Mac stalls during startup

Hi Leo,

Try running Repair Disk: Boot from install disc (insert disc>restart>immediately hold down c key and keep holding it until you see “Preparing Installation”)>at first screen go to Installer Menu>open Disk Utility>select your HD in the panel on the left side>click Repair Disk at bottom of main window. Run this at least twice, and keep running it until it says “appears ok” twice in a row. If that doesn’t happen, you may need a stronger utility such as DiskWarrior or you may have a damaged HD (Repair Disk can only repair the directory structure, not the HD itself).

Post back with results.

Hi, Leo. In addition to tjk's suggestion, which I can't make out whether you've already tried: if you have a bootable CD or external hard drive that will allow you access to the desktop (an OS installer CD won't), start up from that disk and trash the offending oversized file from your internal HD.

Your HD is probably just too full (or thinks it's too full) for the OS to function at all.

In Disk Utility, repairing permissions on the hard drive must be done when you're booted to the hard drive, not when you're booted to a CD. Conversely, DU's Repair Disk routine can only be run when you're booted to a volume other than the one needing repair.

Leo: The procedure you've been using to Repair Disk is exactly right. If you wanted to Repair Permissions, though, you'd have to be able to boot to your hard drive first. Because you're unable to boot to your HD, and yet you mentioned trying to Repair Permissions, I pointed out that under present circumstances that won't be possible. Sorry if my post was confusing.

IF your FireWire hard drive has a bootable OS on it — which you'd have to have installed on it or cloned from your internal drive — you can boot the PB to that drive. Connect the drive to the PB, turn the drive on, hold down the Option key, select the external drive as the startup voloume, and allow startup to complete. Assuming that the overly-full internal hard drive then mounts on the desktop normally, you should be able to open it up in the Finder, locate the monster file, trash it and empty the trash. This is all academic, though, if there's no bootable OS installed on the external drive — which you'll know is true if it doesn't appear as a selectable startup volume when you hold the Option key down at startup.

In that case, it might be wise to look for another Mac to which you could temporarily connect your PB in FireWire Target Disk Mode. You could then trash the monster file by accessing your PB hard drive from the host Mac. This could be accomplished in five minutes at an Apple dealership, using a demo Mac on the showroom floor, if you have no other options and can find a helpful dealer. I propose this option because I don't know where to suggest you look for a bootable CD that allows Finder access, unless you have the hardware, software, and knowhow to burn one. I don't believe I have one myself. I don't need one, because my backup hard drives are all bootable.

Is it an easy procedure?

Download the freeware Carbon Copy Cloner and use it to create a bootable clone of the internal hard drive on the external. The external drive will then be an exact duplicate of the internal drive, and you can boot to either one.

If the external drive is big enough, create two partitions on it, each large enough to contain a full backup of the internal. Then you can alternate between replacing first one, then the other backup clone with a new full clone at whatever intervals you normally back up your internal drive. That way even if something goes terribly wrong after you've allowed CCC to erase the old clone you're replacing, you'll still have another backup that's only one cycle old.

Of course if the external drive fails, you lose BOTH backups — so having a third backup on other media is a good idea if you can afford it, and if the importance of your data warrants the extra care. You can always burn your most critical files to CDs or DVDs for emergency backup, but that's slow and laborious.

Note that before backing up your internal drive, it's always a good idea to make sure everything on it is cleaned up and in first-rate order so that a) you don't copy a lot of unnecessary cache files and other dross to the backup, and b) you don't make a defective copy containing damaged and unusable files. The basic steps in doing this are to Repair Permissions, Repair Disk, and run Background Maintenance before cloning.

Hi Leo,

I have done Disk Utility about 6 times on it but it just comes up with the same message it did earlier today.

"Repair attempted on 1 volume
HFS volume repaired"

That's telling you that DU is fixing something each time you run it, but because it also fixes something on the next run, it hasn't completely repaired your HD directory.

This could be caused by a really messed up directory, or it could be caused by hardware issues with your HD, which no utility can fix.

Some options:

-Continue running Repair Disk until it says "appears OK," or "cannot repair," or you get tired of it.

-Buy a stronger util like Disk Warrior and see if it will repair your directory.

-Reformat your HD (I'd zero it) and install everything over again.

Note that if your HD is having hardware issues, nothing short of replacing the HD will resolve your issue.

Hi, Leo. I gather you must have another OS X-capable Mac on hand, from which you were able to install the OS on your external drive.

If that's the case, and if you can use FireWire TDM to access the HD in the Powerbook, try to copy everything important (not including the operating system) from the Powerbook to the internal drive on the other Mac (assuming there's room for it there). Do what you need to do to get all that important data backed up, because I think — given that Disk Utility isn't able to put you back in business — you would do best to reformat the internal drive, reinstall your OS and all applications onto it from original source disks, and only after verifiying that it's working properly, copy your data back onto it from your backup.

If you had another disk utility application such as Diskwarrior, it would be worth running that from the host Mac to try to rebuild the directory on the internal drive. But since the nature of the problem on that drive at present is really unknown — you haven't seen the error messages from Disk Utility that usually indicate problems DiskWarrior is able to fix — I don't recommend spending money on another disk utility at this point. I think reformatting will be the nearest thing to a sure cure.

1) What do you mean by 'zeroing' the internal HD?

From your install disk, open DU, select the HD mechanism on the left, and select Erase>Options>Zero all data. This could take well over an hour.

2) Once I've formatted the internal HD and reinstalled OS X how do I verify that it's working properly

After repairing permissions, I'd run Repair Disk again and see if you get the proper "appears ok" twice in a row. If so, I'd simply use the machine for a few days and put it through all its paces before I'd really trust it again. At that point, take the time to transfer your data files back (you could also do that right away and maintain up-to-the-minute backups, but if there is still an issue, it could be a waste of time).

Hi TJK (or anyone else)

I have a similar problem - I can't boot up.

What happens if in Disk Utility, I get the msg:
Repair attempted on 2 volumes
1 HFS volume repaired
1 volume could not be repaired

(I tried to re-install OS 10.3 but couldn't complete the process)

Thank you for any input! Jeff