What is com.apple.pkg.basesystem.bom? Unable to defrag.

askhollib wrote:
I am attempting to install Boot Camp on my computer, but I have a partition that was created by Time Machine. I decided to defrag my system with iDefrag as others had found success, but I received the following error mid defrag:

+Unable to defragment+
+There was a hardware problem accessing your volume (e.g. a bad block or loss of power) and iDefrag cannot continue. The file that iDefrag was working on was: /private/var/db/receipts/com.apple.pkg.BaseSystem.bom.+

First question is - what is that file? I've never encountered it so I don't even know its function in my system. Second, can anyone tell me why I would encounter this error? And third, how can I rectify the situation?

Any responses would be appreciated as I have been working on this for the past two days and I'm just going to go and buy a Windows machine and say sod the trouble.

Keeping you Time Machine backup in another partition on the same drive is a poor plan. The most likely reason to lose anything is for the disk to die with your plan you lose everything when the disk dies. What good is that.

Secondly, Boot Camp only works when you have single partition so that it can create the second partition on which you are to install Windows.

My suggestion is to get an external drive and start using it for backups with TM.

Then you will need to reformat you drive back into a single partition in order for Boot Camp to work properly.



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Allan


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I'm petty sure Time Machine has nothing to do with the problems you're describing.

com.apple.pkg.basesystem.bom is a receipt file that tracks what versions of all the files in the base system package are installed on your system. The fact that iDefrag is encountering problems with this file could be a sign of a failing hard drive. Use something like SMART Utility (free trial) to check.

If you are unable to get Boot Camp Assistant to re-partition your drive because it cannot move a file then I would suggest you backup your Mac system. Wipe the drive. Create the Windows partition. Migrate your Mac data back on from your backup. Annoying process but it'll get you where you want to be.

The /private/var/db/receipts/com.apple.pkg.BaseSystem.bom file my be corrupt, locked or
actually sitting in a bad sector. Mine is 4.1 mb, yours should be about the same size. You can
view the contents of the file with Pacifist ( http://www.charlessoft.com/). The file is a record
of permissions of your SL's system files. IT is used by the repair_packages program during
permission repair operations (in conjunction with disk utility). If not corrupt, the output in
Pacifist will look similar to finder's hidden file output of the root directory tree.

In any case, copy the file then delete it. If corrupted, just delete it. It doesn't change over time,
so you can replace it with an earlier copy from your time machine backups. If it is damaged
and/or locked, you may have trouble deleting it. Trashit! may help, or the rm command
(in Terminal.app). Be sure you are backed up before dragging out the heavy artillery.

Worse case scenario, backup and do a secure erase.

Most likely it is not a bad sector, because bad sectors typically occur towards the beginning
of the drive, but if a laptop got struck or dropped, a glitch on the platter could occur anywhere
the heads were positioned at the moment of impact. If the platter damage is severe, then a new
drive will be in order. Also, though, a corrupt directory entry will cause a file to corrupt. A third
party utility like Disk Warrior can repair that. Mac file system is famous for directory structure
problems and usually disk utility can't help, short of an erase.

OBTW, I see you have iDefrag. If you also have iPartition, you can drag boot camp to the trash
and set your windows drive up any way you please (within reason) using iPartition.

Kj