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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Weird Hard Drive Stuff
moejones - Sep 20, 2005 - 3:12 am
hi,
i have a friend whose mac is in real trouble. that's why i am writing you instead of him - his computer (a powerbook g4) will only boot to a gray screen.
now i am quite a windows geek, but the last mac is used was a color classic from the jurassic period. so i am not really savvy on the latest mac stuff. so i know computers, but i need some software help.
a few weeks ago, my friend's computer started slowing down, and it went downhill from there. applications started taking hours to load. it was awful. he performed a full hardware scan with some third party scanning software, and it said there was a hardward problem. then he used the disk utility booting from the mac cd, and it claimed he had a software problem.
most recently, his computer will only boot to a gray screen, and naturally he is worried sick that he might not get his documents off of it before it goes completely.
my question is: what do you think is going on here? i suggested to him that we physically take out and reset the hard drive, and see if that helps anything. but before we do anything, i kind of wanted to do a backup from command line, if the standard mac environment i not able to load properly. what would you suggest we do? can we do an FTP, and if so, how?
thanks so much for your help in this.
moe jones
i have a friend whose mac is in real trouble. that's why i am writing you instead of him - his computer (a powerbook g4) will only boot to a gray screen.
now i am quite a windows geek, but the last mac is used was a color classic from the jurassic period. so i am not really savvy on the latest mac stuff. so i know computers, but i need some software help.
a few weeks ago, my friend's computer started slowing down, and it went downhill from there. applications started taking hours to load. it was awful. he performed a full hardware scan with some third party scanning software, and it said there was a hardward problem. then he used the disk utility booting from the mac cd, and it claimed he had a software problem.
most recently, his computer will only boot to a gray screen, and naturally he is worried sick that he might not get his documents off of it before it goes completely.
my question is: what do you think is going on here? i suggested to him that we physically take out and reset the hard drive, and see if that helps anything. but before we do anything, i kind of wanted to do a backup from command line, if the standard mac environment i not able to load properly. what would you suggest we do? can we do an FTP, and if so, how?
thanks so much for your help in this.
moe jones
baldprof - Sep 20, 2005 - 8:35 am
It's possible that you could get the Mac to boot as a target disk which is described here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583
If that is successful, then the files can be copied over to the other Mac.
Alternatively, there is a program called Disk Warrior which may work. Isn't free but it saves lives. Regardless, you need to attempt to backup via firewire soon.
Then after that, boot from an OS X CD (or DVD), start Disk Utility, then reformat the drive. Then do a fresh install of the software.
Because of the symptoms you described, and because the Apple Disk Utility detected software problems, I believe that there is either a really badly corrupted directory on the HD, corrupted system files or both which is my guess. Laptops are just more prone to that type of thing, which is why those of us who have them generally own Disk Warrior, and run it on a regular schedule.
If the target mode thing doesn't work, it's possible that the drive could be removed and placed in an external drive case. Because of it's formatting, the drive would only be readable on a Mac. Nevertheles, you just might be able to get the files back.
I hope this helps.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583
If that is successful, then the files can be copied over to the other Mac.
Alternatively, there is a program called Disk Warrior which may work. Isn't free but it saves lives. Regardless, you need to attempt to backup via firewire soon.
Then after that, boot from an OS X CD (or DVD), start Disk Utility, then reformat the drive. Then do a fresh install of the software.
Because of the symptoms you described, and because the Apple Disk Utility detected software problems, I believe that there is either a really badly corrupted directory on the HD, corrupted system files or both which is my guess. Laptops are just more prone to that type of thing, which is why those of us who have them generally own Disk Warrior, and run it on a regular schedule.
If the target mode thing doesn't work, it's possible that the drive could be removed and placed in an external drive case. Because of it's formatting, the drive would only be readable on a Mac. Nevertheles, you just might be able to get the files back.
I hope this helps.
moejones - Sep 20, 2005 - 9:15 am
thanks so much. i will give that a shot. only have windows laptops around here, except for his, of course. but i will give it a shot, and if it boots in target mode, then i believe i saw something elsewhere online that i could firewire to a windows laptop, and still recover the data.
thanks again for your help. it is very much appreciated.
moe jones
thanks again for your help. it is very much appreciated.
moe jones
moejones - Sep 20, 2005 - 9:54 am
sorry, just one more thing. another guy i wrote about this problem says that it has to be a firewire to a mac. but he also said that it is possible to do an FTP to a windows. he said to use TCP/IP, and from there copy files using command lines. but i am at a loss as to how to do this. any help?
thanks.
thanks.
baldprof - Sep 20, 2005 - 12:47 pm
Instead of using a firwire cable, you would simply use an ethernet cable to connect the two and then setup a network to connect the two. Odd thing is that if one of your Windows machines has a firewire port, and you are running XP Pro, then you can network over firewire.
Same considerations either way. You would add the Mac as a Network Place, and then you would have access to anything in thepublic Documents directory. So you would need to copy any essential files to that directory on the Mac if they aren't there already. On the Mac you would open System Preferences, click Sharing and enable personal file sharing and Windows file sharing. Then in Network prefences you would have to set some IP adresses to corespond to how you had setup the network on the Windows laptop. That should do it.
Same considerations either way. You would add the Mac as a Network Place, and then you would have access to anything in thepublic Documents directory. So you would need to copy any essential files to that directory on the Mac if they aren't there already. On the Mac you would open System Preferences, click Sharing and enable personal file sharing and Windows file sharing. Then in Network prefences you would have to set some IP adresses to corespond to how you had setup the network on the Windows laptop. That should do it.
moejones - Sep 20, 2005 - 1:00 pm
okay, that sounds good. now will this work if we can't get the mac to boot past the gray screen stage? i don't think we could network properly without setting up things inside the OS on both computers, could we?
also, if we use the firewire cable, can we boot the mac in firewire transfer mode (since the OS won't boot), or are you suggesting we use it simply as an alternate cable to a standard RJ-11 ethernet?
thanks for your continued help.
also, if we use the firewire cable, can we boot the mac in firewire transfer mode (since the OS won't boot), or are you suggesting we use it simply as an alternate cable to a standard RJ-11 ethernet?
thanks for your continued help.
baldprof - Sep 20, 2005 - 5:03 pm
It is possible that the Mac may boot into the firewire Target Disk mode even though it won't otherwise boot past the grey screen stage. What has happened is that the system cannot find some of the files needed to finish booting the OS.
If you cannot find another Mac to use for the attempt to boot into target disk mode, then you have two Options: 1) You can try the third party utility Disk Warrior. Sometimes this can reconstruct the drive enough to allow you to recover information. The procedure is simple, boot from the Disk Warrior CD and follow the instructions.
Option 2: Remove the hard drive from the laptop and put it into an external case, preferrably firewire, but usb will also work. You would then need to connect it to another Mac. Unless the drive is too badly damaged, the other Mac could mount the drive onto the desktop. Copying the files then is simple. But this requires another Mac. The hard drive in that Mac is formatted using the Mac HFS extended file system. A Windows machine could not normally recognize that file system without a special utility. The irony is that a Mac could read the files from a FAT formatted drive.
So those are your only options as I see them at this point. I would try the Disk Warrior option personally. If the drive is too badly damaged for Disk Warrior then it might not even be readable as an external drive. If that's the case then that drive will have to be replaced with the subsequent loss of the data, unless you want to try a service such as Drive Savers.
Now, I am sorry but I am going to have to surrender this problem back to the open pool. I wish you luck with your problem. There's another hurricane headed this way, and preparations for that are more important right now.
If you cannot find another Mac to use for the attempt to boot into target disk mode, then you have two Options: 1) You can try the third party utility Disk Warrior. Sometimes this can reconstruct the drive enough to allow you to recover information. The procedure is simple, boot from the Disk Warrior CD and follow the instructions.
Option 2: Remove the hard drive from the laptop and put it into an external case, preferrably firewire, but usb will also work. You would then need to connect it to another Mac. Unless the drive is too badly damaged, the other Mac could mount the drive onto the desktop. Copying the files then is simple. But this requires another Mac. The hard drive in that Mac is formatted using the Mac HFS extended file system. A Windows machine could not normally recognize that file system without a special utility. The irony is that a Mac could read the files from a FAT formatted drive.
So those are your only options as I see them at this point. I would try the Disk Warrior option personally. If the drive is too badly damaged for Disk Warrior then it might not even be readable as an external drive. If that's the case then that drive will have to be replaced with the subsequent loss of the data, unless you want to try a service such as Drive Savers.
Now, I am sorry but I am going to have to surrender this problem back to the open pool. I wish you luck with your problem. There's another hurricane headed this way, and preparations for that are more important right now.
moejones - Sep 21, 2005 - 12:35 am
no problem. you have been a great help. thanks so much for all your advice. you were friendly, knowledgable, and unprecedentedly prompt.
good luck!!
good luck!!
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