from, so you can maintain the other drive. Partitioning is useful but you are still using the same physical hardware, just doubling the work it has to do. With 2 separate drives you should find your whole system runs more smoothly and selecting the startup drive from system preferences is much easier and faster.
I know this has been a rather long message, but I run into this issue so many times I feel that it is necessary to explain what is going on, especially for musicians as Music software, especially multi track with plug ins, is extremely demanding of a computer.
SO try out Alsoft's Diskwarrior, making sure that it will work for 10.3.9 and 10.4.6.
You could keep on working the way you have been but I really recommend adding another drive and puttig your Music OS and Software on that one and recordig to a partition of the 10.3.9 drive.
I sure hope this helps, it took some writing. If anything at all is not clear drop me a line OK.
Stuart
You state that you use the partition of your 10.3.9 as your general working drive, and then use the other partition a 10.4.6, exclusively as a recording drive.
By this do you mean that you reboot to 10.4.6 and then record to that drive?.
The reason, I ask, is that it is not a very good idea, to record to your startup drive.
Most of us who do music Video or Audio, generally install our music software on the main internal drive, and then use a totally different drive to record to, as the amount of work the drive has to do, to record to a drive that is running the OS and the Music software, can easily overpower a drive and often gives pretty poor recording quality. You also cannot use a separate partition of a startup drive to record to as although it appears on your desktop as a separate drive, it is still just one drive.
You may have had success in doing it this way, but in the end, you do stand the chance of damaging the structure of the Drive. I don't mean you are going to physically damage the drive, but cause the OS to write some inappropriate data somewhere and end up causing some corruption on the drive.
Disk utility is OK, but it is definitely not capable of dealing with some of the more complex issues that can cause drive problems, for this I recommend an application called Diskwarrior.
Also when you use the option key to select a diferent startup partition or OS, it can take a long long time before the system decides that there are no other drives available for it to boot from. Also if one of your Boot partitions is developing problems, then the option startup, may be having problems trying to see if the partitions you select really do have a fully valid OS on them.
As a point of interest most people that are recording professionally are using 10.3.9 as it seems to have been the best OS so far for Audio work.
Of course there any many people using 10.4.? myself included, but for my main recording station I use 10.3.9 as my main OS.
There are so many hidden toys in 10.4 that it eats into your CPU power and can cause glitches in the recordings.
I would really recommend that you get Diskwarrior for 10.4.7 and also ask Alsoft the makers if this version will also work for 10.3.9 as often with Diskwarrior, you need to have the correct version for the OS you need t o work with. It should tell you on their Web site (Google for Alsoft Diswarrior).
If that can't fix the problem, you may have to get as much data off your HD as possible and reformat the drive and rebuild it.
There is also a very useful utility called SuperDuper which is capable of creating a clone of your startup drive, which can then be written to another drive. Of course you will need to have a spare drive for the clone or clones to be placed on.
I strongly recomend that you install a second drive into your G5 if you plan on running one OS for Music and another for your day to day work and keeping each OS on a separate drive.
That way if you boot into your Music boot drive, you will be able to save your recordings on you day to day drive.
By getting an additional drive, you should be able to partition your work drive into 2 partitions, one for your day to day work, and one that is blank and solely for recording to.
Then when you are recording you can boot up the new drive into OS 10.4, launch whatever you use for recording, and save the actual recording to the new partition, really reducing the workload on your drives and also the workload on your CPU, especially if you are usig Softsynths or specialized Reverbs for effects on your music.
By having 2 actual separate drives you will always have a spare drive to boot from, so you can maintain the other drive. Partitioning is useful but you are still using the same physical hardware, just doubling the work it has to do. With 2 separate drives you should find your whole system runs more smoothly and selecting the startup drive from system preferences is much easier and faster.
I know this has been a rather long message, but I run into this issue so many times I feel that it is necessary to explain what is going on, especially for musicians as Music software, especially multi track with plug ins, is extremely demanding of a computer.
SO try out Alsoft's Diskwarrior, making sure that it will work for 10.3.9 and 10.4.6.
You could keep on working the way you have been but I really recommend adding another drive and puttig your Music OS and Software on that one and recordig to a partition of the 10.3.9 drive.
I sure hope this helps, it took some writing. If anything at all is not clear drop me a line OK.
Stuart
IF THIS IS YOUR QUESTION AND YOU WISH TO RESPOND, LOGIN HERE FIRST.
