You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

mtu Author

Level 1

1 points

Invalid content in Journal - how to mount? how to backup?

Hello all,

Can mount my second HD anymore (no Icon on the dsktop).

Disk Tool reports the follows:
Started verify/repair volume (filesystem) on disk disk0s3 HD2
*Invalid content in Journal*
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume
Checking Extents Overflow file
Checking Catalog file
... and so on ...

Repairing shows success, but it's not really successfull because if I run the verify a second
time, the error apears again and the disk is still unmountable.

Did a lot of reading in the www.
Found this:
http://dmunsie.wordpress.com/code/hacks/
but did not help for me.

Some hints goes to DiskWarrior. But just for a try, 100$ is quite a lot.

Tryed to create a dmg with command:
dd bs=65k if=/dev/disk0s3 of=/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Backup/HD2.dmg conv=noerror,sync
it works (need 14 hours!) bit I can not open the dmg (error: file damaged).

Does anyone have a hint for me.
Thanks very much
Michael

From the SysProfiler: (sorry in german!)

ST3500630AS:

Kapazität: 465.76 GB
Modell: ST3500630AS
Version: 3.AAK
Seriennummer: 9QG1RTER
Wechselmedien: Nein
Absteckbares Laufwerk: Nein
BSD-Name: disk0
Protokoll: ata
Einheiten-Nummer: 0
Socket-Typ: Serial-ATA
Name des Schachts: "A (upper)"
Treiber für Mac OS 9: Nein
Partitionstabellentyp: APM (Apple Partition Map)
S.M.A.R.T.-Status: Überprüft
Volumes:
HD2:
Kapazität: 465.64 GB
Beschreibbar: Ja
Dateisystem: Journaled HFS+
BSD-Name: disk0s3
Mount-Point: <<<<< Mount-Point lost!! <<<<<<<

G5, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Feb 19, 2008 2:00 PM

Top-ranking reply

waj3

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Feb 29, 2008 12:59 PM

I just had this problem on my daughter's Macbook. I eventually resolved it by running:

/System/Library/Filesystems/hfs.fs/hfs.util -N /dev/disk0s2

Though I see in your case it would be disk0s3 instead. 🙂 Hope this helps!

View in context

36 replies

Jul 17, 2008 8:52 PM in response to Fumes

Did you type the command correctly? I don't recall "rdisk" but just "disk1s2"

Grantb2

Level 1

20 points

Jul 27, 2008 10:28 PM in response to waj3

THANK YOU for the tip to disable journaling and then mount in Disk Utility. Seems to be working like a charm.

My problems started around the time I set up an Airport Extreme earlier this week with Airdisks for the first time. I think I ended up causing this drive to hang one time too many and then turning it off without ejecting it first. They always warn about the possibility of file corruption from this, but it's the first time I've seen it happen.

Anyway, the disk mounted fine in Disk Utility after running the command line in Terminal, but I did get the "Don't count on this" warning, so I'm doing a file-level copy to another disk (don't want a true image, in case that copies over the journal errors), then will reformat the flaky one and see if it holds up over time.

Someone else mentioned not trusting WD drives because of this, but it seems to me - in my case at least - it's probably not a hardware issue. I hope.

michalon

Level 1

0 points

Aug 3, 2008 10:20 AM in response to waj3

Merci mille fois,

J'avais le probème sur un iomega 1 tera en raid 1

/System/Library/Filesystems/hfs.fs/hfs.util -N /dev/disk1s10

Cette petite ligne de commande a sauvé mes données !!!
J'avais essayé disk warrior qui n'avait rien pu faire !!!

Merci encore

Aug 21, 2008 8:53 PM in response to waj3

Thanks a lot for the advice, worked perfectly.

ch26

Level 1

0 points

Sep 12, 2008 6:15 PM in response to Fumes

Got the same error. Try prefacing the command line with "sudo" and it will ask you for your password. This worked for me.

BPizzo

Level 1

0 points

Oct 4, 2008 8:30 AM in response to stevewhitemd

Yup, thanks i thought my life waas over when i woke up one morning and saw my hard drive not mounted, i tried drive genius but came up with the same result as dixk utility (Invalid content in Journal), then i copied the code into the terminal "disk2s3", pressed enter and my life was filled with joy again.

just one question will this affect me in the future would it be wise to back up now, incase it corrupts my HD for life?

Thanks
BPizzo

RGregH

Level 1

16 points

Oct 22, 2008 1:14 AM in response to waj3

his solution is spelled out nicely here:
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20080627103757208

Summary:
{quote}
Fix First, with the problematic drive connected, run the following command in the terminal:

* diskutil list

This will list the volumes on the drive, and give you their identifiers. Locate the drive's volume name, and get the identifier for that drive, and then run the following command to remove the journal on the device:

* /System/Library/Filesystems/hfs.fs/hfs.util -N /dev/IDENTIFIER

NOTE: The "IDENTIFIER" should be something like "disk0s3"

After these commands have been run, try mounting the drive again with Disk Utility. You should be able to re-enable journaling on the volume after it mounts. {quote}

CraigT54

Level 1

8 points

Nov 1, 2008 7:02 AM in response to sstoll

Shazamm! I'm a new man. It worked for me to. Had to use the "sudo" before the command then found that I was off a digit on the identifier. I had to run it twice but on the second time I got all of my pictures back - thousands of them. I am off to the store to buy a second back up. Thank you, Thank you. Still having trouble with a second partition but I got the main stuff I wanted. Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

j2thaB

Level 1

0 points

Nov 14, 2008 1:23 AM in response to ddev2000

Thank You SO much for the additional information...

I tried the /System/Library/Filesystems/hfs.fs/hfs.util -N /dev/disk1 buisness but without being able to get a list of the current drives I had no luck! You Little Ripper!!! I now have al my data back and am backing it onto another drive.... you're a lifesaver!
Cheers!!

tklstuff

Level 1

0 points

Nov 22, 2008 4:38 PM in response to j2thaB

Hello, could I get some assistance for a novice here (me)? I have the same "invalid content in journal" issue on my daughter's iBook G4 running 10.5.5. I get a kernel panic during the boot and have to shut down. If I boot with the Leopard Install disk I can get to Disk Utility, but as been mentioned before, repairing the disk appears to work, but really doesn't.
I've never used Terminal and don't even know how I would get there since I can't boot the computer. I don't own the current TTP or DW so I'm looking for a different option. Any help would be appreciated, please use "non-technical" terms or I probably won't get it. Thanks. Larry

tklstuff

Level 1

0 points

Nov 22, 2008 8:55 PM in response to tklstuff

Disregard my previous post please. I figured it out. I was able to access the offending HD using the target disk mode. Typed in the magic phrase in Terminal and was then able to mount the disk. Repaired the HD with Disk Utility and so far so good. Larry

nocr

Level 1

15 points

Nov 26, 2008 9:48 AM in response to mtu

but WHY?!?!?

Dec 3, 2008 8:25 AM in response to waj3

I'd just like to echo many of the other people in this thread and say many many thanks.

This solved my problem and allowed me to rescue my 45gb iTunes library. I'm now planning to get a couple of new disks to make sure everything is backed up regularly.

Jan 22, 2009 5:36 PM in response to waj3

Is there any way to turn journaling back on? I tried running the same command with the -J option instead of -U but it says the volume is not an HFS+ volume. However, when I get info on the volume in Disk Utility it says that its MacOS Extended.

After doing some research I discovered that I have one of those Seagate drives with the bad firmware that causes the drive to stop responding for several minutes. I disabled the journaling thinking there was a problem with the disk, but it turns out its just a bug in the firmware. I'd like to turn Journaling back on without having to reformat...

Feb 2, 2009 8:19 PM in response to nocr

Just wanted to say THANKYOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Had to get info on my raid drive and change the disk to disk7 and i have just got back 1.4 TB of clients video archives!!!!!(Amongst other valuable client data) yeeeeeha !!!

Invalid content in Journal - how to mount? how to backup?