PowerBook won't work - Catalog B-tree problem?

Question

PowerBook won't work - Catalog B-tree problem?

So, when I start up my powerbook (12-inch) it just shows the blinking icon with the question mark. I was able to boot from the startup cd. I tried re-installing OS X (the "archiving" option rather than a clean install) and that didn't work; after about 3 minutes it freezes up and then says "there was an error during installation." Did that about 3x before I gave up. I tried running disk utility, it runs through and then says "keys out of order," then it says that it is "rebuilding catalog b-tree." About 25% of the way through, it stops and says that Disk Utility could not repair the disk.

Is my hd just shot - should I do a clean install? (I'd rather not; I have some important, but not vital, stuff that is not backed up).

Any suggestions?

Posted on Sep 18, 2005 4:12 PM

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Answer 1

Courcoul

Level 6

18,684 points

Sep 18, 2005 5:32 PM in response to Silvana Naguib

Yup, I think we can declare the HD shot. Given all the errors and your failed attempts at repair, it is probably safest to reformat the HD and reinstall from scratch. If that doesn't work, maybe the damage is physical and you'll need to replace it (under warranty?).

However, you might try and recover things before proceeding. Two ways of doing this come to mind:

* place the PB in Firewire Mode, plug it into another Mac and salvage the files.
* get an external Firewire HD with MacOS installed, boot from it by pressing <Option> when starting up and selecting it, then when the internal drive shows up, salvage the files. You can use your 10.3 install CD/DVD to prepare the external FW drive for this; note that you need about 4GB plus whatever stuff you recover from the internal HD.

Hope this helps.

John Courcoul

P.S. Welcome to Apple Discussions; sorry that it was under these circumstances.

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Answer 2

Sep 18, 2005 5:38 PM in response to Courcoul

Thanks, John. I had read about some other people with similar problems who were able to use Disk Warrior to fix the problem, and some who weren't. The thing is that Disk Utility does recognize the disk and can at least try to repair it. I am just trying to find the most cost-effective option as I don't want to buy Disk Warrior for $80 and have it not even work.

Unfortunately, this comes at a rather inopportune time as my warranty expired about a week ago; oh, the irony!

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Answer 3

Courcoul

Level 6

18,684 points

Sep 18, 2005 5:46 PM in response to Silvana Naguib

Yeah, DiskWarrior or TechTool are some heavy-duty tools, but you need to use them before trying to reinstall and since that went sour, it is hard to determine if further damage was done. But take heart: the damage is almost always not physical, so reformatting and reinstalling will get you a happy Mac once again. Only thing to worry right now is saving your data first.

Tell me about warranties: my PB had to go thru three display and a motherboard replacement, which persuaded me to get the extended AppleCare. No sense in tempting Murphy's Laws...

JMC

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Answer 4

Myron

Level 2

439 points

Sep 18, 2005 6:12 PM in response to Courcoul

I just gad the longest week of my life, trying to revive the HD on my 4 month old G5. Disk Warrior was an amazing help. I was able to retrieve my files. I eventually reformatted, because I didn't want to chance any further damage. So far, so good!

DISK WARRIOR IS WORTH THE $$$.

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Answer 5

Sep 19, 2005 1:05 PM in response to Courcoul

update: well i ended up buying disk warrior and running it. it looked like everything was repaired; i rebooted and everything looked good until it hung at "login window starting." i ran disk utility again and rebooted and the same thing happened. so i followed the directions enumerated here; everything looked fine. however, now when i try to start the computer, it just hangs at the grey apple with the icon spinning round and round.

anyone have any idea what i should do now?

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Answer 6

Myron

Level 2

439 points

Sep 20, 2005 5:50 AM in response to Silvana Naguib

Yeah, I went through the exact same thing. I used Disk Warrior to repair my drive so that it would mount, then I backed up all of my valuable files and docs to an external drive, then I reformatted my drive. It's been two or three days now and things are pretty normal.

The reason I reformatted is because TechTool 4 discovered a large number of "bad blocks" on my drive. I decided not to chance it.

Back up your data, anyway.

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Answer 7

Courcoul

Level 6

18,684 points

Sep 27, 2005 11:53 PM in response to Myron

BTW, if you have TechTool Deluxe, which comes with your AppleCare CD, the 3.0.4 update has just come out which is now Tiger friendly. You do have to be a registered AppleCare subscriber on the MicroMat site to get the updater, though, so do have your registration number handy.

John Courcoul

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