Load of /sbin/launchd failed, errno 2 - CRT iMac

Question

Level 1

14 points

Load of /sbin/launchd failed, errno 2 - CRT iMac

Hi,

I've been working on my parents' iMac, which was booting to Darwin. I followed the instructions in another thread and booted to single user mode, and then did the /sbin/fsck -fy. This produced a massive stream of errors to be corrected - it went for pages and pages. I didn't write it down, because I didn't expect to be locked out, but it was lots of different errors. It seemed to be correcting things, but then it got to something about a directory or header file, and it stalled on the message **Look in the lost-found something something for the missing files**. At this point it died...I gave it some time, and when it was obvious nothing was going on, I hesitantly forced a reboot.

Now in a single-user boot I can't even get to a command prompt. I wrote down some of the last few lines displayed:

BSD root diskOs5, major 14, minor 5
jnl: journal start/end pointers reset (some number strings in here)
Load of /sbin/launchd errno2, trying /sbin/mach_init
Load of /sbin/launchd failed, errno2

And that's where it stops every time. Is it bricked? I'm afraid I don't know what their model is, but I believe there were running the latest Mac OS compatible with a CRT iMac - I recall putting more RAM in the machine so they could upgrade the OS a year ago, maybe.

Many thanks...

Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Oct 27, 2008 9:12 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Oct 27, 2008 11:34 PM in response to Aadamm

Have you tried restarting from the optical drive, using the Mac OS X installation disc?

If it has a slot for loading the disc, it's commonly referred to as a "slot-loader"; it can run up to Tiger (10.4.11). If it has a tray that pops out instead of a slot, it's called a "tray-loader"; it can only go up to Panther (10.3.9).

You can start up from the optical drive by inserting the disc and restarting (or starting) with the C key held down. You can let go of the C key when you hear it making continuous access sounds. Once you get to the Installer's screen, go up to the menu bar to Utilities and select to run Disk Utility (if the disc is for Panther, the command in under the Installer menu).

See if the internal drive shows up on the sidebar. Depending on whether there is valuable data on the drive or not (data that's not backed up), you may or may not want to immediately try a +Repair Disk+ in Disk Utility. Please post back if you can actually get to this point with the internal drive visible in Disk Utility.

Reply

Answer 2

Aadamm Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 4, 2008 8:28 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Okay, booting from disc, I found the following:

It's a PowerMac 4.1, PowerPC 750, 600 MHz w/ 512 MB RAM, running 10.4.11.

Disk repair initially encountered all the same problems I had through darwin: a massive list of errors that, if not identical to the darwin list, was very similar. It couldn't be repaired after 3 attempts.

I then repaired disk permissions.

I then ran disk repair again. This time, it encountered precisely 3 errors on each run through, as follows:

"Checking Catalog file.
Invalid number of thread records.

Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Invalid volume directory count.
(It should be 77535 instead of 77502)
Invalid volume file count.
(It should be 307559 instead of 306992)."

After the three attempts, I would get the following:

"The volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired after 3 attempts.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit.

1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
Repair attempted on 1 volume
1 volume could not be repaired"

I then found the Apple Hardware Test CD that came with the iMac, booted from that, and ran the extended test. Everything passed.

If this isn't repairable, would I be able to access their hard drive with my laptop, or can it not network if it doesn't boot up properly? They have some things they'd like to recover...

I very much appreciate your help.

Reply

Answer 3

Nov 6, 2008 12:18 PM in response to Aadamm

Since it's a slot-loader iMac (600 MHz), you can use a feature called FireWire Target Disk Mode.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661

You can then connect the iMac to your other Mac using a FireWIre cable (assuming it also has a FireWire port). Now, the iMac's hard drive will (hopefully) appear as an external FireWire drive on the other Mac's Desktop. If that works, immediately attempt to copy off all the valuable user data on the iMac's hard drive to the other Mac. Then, if the other Mac has sufficient free storage space, you may want to make a disk image of the iMac's hard drive using Disk Utility. After the image file is created and saved to the other Mac, make sure it can be mounted and accessed.

At this point, you should try using Disk Utility on the other Mac to repair the iMac's hard drive. If the other Mac has Leopard, it has a newer version of Disk Utility so it may be able to do the fix.

If that does not work, and you don't have third party utilities such as DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro to try, you should probably erase the iMac's internal drive using Disk Utility. After erasing completes, go to the Restore tab in Disk Utility. Make that disk image file the Source and the newly erased internal drive the Destination. Check the box for +Erase destination+, and click the Restore button.

If that process completes successfully, use +Repair Disk+ again to make sure there are no errors on the iMac's internal drive. Then, unmount the iMac's internal drive and disconnect the iMac from the other Mac, and attempt to start it up normally.

If it does start up and operate normally, great... If not, you may have to start up from the Mac OS X installation disk for 10.4.x and use the installation option for +Archive and Install+. This this give you a fresh system while retaining the user's account and data. Be sure to run Software Update a few times to install all the updates.

Worst case (if +Archive and Install+ does not make the Mac bootable), you will have to use the +Erase and Install+ option and then separately restore the user's data from that disk image.

Please post back if there are any questions about the above, or you don't get passed one of my many "if" statements. 🙂

Reply

Answer 4

Aadamm Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 18, 2008 3:04 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Well, erase and install was the only option. It would appear on my iMac via firewire, accompanied by a warning that it was "unrepairable and was available only in a limited fashion." I was unable to back up or recover anything, but, ultimately, not that big a deal. They were happy to get it working again without putting $dollars$ into it.

Thanks for your help.

Reply