Panther Installation Error - now what?

What kind of installation are you doing: Archive and Install, Upgrade, or Clean? Which particular iMac model do you have? How much free space is there on your hard drive? If you tried an Archive and Install or Upgrade installation did you repair the hard drive and permissions before installation?

Where did your Panther installer disks come from? As I recall 10.3.7 would have been a machine specific version and not the standard retail version. Are the labels black with a large gray "X" or are the labels gray? Is the word Upgrade on the disks? Are these normal Panther installer disks or Software Restore disks from another Mac model? If these disks are from another Mac model, then they will not likely work on your computer.

Denise:

I started off with OS10.2.3 and I'm trying to install Panther 10.3.7 (Instead of doing the combo update).

Yes, you need to install from Disk as you cannot update from 10.2x to 10.3x.

I am not sure what you are trying to do, Denise. If you want to install Panther over 10.2 using the Disks, the best way would be to do a clean install, backing up everything you want to keep and erasing the HDD and installing Panther on a clean disk.

You can do Archive and Install but that is not as clean a process as it leaves any disk or directory problems on the volume. However, even if you decided to go that route you would be well advised to backup your data as there is still a risk of losing your data.

Post back with questions and we can then guide you through the process, if you wish to choose one of these options.

Good luck.

cornelius

You can do Archive and Install but that is not as clean a process as it leaves any disk or directory problems on the volume.

Not exactly correct because you can repair the drive in advance. A better response would be that you should not do an Archive and Install unless the hard drive has been properly repaired in advance. If that is done then the process is clean because there will be no disk or directory problems.

Denise,

You cannot use installer disks for another computer model. The gray labels indicate the disks are OEM and specific to the intended model. You need to use the standard retail version of Panther which is a four disk set. Three disks have black labels with a large gray "X" and the fourth is the installer for XTools.

Sorry. Noob!

A better response would be that you

should not do an Archive and Install unless the hard
drive has been properly repaired in advance. If that
is done then the process is clean because there will
be no disk or directory problems.

This is what I need to do! How do I go about doing this?

To repair the hard drive do the following:

Boot from your OS X Installer. Be sure to use the installer for the version of OS X you have installed. After the installer loads select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (or Utilities menu if using Tiger.) After DU loads select your OS X volume from the list on the left, click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported.

If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (3.0.3 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.0.6 for Tiger) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

If the hard drive is OK, you can quit DU and return to the installer. Then proceed with the installation. When you get to the part where you select the destination disk click on the desired destination disk's icon, the click on the Options button. You will now see your installation options. Select Archive and Install, then continue with the installation.

After the installation is completed you will find a Previous System Folder at the root directory of the hard drive. This contains your old system. You may need to transfer stuff from the old system to the new one, so keep it around for a while. However, once you've transferred whatever you need to, you need to delete the PSF from the hard drive. You can back it up if you wish, but remove it from the hard drive.

To return to the version of Panther you had previously just download the appropriate Combo Updater from Apple's download site and install the update. Use Software Update to complete any other needed updates.

Kappy:

In reviewing this response I find that the option of repairing the volume in advance does not necessarily achieve the same as writing zeros all over the drive as Disk Utility has reported disks as repaired when they had directory problems. With all due respect to your experience and expertise I believe that writing zeros is the best way to insure a clean drive.

That said, I do appreciate your wisdom, and have learned a lot from you.

Good luck,

cornelius

PB G3 Pismo400, 100 GB 5400 Toshiba internal, 1 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) Beige G3 OS 8.6

Cornelius,

When troubleshooting one proceeds from the least invasive procedures to the most invasive. In many troubleshooting cases there is no need to erase the hard drive when repairing will work. Likewise, doing an Archive and Install is a preferred solution to erasing the drive and starting from scratch. However, some procedures like Archive and Install may fail if the hard drive needs repair. Therefore, one should always repair the hard drive before doing an Archive and Install.

Writing zeros to a drive is a security procedure and little more. It is a preferred option if you are replacing one operating system (or version) with another, but is not required otherwise unless a normal erase is not working for some odd reason. Zeroing the drive is not the same as a low-level format. OS X does not come with tools to do a low-level format of an ATA hard drive.

Understand that a "clean" drive, whatever that means, isn't the point. Reformatting or erasing is intended to do two things: 1. Reset the directory blocks; and, 2. Spare out bad blocks. To the best of my knowledge Disk Utility does not perfrom item 2. However, in very few cases do users have disk problems resulting from bad blocks. If they did, they would know it from the noise the drive would make.

Kappy:

Thanks for your patient explanation of your trouble shooting procedures. Because I ran into a lot of overlapping volume structures that kept recurring before changing to a larger HDD I have been particularly wary of Directory problems and want to make sure they do not remain on the volume. Do I understand, from your explanation, that repairing the drive takes care of that? Are there situations in which it may not?

Thanks.

cornelius

PB G3 Pismo400, 100 GB 5400 Toshiba internal, 1 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) Beige G3 OS 8.6

Cornelius,

Overlapping extents can be a difficult problem to fix. If the extent of the problem is mild, then it may be repairable, but Disk Utility generally cannot fix overlapping extents. However, Disk Warrior can although it can take some time to repair a drive where the problem is extensive - hours to days.

It is possible to repair overlapped extents using fsck provided the problem is not too extensive. The following KB article discusses how that's done:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25770.

The following is another discussion of how to fix overlapped extents:

Manually fix Overlapped Extent Allocation Errors without Disk Warrior

Overlapped overlapped extent allocation errors can be the bane of any Mac user's existence. Often, these errors go unnoticed until the problem becomes visible: your Mac might refuse to boot, crash unexpected, or worse, critical data might disappear from the Finder. Disk Utility can detect, but not fix overlapped extent allocation errors, and certain third-party utilities, such as Alsoft Diskwarrior, can fix them, but generally without reporting the consequences.

Overlapped extent allocation error occur when the file system thinks that two files are occupying the same area on the hard disk, hence overlapping on the same "inode," which is the structure which holds the location of the data blocks the file occupies, and also file permissions and flags.

Clearing the "overlapped" or "overallocated" extent allocation essentially means that you'll have to lose some data, because the only way to remove the overlap is to delete the file that's occupying the inode. So, if you suspect, or find out, that the guilty file is a critical system file that resides in one of the hidden system directories such as /etc /var /usr/ or visible system directories such as /System or /Library, and you don't want to reinstall the whole OS (which might not fix the overlapped extent allocation anyway), it's good to have another disk available to copy the files back to your original disk if necessary: a second bootable hard drive or a firewire drive connected to your Mac when you remove the misbehaving file. Just make sure that when you copy the file back to your boot disk that the permissions are correct, so it's best to use the "ditto" command, so that all sticky bits, flags, and permissions are preserved.

In case you didn't know, you don't have to boot from an install CD in order to check for overlapped extent allocations. All you need to do is restart your Mac, while holding down command + S to boot in "single-user mode."

At the command prompt that appears, type:

$ fsck -fy

If you have an overlapped extent allocation, you'll see:

"Overlapped Extent Allocation" (File 123456d)

No matter how many times you run fsck -fy, you'll never be rid of the error.

So, simply issue the following command:

find / -inum 123456 -print

Note the "d" was dropped, or any extra letter that appears after the inode number.

The find will return a file name that matches with the inode number, and the path to that file. If you remove the file then the fsck will not return this error next time you run it.

However, before you can delete the file(s) in single-user mode, you'll need to mount the file system. Type:

$ mount -uw /

When done, issue the "sync" command, and that will flush the write cache so that all pending writes are written from memory to the disk. Also, since most OS X 10.3 Macs use the HFS+ Journaled file system, it might be a good idea to disable the journal before booting into single-user mode by typing:

$ sudo diskutil disableJournal /

then re-enable it when done fixing the overlapped extents and rebooting normally:

$ sudo diskutil enableJournal /


Chris Anderson is a long-time Linux propellerhead who just got his first Mac, an ibook G4, and can't keep his hands off of it. He currently works as a "The Architect" and general visionary for a maker of world-class collectibles.

If the problem is not fixable then reformatting the hard drive is the only other way to repair the drive.

Kappy:

I have found TechTool Pro very effective in dealing with overlapping extents allocations files. (What are extent allocation files, anyway?). Actually, in the days before the replacement of my internal HDD TTP earned its keep. Since my new HDD I don't remember having the problem even once, even though I still run TTP regularly.

Thanks for the info on manual repair of the overlapping volume structures. I will keep it handy and check it out sometime.

I appreciate your taking the time to share your experience with me.

Cheers.

cornelius

An extent is the minimum file allocation block on a hard drive. It is established via the operating system. For example when you format a Mac hard drive the drive is mapped out in data blocks that are 512 bytes in size. However, the operating system may choose to use a larger blocksize when writing files to the disk. OS X uses a block or extent that is 4 Kbytes. In effect this is the smallest amount of disk space that can be allocated to any file even if that file only has one byte of data. It will still occupy 4 KBytes on the disk. If there is a system, software, or hardware error that affects disk reads and writes, then one thing that can happen is that data gets written to the disk but the directory is not properly updated. The result is that one file may have some of its data written over another file. In otherwords overlapping data or extents. Akin to this would be the case where the directory mis-allocates the same data block to two different files.

Obviously the result of such a problem is that some data will be lost in some files. If the problem is not too extensive then it's possible to clean up the directory and recover what is recoverable of the files affected. The user can then repair the file(s) that are damaged.

Unfortunately, if the problem affects critical system files, it can render the operating system non-functional. This would be a sort of worst case scenario.

Power outages and brown outs are very likely to cause overlapped extent problems if they occur at the time disk writes are taking place. Also, memory glitches can also cause the problem. Extensive use of the drive after the problem arises will likely exacerbate the problem. A wise safety precaution is to repair your hard drive immediately after experiencing any kind of power failure. Using a journaled startup volume is also a protection unless the journal file is affected.

Thanks, Kappy. You make it so very understandable.

While we are still in this tutorial, What is an extent allocation file?

Thanks.

cornelius

PB G3 Pismo400, 100 GB 5400 Toshiba internal, 1 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) Beige G3 OS 8.6