Corrupted Mac OS X Install disk?

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Corrupted Mac OS X Install disk?

I have an early 2010 MacBook which came with Snow Leopard. I had trouble with the permissions for quite awhile; every time I did a software update I would have trouble booting up and would get stuck on the start up screen. Disk Utility and fsck sometimes helped. Last week I could not get anything to work and could not boot it up at all so I took it to the Geniuses at my Mac Store and they said the HD was fine, but obv the software had issues so they did a free Archive & Install. Everything was fine after that.

Then I bought a new HD to use as a back up, and after I got home I realized it was bigger and faster than the one already in my MacBook so I decided to switch them out. Then I installed Snow Leopard from my Mac OS X Install disk onto the new HD. Now I have software issues and permissions issues again. When I do Disk Utility and try to repair permissions it just keeps saying the same permissions are corrupted over and over, and tells me that some of them will not be repaired.

Does this mean that my Mac OSX Install disk is corrupted? How would I go about getting a new one so I can start over clean again without problems? If I take my MacBook back to the Geniuses, I don't know if they will do an A&I for free again, and also, if I ever need the OS X Install disk for future, I'd like to have one that's not faulty.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

MacBook, iOS 5.0.1

Posted on Aug 23, 2012 8:39 AM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

411,193 points

Aug 23, 2012 8:42 AM in response to asismsei

Mac OS X: Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions messages that you can safely ignore - http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448

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Answer 2

Aug 23, 2012 8:46 AM in response to asismsei

If you still have the original internal disk intact, boot from it then reformat the new disk and clone the old one to it with Carbon Copy Cloner or similar.

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Answer 3

asismsei Author

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9 points

Aug 23, 2012 9:57 AM in response to Limnos

Thanks Limnos, but I'm having trouble besides the error messages. My iTunes is giving me trouble (the Store doesn't show up, even when I'm signed in and it can't see my iPhone or iPod) and I'm worried that before long I'll start having start up problems again.

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Answer 4

asismsei Author

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9 points

Aug 23, 2012 9:54 AM in response to Austin Kinsella1

Thanks Austin, I do have the original HD but I upgraded it to Mountain Lion before I switched the drives and I wish I hadn't done the upgrade. I didn't know I wouldn't be able to play any of my Power PC games with ML. I wanted to go back to Snow Leopard anyway.

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Answer 5

Limnos

Level 10

411,193 points

Aug 23, 2012 10:02 AM in response to asismsei

I don't see how a corrupt/bad installer disc would give you permissions errors like that. The installer disc would likely refuse to boot, produce install errors and stop installing, or if it did install a corrupt file your computer would crash or freeze. Not permissions errors.

So, you bought a brand new drive, installed it, formatted it and installed a brand new Snow Leopard installation with nothing else and it is presenting errors?

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Answer 6

asismsei Author

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9 points

Aug 23, 2012 10:06 AM in response to Limnos

Yes, well, the Snow Leopard installation wasn't brand new, it was from the OS X disk that came with my MacBook. After that I installed Applications from the Applications Install disk that came with the computer. Maybe that is the source of the errors?

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Answer 7

Limnos

Level 10

411,193 points

Aug 23, 2012 10:19 AM in response to asismsei

What's the difference between a "disc" and a "disk?" - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2300 - optical cf. magnetic.

Data can become corrupt if it is incorrectly copied, or if parts of the medium holding the data break down. If your disc was physically damaged or breaking down I believe you would see errors I mentioned earlier. Permissions errors suggest to me that the data are copying perfectly well or else you would see file read errors reported. Permissions are set on files that are working. Anyway, your installation is "new" to the extent that you successfully installed it from the disc without errors reported.

Some permissions "errors" are normal with Snow Leopard (link I provided earlier). Are you seeing different ones? Frankly, unless you are saying new permissions errors are appearing all the time and they are not part of the long list in that link then I am not worried about permissions errors.

Have you run Disk Utility and verified your hard drive?

The iTunes Store issue could be yet something else. Right now you're compounding issues and you need to take it section by section. Once you have determined you have a smoothly running operating system then is the time to look at iTunes. If the only issue you are seeing is the iTunes Store and as-yet-to-be-determined-if-significant-permissions-errors then that limits things.

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Answer 8

asismsei Author

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9 points

Aug 23, 2012 12:41 PM in response to Limnos

Thanks Lumnos, I appreciate your thoughts and your time in responding.

I decided to reformat and erase the hard drive and reinstall Snow Leopard just to see what would happen. So I started up the computer to Disk Utility using the OS X Install DVD. I clicked on the name of the HD and then clicked "erase". When that was done I went back to the Snow Leopard Installation screen and went through that process. This is all on the HD that I just bought 2 days ago, BTW.

I know you said the iTunes thing is probably unrelated to any permissions problem, but I wanted to see what it looked like after wiping the HD. So after the OS was installed, the first thing I did after start up was open iTunes. It still does not display the Store or recognize my devices.

Then I rebooted into Disk Utility like you suggested. I verified the disk. It said "Macintosh HD appears to be OK" without any messages about having modified anything.

Then I verified permissions. All it said was something like "Verification of permissions is complete" and didn't give any other report, no error messages, nothing, except that it was complete.

Then I tried repairing permissions, and it did the same thing. Said it was complete without any other messages.

So I guess the permissions and the disk are fine?

Any thoughts on what to do about iTunes? I don't think updating the iTunes software will change anything, as all my software was updated prior to posting this discussion, and I was having the same problem.

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Answer 9

Limnos

Level 10

411,193 points

Aug 24, 2012 2:04 PM in response to asismsei

I am at a loss for things to suggest but perhaps others will have ideas. Since this is a clean installation I would not anticipate anything such as bad settings or even hardware issues. The one thing about a clean installation is it will probably put on an older version of iTunes. You should update iTunes to ensure fullest compatibility with your devices and with Apple's interface.

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