Q: Repairing Boot Camp after creating new partition

Oh - I also get that rEFIt has nothing to do with the disk problems. But getting rid of it may make it easier to get into Single User Mode, was what I thought

Single user mode

fsck_hfs -r /dev/rdisk0s2

You're looking for the message "The volume <name> was repaired successfully. ****The volume was modified.****"

It's normal for this to take a while, especially on the Rebuilding catalog B-tree step. It's normal to get some errors like Invalid volume file count, and that the Volume header needs minor repairs.

If you get anything else repeat the above command; if you get the same error message as before, you'll need to forego the recapture of space by file system resize/merge, get Windows booting again, make a backup of that - and then prepare to totally repartition/erase the drive and restore from backups.

Whether successful or not, the correct way to reboot is to type reboot then return.

OK, thanks!!

I will retry the fixes for the drive errors in a little while and get back to you.

But how do I get the Bootcamp up again?

Try going into Disk Utility, clicking on the Mac B partition, and deleting it with the minus button. In theory you'll now have four partitions instead of five, and Disk Utility should recreate the hybrid MBR that will enable Windows to boot.

OK. I first did the singleuser commands. They seemed to work, I got ** The vol Macintosh HD repaired successfully **** and The volume was modified.

However, I also got "hfs_mount: hfs reload returned 5 on Macintosh HD", and

üpdate/reload: mount for / failed: Input/output error"

Then I did the removal of the Mac Stuff partition using Disk Utility. It removed it, but the Bootcamp is still not bootable. My diskutil list returns:

So what now?

mount for / failed: Input/output error

That's not reassuring. Go to Disk Utility, click on the drive (not the volume name, the one size make model), then click on the Info button in the tool bar. There should be a line S.M.A.R.T. Status - copy paste everything below that to the forum.

Back in Terminal, type this and report the result:

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Christopher: Here is the info

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0:

Signature: 0xAA55

------------------------------------------------------------------------

4: 0C 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 300509184 -  189724672] Win95 FAT32L

You wrote to Berend de Mayer

Ok anytime you have to use the power switch to force off power, you've going to have some level of JHFS+ corruption. The journaling doesn't make it any safer, it just makes repairs go faster. So I suggest you reboot in single user mode (with command s) and

fsck -fy

<wait>

then do

fsck_hfs -r /dev/rdisk0s2

<wait>

fsck_hfs -Ra /dev/rdisk0s2

fsck_hfs -Re /dev/rdisk0s2

I gulped because I have sometimes had to force off power. The first time I booted into single user mode and ran these commands, it seemed to me I got a performance boost. Today, I finally enabled TRIM support on my SSD. (I could not enable it successfully by the approach that emphasizes editing this file:

/System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBlockStorage .kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage

but Mountain Tweaks.app did the trick.

Because I forced power off once, I booted into single user mode, but the results of

fsck_hfs -r /dev/rdisk0s2

were woeful indeed, as you can see here. I was not sure how to interpret ****REBOOT NOW*****. When I typed reboot, it kicked an error that reboot was not a single user mode command. So, I type exit, with further woeful results. I finally had to force off power. When I rebooted, I saw what I have never seen before, the progress bar for fsck being force-run at boot.

Several further iterations of the above have not produced different results. My machine will boot, and I'm using it to post this. What you you advise?

Other possibly useful information follows.

In Disk Utility, selecting the entire device, and hitting the info button:

          S.M.A.R.T. Status :           Verified

____________________________________________

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

myuser$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Password:

Disk: /dev/disk0          geometry: 14593/255/63 [234441648 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

         Starting       Ending

#: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -  234441647] <Unknown ID>

2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused     

3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused     

4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused     

myuser$

Carbon Copy Cloner or Time Machine a backup. Reboot off the Recover HD, select the troublesome volume and "erase" it (which is a reformat). Then restore from backup.

Ideally, before you do intentional destruction of your primary data, you make a 2nd backup. Obviously the instant you destroy the primary volume, your backup is no longer a backup, it's the primary source. So for a period of time you're without a backup unless you first make a 2nd backup. Especially if it's a Time Machine backup started a while ago (it has many incremental backups in it) I prefer creating a 2nd fresh Time Machine or CCC backup and using that for restore.

SMART Status itself is next to useless. You need to copy past everything below that. As for the fdisk result, it indicates your MBR is a protective MBR, which is normal  if you don't have Windows installed using Boot Camp.

And just to be clear about what you're erasing, again you're erasing a volume (reformatting a partition). You're not blowing away the whole disk. So make sure you select the correct thing.

There was nothing below the line I posted. I enabled Debug menu in Disk Utility, but that did not increase the harvest of information.

Re the fdisk result, what do you mean by

your MBR is a protective MBR, which is normal  if you don't have Windows installed using Boot Camp.

I have two internal drives. One, the SSD, is the book drive with no unusual other volumes, and it is GUID, or so I thought.

myuser$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *120.0 GB   disk0

   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1

   2:                  Apple_HFS Contino92               119.0 GB   disk0s2

   3:                 Apple_Boot RecoverySSD             784.2 MB   disk0s3

I will begin to make backups. Should I do one forensic one using dd as you already showed me, or just stay booted and do two with CCC? If  I remember right I boot to single user to use dd with a target in ***.iso format.

boot drive, not book drive

Normally the only reason to inspect the MBR with fdisk on a Mac is if you're using Boot Camp. That doesn't appear to be the case, yet this is a Boot Camp thread so... it's confusing to provide the fdisk result.

If you have the space for it, there's nothing wrong with a dd copy, but that copy will take all of the file system problems with it. So it's not suitable for restoring information. Either CCC or Time Machine will log errors. CCC has its own log to record errors if some files can't be copied. Time Machine errors are found in the Console application, filter with backupd.

And yes for dd it should be either single user mode (read only file system).