file vault- corrupted sparse image- data loss?!!!

I didn't try disk warrior. For one it isn't cheap to buy. I went onto their webssite to try and get some help as to whether it will fix my -9972 error, which is preventing my sparesimage from mounting. But I couldn't find any answers. I'd hate to buy something and find that it was useless for my problem. Techtool was also suggested but I found nothing on their website to suggest it would fix my problem.

I'm annoyed that Apple would release a program with such an annoying fault, and then not tell us how to get round the problem.

Hi guys, same problem as you can see posted elsewhere on this site. I tried diskwarrior and no joy !! Looks like we're screwed !!

To use sudo, you must be logged in to an administrative account. The password you supply needs to be the password of that administrative account.

I'm terribly sorry to hear this. On the off chance that it's still there, the commands

sudo /bin/zsh
find / -type f -name 'sparseimage' -print 2>/dev/null

should show it. The command will take a while -- it isn't done until the prompt reappears.

Did you by chance keep a log of what you tried and what happened at each step?

Hey guys-same problem here-have you heard of any solution to this problem, or am I simply out of luck and have twenty hours of homework to redo. Atleast I'm not alone in this pain. My days of defending Mac to the death may soon be over.

Hello Sonic,

"I went onto their webssite to try and get some help as to whether it will fix my -9972 error, which is preventing my sparesimage from mounting."

You might find the following useful in dealing with your -9972 error:

The following was contributed by Fumiaki Kawashima. Edited by Kappy.
The error message, "Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)" is a serious filesystem error in the Mac OS X Core Foundation. The problem can also lead to other critical errors such as "Keys Out of Order," "Invalid node structure" and/or "Invalid sibling link." The causes and scenarios vary. Troubleshooting a solution may depend upon computer configuration and whether the -9972 error is accompanied by other critical errors. This issue can also lead up to a kernel panic. If the error occurs when an external FireWire device is connected, disconnect it until you verify the device's compatibility.

Symptoms:
In most cases, you are unable to restart from Mac OS X.
* A volume is grayed out or not mounted with or without a kernel panic.
* A folder with a flashing question mark may appear.
* A bad partition map may be reported.
* A target disk mode solution may not work.
* Most likely, Disk Utility, Norton Utilities, TechTool and DiskWarrior cannot fix the issues.
* The high level disk format (Standard format) may unable to perform.
* You may unable to re-initialize the hard drive.
* A disk physically malfunctions in the worst case.

Example of an accompanied error message:
DiskWarrior normally fixes 1 to 6, but cannot fix errors 7 to 10 if the symptoms are very bad. There is no definite case.
01. Volume check failed
02. Invalid B-tree Header
03. Invalid map node
04. Invalid extents entry
05. Invalid clump size
06. Incorrect block count file
07. Invalid node structure
08. Overlapped extent allocation
09. Keys Out of Order
10. Invalid sibling link

Possible causes:
* Third-party FireWire device or enclosure, or other peripheral devices.
* Third-party mass storage drives or PCI card issues.
* Incompatible third-party kernel extensions.
* Mac OS X installer disc is improperly treated.

HTH

Jeff

Wow, talk about horrible timing. I keep a mirror image of my PowerBook G4 80GB on an external FireWire 80GB drive. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to make regular mirror images. I am leaving for a trip in a few hours and decided to backup the laptop before I go. I booted into a root account, did a DiskUtility check on my powerbook drive (all was OK) and erased my external drive, and then ran Carbon Copy Cloner. A few hours later I found that everything had cloned EXCEPT the Users folder. I decided to do a manual copy only to find that now I cannot log into my own PowerBook as myself and my sparse.image sparse image is not even visible to me as root after an attempt to repair it with DiskUtility led to a "Keys Out Of Order" error. I am amazed at the terrible timing and the worst luck. Now I have an external drive with none of my personal files there (as they had been erased for a fresh copy) and the PowerBook hard disk has lost all my original data. Anyone have any ideas on what to do to recover the data!!

Imran

I had been able to see my sparseimage when I had this problem. The way I saw it was to boot off root account or an external drive. I mounted the sparseimage as a disk imran on my desktop. I should have used that to pull the data out. Instead I thought Disk Utility should be used. Unfortunately, when I ran Disk Utility to repair the sparseimage it proceeded to say there were Keys Out Of Order and then the sparseimage disappeared. So DISK UTILITY actually DAMAGED me. Anyone reading this, if you do not want to lose everything, try to drag data out of your mounted sparseimage to an external disk before you try Disk Utility.

Imran