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Level 3

656 points

Can't Open my Backup DMG years of data gone

Okay I'm going to try to describe this in as much detail as I can and hopefully someone out there can help. I'm using a Mac Pro that has one harddrive in it, 250gb. I also have a Macbook Pro. I also have an external USB drive that's 250gb, and it's partitioned in 2 parts, on is about 200 and the other is 50. I can NOT boot from this drive.

A couple of days ago I decided I would back up my Mac Pro in anticipation of Leopard. So I booted into the Tiger Install disc that came with my computer, and used the disc utility to create a restore image of my entire Harddrive, using the default settings. The image is saved to my external drive.

I got Leopard on Friday and installed it using a clean instal, erasing everything on my computer and installing it fresh. The install went fine and Leopard works magically on this machine. I decided it was time to start bringing my files over from my image I had created, so I attached my drive and opened the DMG, but it wouldn't open, giving me error -4960. PANIC ENSUED. I also tried to mount it on my MacBook Pro which is still running Tiger and I got the same error!

The next day (yesterday) I called Apple, and the man I spoke with told me the reason why it won't mount is because its a raw restore image and what I'll have to do is restore it using the disk utility again. That made sense to me. This morning I tried restoring the image with both the Leopard utility and the Tiger one as well (booting off the install DVDs, that is), but no matter what I do, I get the same error -4960!!

So at this point I'm basically shattered. I live on my computer, it's my whole life (I know that may sound sad haha but it's the truth). This is like having my house burn down, and on top of that, the IRONY of the situation is just too much. The whole reason for upgrading is to get Time Machine.. Ugh. Anyway, Im starting to run out of ideas here. I think maybe it could be because my external drive is a piece of crap or something, so I'm currently copying the thing over to my internal drive and I'll try that. Other than that, I'm thinking the image must be corrupt or something, does anybody know any hardcore tools that could be used in such a situation? Any terminal-fu that could possibly fix this whole problem? I did use data recovery software on the drive yesterday and managed to get a few things, I think,, but I havent really looked through them and it's really not the same as having the files themselves, you know? But I guess it's something.

So yeah, if ANYONE has any ideas on what to do, you have no idea how thankful I would be to hear it.

Jason

touch fuzzy, get dizzy

Posted on Nov 4, 2007 9:20 AM

Best reply

MJWeb

Level 1

125 points

Posted on Nov 4, 2007 10:06 AM

I'm very sympathetic to your situation and have been investigation error -4960 for you. These aren't specific answers but they might point you in the right direction, on your own, or communicating with Apple. Both of these, though unrelated, suggest the problem and solution is related to the User account. Just a hunch, but I'd try opening the DMG from your Guest Account. Keep bugging Apple, too!

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93311

http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.entourage/20 05-02/0052.html

View in context

85 replies

Nobuo

Level 1

15 points

Nov 6, 2007 8:44 PM in response to MJWeb

Just curious.

I read through the posts and see that you backed up using Tiger install disk Disk Utility, and tried to restore using Leopard install disk Disk Utility (and a host of other things). But did you try to 'restore' using Tiger install disk Disk Utility? (may be I just missed something in the discussion...)

Finally, what permissions/user/group are listed for the backup .dmg file when you run 'ls -l' from the command line? I am wondering if the user/group permissions are not allowing reading of the file, etc. (or it could be that the user/group of the internal 'saved' data doesn't match that from which the restore app is being run...)

Whatever the case - Good Luck!

Nov 7, 2007 3:19 AM in response to The Shad Guy

if this is here:
<pre>
/* address control - should be equal to addr */
addrc = convert_char4(c);
if (addr!=addrc) {
printf("ERROR: dmg file is corrupted.\n");
exit(-1);
}
</pre>

have you tried to just ignore the error and let the program continue ?

The Shad Guy Author

Level 3

656 points

Nov 7, 2007 6:11 AM in response to nobody loopback

Nobuo: Yep, I've tried restoring with both Leopard and Tiger's Install DVD DiskUtility, no luck with either. And I've checked/changed permissions too, I think at this point they don't really even matter. I have access to the file, it's just somewhat corrupted (the header is).

nobody: Yep, that's where it's erroring. I guess I could just skip that, but it seems to be important, I'd like to understand better what it's checking for. On top of that, I currently don't have space for another copy of the image (I'm working to fix that, however). As an aside, does the dmg2img tool delete the dmg when it's done?

Nov 7, 2007 6:22 AM in response to The Shad Guy

no,
it does not delete anyhting,
you need however about 250GB space for the resulting file !

nahnoryb

Level 1

4 points

Nov 7, 2007 12:21 PM in response to The Shad Guy

Before we go dinking around further on your images, let's make sure you have a backup and leave it in a safe place.

What kind of image was created?

hdiutil imageinfo <yourbrokendiskimage>

Can you try to attach it with

hdiutil attach <yourbrokendiskimage> -nomount -debug -verbose

and send me the output please? (it could be voluminous so make sure Terminal is set to a large scrollback buffer)

Byron Han
not in any official capacity

nahnoryb

Level 1

4 points

Nov 7, 2007 12:26 PM in response to Charles E. Flynn

For this case (not the one that this thread is based upon)

hdiutil attach <yourgreatimage> -shadow

and it will mount the image read/write with writes directed to the shadow file. This will allow journal playback to occur. Make your changes to the image, unmount/eject the image.

Then to merge it all back in

hdiutil convert <yourgreatimage> -shadow -format UDRO -o <yourupdatedgreatimage>

nahnoryb

Level 1

4 points

Nov 7, 2007 12:27 PM in response to Charles E. Flynn

Please file a bug at http://bugreporter.apple.com

nahnoryb

Level 1

4 points

Nov 7, 2007 12:29 PM in response to nerowolfe

i'm reading now. though i am no longer officially working on diskimages (i've been working on diskiamges for ~14 years now so its time for new challenges)

nahnoryb

Level 1

4 points

Nov 7, 2007 12:30 PM in response to nobody loopback

the file does have a "resource" fork in that there are resources embedded in the data fork of the file using a private XML format.

nahnoryb

Level 1

4 points

Nov 7, 2007 12:33 PM in response to nobody loopback

like i stated in a later posting here, most diskimages are single-fork but have an resource fork embedded in the data fork.

nahnoryb

Level 1

4 points

Nov 7, 2007 12:37 PM in response to nahnoryb

Also, on Leopard only, please include the output from

hdiutil udifxmldet <yourbrokenimage>

and

hdiutil udifderez <yourbrokendiskimage>

nahnoryb

Level 1

4 points

Nov 7, 2007 12:52 PM in response to Charles E. Flynn

Sports fans-

MacErrors.h: coreFoundationUnknownErr = -4960

Sounds like there is a problem parsing the embedded XML.

Keith-MD

Level 1

15 points

Nov 7, 2007 1:27 PM in response to nahnoryb

The Shad Guy,

If you want "escalated to the best man" on DiskImages, nahnoryb in his unofficial capacity is it.

It has been wonderful reading through this post simply because of the great troubleshooting. Too many users bail at the "it's a lost cause" that tier one support gives. A great example of keeping with it.

Cheers

Nov 7, 2007 1:49 PM in response to nahnoryb

The "udifderez" and "udifxmldet" options are not present in the man file.
But its good to know that they exist!

nerowolfe

Level 6

13,090 points

Nov 7, 2007 2:06 PM in response to The Shad Guy

The Shad Guy wrote:
Wow! Thanks, wouldn't that be something if they did though.

Well I have to say, whether they send in the troops or not, you guys are the Red Cross!

If I were near the top of Apple, this would be my "Miracle on 34th Street" event. Doing whatever is necessary for even a single customer.
In fact, when this is solved (notice, unlike Linus, I didn't say 'if') it could actually represent a great deal of positive advertising on Apple's part. "If necessary, we will help a single user with a problem..."

The other thing is that this problem may be a bug with either large .dmg images or with .dmg images that contain certain types of files. It would be to Apple's benefit to solve this one. It could happen again.
My familiarity with files is in the music and media area, mostly with PCs. I have zero experience with .dmg files, but reading this thread tells me that you will indeed solve the problem and get all your files back, or at least most of them. Pip pip cheerio and all that 🙂

Can't Open my Backup DMG years of data gone