Please help! Invalid node structure and invalid record count

"I went out and bought Disk Warrior. Got home expecting to fix everything and Disc Warrior won't boot."

You inserted the disk and rebooted while holding down the c key? Have you the latest version of DiskWarrior? If yoy still have issues with the disk then contact Alsoft. You other option is to reformat the hard drive which erases everything.

When you contact Alsoft, make sure you let them know that you are using Snow Leopard (10.6.8).

Try the following in the meantime -

Disconnect all peripherals from your computer.

Boot from your install disc & run Repair Disk from the utility menu. To use the Install Mac OS X disc, insert the disc, and restart your computer while holding down the C key as it starts up.

Select your language.

Once on the desktop, select Utility in the menu bar.

Select Disk Utility.

Select the disk or volume in the list of disks and volumes, and then click First Aid.

Click Repair Disk.

Restart your computer when done.

Repair permissions after you reach the desktop-http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2963 and restart your computer.

Try DiskWarrarior again if it's combatible with the os system.

YOu cannot reformat until you get your issue corrected.

Disk Warrior may be able to repair the invalid node structure, so that it might be possible to mount the disk and retrieve your data. However, it is very likely some has already been lost for good.

It is also possible that the hard disk cannot be repaired at all, and even if you can repair it I would no longer rely upon it.

You don't have to spend $1000 on a new MacBook. You can simply replace the hard disk. They are not expensive or difficult to replace.

I realize it's too late for you, but an external backup device can be purchased for not much more than the cost of Disk Warrior.

Invalid Node Structure is not a hardware failure, it never was (you may still have a hardware failure, but the Invalid Node error is not indicative of this problem.

Still, Disk utility will certainly fail to fix it, and DiskWarrior will probably fail too.

But don't despair. Try this, and don't give up till you've tried it at least three times.

First, get the name of the partition of the failing volume. You can get it most easily by finding your disk in Disk Utility, selecting your partition (not the drive) and type cmd-i. Look for "Disk Identifier" right at the top.

Then, open up Terminal, and type this:

sudo /sbin/fsck_hfs -yprd /dev/disk5s2

substituting your disk identifier for the one already here. Keep the "/dev/" part. Enter your password, and wait. It may take a while. I have had this fail several times before finally working so its important to keep trying. It's faster than a reformat!!!

If the afflicted disk is your startup disk, you will need to do this in recovery mode: restart the computer, hold down option, and wait for the disk options to appear. Select that, then proceed to Disk Utility and then Terminal as described above.

Good luck, and always keep a backup!

chris watts

Chris, I work IT for a digital agency and your reply to this proplem single handedly saved a Technical Director's main parittion! I cannot express how helpful your reply was and I thank you for your contribution to the community!

Hi Chris,

This command saved my day! Actually my weekend!! And of course all my files 😉

Thank you very much!!!

Hi Chris.

If I run "Disk Repair", all I get are red error messages saying "Invalid Node Structure" and "Invalid Record Count". I can't run the sudo command within Terminal. The command cannot be found or permissions don't exist to run.

Also, as the "Repair Disk Permissions" runs, it's showing "Open error 5" messages. I just want to be able to salvage and transfer all my data files to another computer, and reinstall the OS on my notebook.

How can I solve this problem?

Cheers

This may be a little late, but you should try starting from a bootable OS install CD. and then retry the above steps...

I tried that approach before, but I got the same results.

DiskWarrior recover the directory structure. However, I can replace on the same internal HDD because it's damaged and failing. I just bought a Toshiba Canvio Slim 2 external HDD so that I can transfer my files. This HDD supports both Mac OS X and Windows.

But, DiskWarrior sees it, but doesn't allow to transfer the files (i.e. the "Replace" button is still grayed out.).

What is the workaround?

Thanks.

I have been having the same codes coming up in disk utility when I've started up my computer with installation cd. I also saw a message that was

( node =81) unused node is not erased.

I have tried going into terminal and typing the sudo command but it says no command found or file type not recognized I am sure I found the proper disk code but it doesn't work. Can anyone help me with this?

I simply want to recover my personal stuff off my computer then redo the entire hard drive. I do not want to lose important photos and documents

Hello, I have the same problem!

I've typed in exactly this (after -bash-3.2# appeared):

sudo /sbin/fsck_hfs -yprd /dev/disk0s2

and it quickly says 'command not found'...! Did I do something wrong?

PS: I also have the 'invalid node structure' problem

For those getting "command not found" when running it from the install CD or boot disk:

Instead of typing

sudo /sbin/fsck_hfs -yprd /dev/disk5s2

into the terminal window, you can just type

/sbin/fsck_hfs -yprd /dev/disk5s2

(still replacing disk5s2 with the name of your disk.)