Invalid Btree Header, 0, 0

I did the latest security updates and two DVD updates; repaired disk permissions after each one. Got fairly short reports and no problems. After all that I thought I'd do some maintenance, even though I've only had 10.4 for a couple weeks and not a lot of heavy use. Anyhow, I restarted to OS9 and ran DFA. It reported back with 'Invalid Btree Header, 0, 0" and then 'disk was repaired successfully'. Ran DFA five times with the same result; never did get 'disk appears to be ok'.

Tried to run DiskWarrior but apparently my v3.0.2 won't work. First time I ran DW the graph showed 30% out of order. Tried to rebuild but got an error that 'the original directory is too severely damaged...disk was not modified'. Restarted with the DW CD+C and it started up from the disk. This time the error was, '...can't be rebuilt...apparently you have a newer version...'. According to Alsoft, that message indicates that I need v3.0.3. I'll order the update from Alsoft.

In the meantime, I'm puzzled as to the DFA and DW reports about 'Btree' and 'severe' damage, and how my practivally new Tiger is '30% out of order'. I have downloaded WMP and RealPlayer for OS X. But I haven't had any problems. I haven't even gotten around to using iLife stuff. Just some browsing. I've also added a 256mb PC133 memory stick. Could that cause the DFA and DW reports? Speaking of the RAM, when I first installed it, Profiler called it PC133-333 and DIMM First Aid called it 7.5ns PC133-333. Today while in OS 9 ASP called it PC100-322S. I now have 512mb of memory.

Any ideas on what's going on here would be greatly appreciated.

David

Posted on Sep 28, 2005 10:27 AM

39 replies

David Cun Author

Level 4

1,428 points

Oct 14, 2005 7:15 AM in response to David Cun

While we're at it, lol, do you have any problems with Energy Saver shutting down your Mac? I have it set to shutdown at night but it's a no go. That's before and after I installed Macaroni. I hate to bring it up here, but I have another post that's unaswered. I thought it was my breath or underarm deodarant.
😀

Oct 14, 2005 1:48 PM in response to David Cun

David:

Tiger does
b not
need OS 9 installed, nor does any other version of OS X, unless you need to run in the Classic mode from OS X. That's what I find so strange about why the Q drive isn't bootable without it. Do you by any chance have Classic set as a startup item on either Tiger system? (I'm groping...). You can check the Classic Pane of System Preferences to see if it's enabled. I'm running Tiger from the Mac I'm on right now, with no trace of OS 9 on this particular computer. It hasn't had OS 9 installed since before Jaguar was introduced.

A "scratch disk" is a temporary working volume, typically used for heavy-duty Photoshop (PS) or video work. It's basically a clean volume where large, complex files can render without having to compete with the files on the startup drive. It gives complex operations lots of room for input-output, keeping the files from fragmenting and slowing up the process. It's typically used, then cleared for the next use. A scratch disk is like scratch paper, where you might do drafts or calculations to keep the final copy neat and clean... Unless you're doing heavy-duty video (eg: Final Cut Pro, etc.) or PS editing, you don't really need to be concerned about a scratch disk.

I can't say whether or not 30GB will be enough space on the Tiger volume for you (or for anyone else, for that matter). It really depends what you work with, how clean you keep the volume, your set up preferences regarding where you keep your data files, etc. For example, I have over 9GB of music in my iTunes folder and over 5GB of data in my Pictures folder, both of which I keep on my startup drive. If I were to import a two-hour wedding video from my camcorder and open an iMovie project on my startup drive, it would take roughly 35GB of space. If I wanted to make a copy of a 4GB DVD, I'd need at least that much free space for the Mac to create a disk image for Disk Utility to be able to burn it. Moreover, there are five family user accounts on this startup volume, each adding their own stuff to the space requirements. On the other hand, there are folks operating just fine with 10GB and smaller volumes...

Down the line, should you decide to move the OS's on the M volumes around, it would be pretty easy to accomplish. You could copy the OS 9 folders to the OS X volume, and then clone OS X to the larger volume.

Your Q drive may not suffice in the long term for cloning your OSX volume there for "backup", unless you keep your M's startup volume data at less than the size allocated on the Q volumes (currently 9GB).

By rights, your Master drive should be your startup drive, although you can boot and run from the slave without problems. The drive bus gives input-output priority to the Master over the Slave, meaning that when both drives need to access the processor at the same time to read and/or write data, the Slave drive has to defer to the Master for access. Since the OS and its applications are the most critical things running and generally have the most communication with the processor, it's faster/more efficient to have them running from the Master drive. Again, this should only affect things when both drives are being accessed at the same time, like when you open a file on one drive while booted to the other.

Gary

Oct 14, 2005 2:05 PM in response to David Cun

David:

do you have any problems with Energy Saver shutting down your Mac?

No, but I have it disabled, along with all other sleep options. I manually put the Mac to sleep when I leave it, and typically log out and put it to sleep overnight, only occasionally shutting down completely. I think that life's too short to have to deal with potential sleep, auto-shutdown, auto-startup issues here at home...

You might have a process running that cancels the auto-shutdown attempt. You could check for clues in your system log and console logs via your Console application. Scroll through and look for clues at around the time you have set for the shutdown to begin.

Gary

David Cun Author

Level 4

1,428 points

Oct 14, 2005 3:40 PM in response to Majordadusma

Hi Gary:

"...Tiger does not need OS 9 installed, nor does any other version of OS X,.."
That's what I thought and that's why I didn't install it. And we're not setup to start in Classic in the Classic Pane. Strange. I thought I could have it on one drive for the few OS9 apps we use. It might be time for soul searching as far as our OS9 AND old OS8 apps that I see here on my desk. 😉

It might be time to swap the HD's and start all over with the Maxtor. Drop back and punt as it were. As you know I have the new DVD drive issue going too. Especially since I don't have the X vol on the M really going full blast yet with iTunes, iPhoto, OpenOffice, printer driver, etc etc. Looking forward to seeing how my backup of my tunes and photos to CD went.

Yep, maybe think on it a little more...eg swapping the HD positions, reformat and set up partitions as you mention. And of course the DVD drive. Mull it over a little before I do any app additions.

Thanks for your continuing support!

David Cun Author

Level 4

1,428 points

Oct 14, 2005 3:48 PM in response to Majordadusma

Manually putting to sleep is what I think I'll start doing. It's not like I suddenly jump up from the Mac and think later, "Oh crap. I didn't put it to sleep." But I do want it to shut down at night. Life's too short to remember to go to the puter late at night and shut it down. Lol.

I don't know what it could be since I haven't done much to the OS. If I can remember correctly, all I've done are SW updates, Mouseware, and Skype. I wonder if it's from using SW Update instead of going to the Apple page. I did do all of them one at a time and repaired permissions after each. So I don't understand how there could be 'processes' at work.

Maybe I'll change it from 11PM to 7 or 8 and watch the log activity.

Thx!

David

Oct 14, 2005 6:32 PM in response to David Cun

David:

Re: "processes"... here's some hypothetical examples: The system is set for shutdown, but Safari is actively updating RSS feeds when the shutdown sequence is triggered, preventing log out and killing the shutdown process. Mail is open and is in the process of polling the server for new mail...you have DiskWarrior or another utility installed and it happens to be checking the drives' S.M.A.R.T. status in the background. Shutdown is scheduled for 2:45 AM and the daily cron/maintenance scripts are in the process of being run... These examples are made up, but that's the kind of thing that I'm referring to.

Gary

David Cun Author

Level 4

1,428 points

Oct 15, 2005 6:11 AM in response to Majordadusma

Hi Gary:

Great info! Thx for the examples!

It shut down last night. But I did the worse thing one can do; I did two things instead of one at a time.

I turned off the modem and set sleep to never. I'll go back when I log off and set it for shutdown a few minutes later, with the modem on and see what happens. See if it's sleep mode or the modem being on and processes being run over the internet.

David

David Cun Author

Level 4

1,428 points

Oct 20, 2005 7:54 AM in response to David Cun

Just to update. I moved the Maxtor to the bottom slot and made it master. I changed the partitions on the Quantum from three to two, with 15G for OS X backup. Working on reformating the M to have about 60G for X.

I used CCC to clone X from the M to the Q and was able to startup from the Q. I'm feeling my way to make sure I don't loose everything when reformatting the M.

Oct 20, 2005 5:47 PM in response to David Cun

David:

Hope I'm not too late, but I was thinking about your comment about maybe rethinking whether or not you're going to load OS 9. If you decide not to load it now, make sure you load the drivers for it when you do the drive formatting, or you won't be able to load it later without wiping the whole drive and reformatting again... This might be important if you need to flash something using OS 9, in view of what I see on the other threads you have going with hardware upgrades...

Gary

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Invalid Btree Header, 0, 0