Strange Mac HD Crash incident

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Strange Mac HD Crash incident

A bit of background information. When I tried to boot the Mac Pro as usual on April 18 I was presented with the following, which I have never seen before. Unfortunately the only way to present this is with a camera shot, so please excuse the lack of quality. As a matter of fact, never have I seen this particular window - OS X Utilities.

Since I have three clones of my Mac HD Sys&Apps, I started up on BootClone-1. I had work to finish and couldn't find time to track down the possible cause(s) of this issue, although I did try a couple of approaches , all to no avail.

On April 18, determined to find a fix, I used Disk Utilities from BootClone-1 to try to clean up the Mac HD partition on my master drive. Disk verification showed as “OK”. Permissions verification showed a couple of problems, so I ran permissions repair. I then repeated these steps to make sure the results were the same in each case. I was going to post this on the 18th, but decided to erase the MadHD partition on the master drive and clone back from BootClone-1. Another reason for doing this was to somewhat defray that partition, using the clone process. I had noticed that Mac HD on the master drive was, according to Drive Pulse(Disk Genius), about 40% fragmented, so it seemed like a good way to possibly cover both issues. Below are the screen shots for the Disk Utility tests. Since the test results seemed to be good I assumed that the problem might reside within the OS. I have been using the Mac HD partition on the master drive since with no boot problems. That is, until this morning. Again, the same initial boot screen, except this time it reverted to BootClone-1 to boot on. Of course that took one step out of the procedure, but I am now faced with the same issue I had less than a week ago. My Mac HD on the main drive will not boot. I can work from the clone, but when one of these drives goes down I also lose an activation on one of my apps, since the clone does not carry that activation with it, something I didn’t realize until this happened. One thing that came to mind this morning is the fact that when I initially erased the Mac HD partition in preparation for the clone, I didn’t erase with all zeros as I probably should have. Is it possibly that there might still be a piece of software residing on the disk that is preventing a proper boot? I would like to somehow recover that disk, if only long enough to deactivate one app in case it crashes again.

Well there, I think I have been able to put this in a somewhat logical order, and probably far too wordy as well. If anyone has a guess as to the possible cause of this it would greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Gary

Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), 3-1TB HDs, 2-2TB HDs, NEC PA271W

Posted on Apr 23, 2015 10:01 AM

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Answer 1

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John Galt

Level 10

141,444 points

Apr 25, 2015 5:17 AM in response to Garnick

Is it possibly that there might still be a piece of software residing on the disk that is preventing a proper boot?

"Disk Genius", perhaps.

Don't use such garbage. Don't bother "defragmenting". All such utilities can possibly accomplish is to accelerate a hard disk's eventual failure through needless wear. At best, they are an absolute waste of time. Drag them to the Trash or use their uninstaller utility, as appropriate.

Hard disks are inexpensive wear items. As long you have a reliable backup strategy, you should discard a hard disk at the first sign of failure. To learn how to use Time Machine readMac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac - Apple Support.

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Answer 2

Garnick Author

Level 1

77 points

Apr 24, 2015 8:39 AM in response to John Galt

Hello John,

I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. Thank you for the reply. As a matter of fact I had just uninstalled Disk Genius on my BootCLone-1 before I posted. I had the same thought that it might have something to do with that app. The only part of the app I used was Disk Pulse, the section that automatically scans disks and offers information and warnings, such as the one I included concerning fragmentation(44% on Mac HD). The only method I use to "defrag" is sort of built into the cloning app that I use(SuperDuper). I have always noticed that my boot clones seem to boot faster and the apps work more smoothly as well. Then I saw an explanation for this on the forum and also on the SuperDuper site. I've always figured that since I am already cloning my boot drives, it likely would not be necessary to use any other app to defrag. That, plus the fact that I am always rather leery about having a third party app scanning my HDs. I had also thought that it might perhaps be the HD that's at fault here. I use only WD Black HDs and this one is not quite 3 years old. I've never had a HD go south that quickly. As a matter of fact, during all of the years that I've been using Macs in my business and at home I have only had 1 HD that I had to replace. I have an old LaCie(approx 10 years) that seems to be exhibiting some problems now, but I'm not at all concerned in this case. I have a very reliable backup routine for my work(photographic and other graphics) and have never felt the need for Time Machine. However, I think I might take a closer look at it after this problem. Actually, since I have boot clones and can be back to work within a couple of minutes, the only regret I have concerning losing my Mac HD volume is that fact that I also lose one activation of an app that will not carry that activation to a clone. Unlike the other apps that require activation, this one simply will not work on a clone drive without using another activation code. I may have to devise a routine for that as well, since I don't want buy another license.

By the way John, one more question. Would Disk Utility not be able to identify a drive that is heading south in time to recover information before it actually happens? And as far as third party utility software is concerned, what is your opinion of Tech Tool Pro? I have it but haven't had time to familiarize myself with it yet.

Thanks again for your reply and advice John.

Gary

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Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

141,444 points

Apr 24, 2015 1:26 PM in response to Garnick

Would Disk Utility not be able to identify a drive that is heading south in time to recover information before it actually happens?

Sometimes. Disk Utility reports S.M.A.R.T. (or SMART) status on supported drives. If SMART indicates a failure, the hard disk is very likely to fail within a few weeks of having first detected an uncorrectable error. Sometimes, SMART will indicate normal status despite communications failures having been logged by OS X. Sometimes they will fail catastrophically with no warning at all. For that reason there is no avoiding the necessity of a backup strategy.

... what is your opinion of Tech Tool Pro? I have it but haven't had time to familiarize myself with it yet.

I'll let TechTool Pro's own support document speak for itself:

http://www.micromat.com/support-45/knowledgebase/techtool-pro-8-knowledgebase/te chtool-pro-has-found-bad-blocks-what-do-…

Solution: erase the volume, if it happens again replace the drive. Really? You don't need a clever utility to tell you that.

Besides, I disagree that erasing a failed drive in an effort to fix it is worthwhile. There was a reason it failed. Unless that reason is identified and corrected, it is guaranteed to occur again, probably in a very short amount of time. Failed drives should be erased, destroyed and discarded, not "repaired" just so they can fail again.

Most failures on desktop systems are the result of unavoidable age-related wear or environmental contamination. For portable Macs, add mechanical abuse and even more environmental stress as a consequence of being portable. None of those causes gets any better with the passage of time, nor is there any practicable way of avoiding them. Using clever "disk doctors", "defragmenters", "scanners" or similar utilities to constantly or even periodically scan disks for possible troubles only contribute to their eventual demise.

TTP and similar utilities might be used to "repair" a damaged HD for the purposes of extracting whatever data remains intact, after an irretrievable data loss event has already occurred. If you have a viable Time Machine backup or "clone", you won't have lost anything, other than what may have been changed since the last backup (one hour at most for Time Machine). As long as you maintain a viable backup strategy, TTP and its ilk can do nothing beneficial.

HDDs have become too inexpensive not to replace at the first sign of failure. SSDs are rapidly becoming economically viable replacements for them. Unfortunately they also fail, but for different reasons, and you still need a backup strategy.

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Answer 4

Garnick Author

Level 1

77 points

Apr 25, 2015 10:09 AM in response to John Galt

Hello again John,

Well, the beat goes on unfortunately. Since the original incident when Mac HD on the master drive wouldn't boot I've been working on BootCLone-1. This morning the Mac bypassed BootCLone-1 and started up on BootClone-2. From there I tried to restart on BC-1, but it's a no go. Keep in mind that all of my BootClones are separate partitions on separate HDs. The HD with BC-3 installed had two partitions, the second empty. I resized the second partition and installed a fresh OS X 10.9.2. I have a lot of apps and it's essential to my business that I have a dependable working drive with OS and Apps installed. I spent about two hours installing a couple of apps that I use all of the time, but then had to get back to work. I switched back to BC-2 and back to production. I've used Macs for many years, but I am certainly no expert in some of the inner workings of the machine. Obviously there's a bit of software built in that looks for a bootable drive on startup. That seems to be reasonable, but I have no idea what that particular bit of software is called.

Question: Is it possible that the startup software has somehow been corrupted, therefore not allowing the computer to find a boot drive and keep searching until it does? When I go to SysPrefs>Startup Disk all of my boot drives appear. I don't understand why that would be the case if those drives are indeed no longer bootable. I also find it very strange that two drives, less than three years old, would go south within a week of each other. For some reason I thought that WD Black HDs were very reliable, but perhaps I was mistaken. I never leave the computer on when I leave work, but I think I'll be doing that today. I'm concerned that Monday morning my BC-2 may not boot. Could this perhaps be a virus or malware issue? If so, what's the best approach?

Gary

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Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

141,444 points

Apr 26, 2015 9:42 AM in response to Garnick

The question is why is your Mac's native boot picker is repeatedly failing for you, and I don't have the answer to that question. I agree that multiple simultaneous failures are likely to have a common cause, and not individual drive failures.

Are you using any Western Digital drive utilities - anything at all? If you are, uninstall them. They may be known as "Smart Ware" or "drive utilities" or "drive monitors" or words to that effect. Other drive manufacturers such as Seagate have similar utilities with similar names. Those things should never be installed on any Macs, so look for them. If you need help finding them write back for suggestions.

For reasons I do not understand, Western Digital drives often appear to have many (a dozen or so) very small and probably completely useless partitions. I don't know what creates them but I do know that I do not see that on anything other than WD drives. Other than that oddity, which I have yet to observe on any of the systems I personally use, WD drives themselves have been as reliable as any other.

Could this perhaps be a virus or malware issue? If so, what's the best approach?

Nothing is completely impossible, but given a worldwide installed base of approximately 80 million Macs, not a single one of which have been affected by a "virus" that does what you describe, my opinion is that it's not worth another moment's thought. What is likely is that pursuing an "anti-virus" solution for what you describe will result in abject misery, so my recommendation is don't start down that road.

Reset your Mac's NVRAM if you have not already. It remembers startup disk selections, among other things:

NVRAM reset:

Shut down your Mac.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

After resetting NVRAM or PRAM, you may need to reconfigure your settings for speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, and time zone information. If issues persist, your Mac's logic board battery (not a portable Mac's rechargeable battery) may need to be replaced. The logic board battery helps retain NVRAM/PRAM settings when your computer is shut down. You can take your Mac to a Mac Genius or Apple Authorized Service Provider to replace the battery on the logic board.

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Answer 6

Garnick Author

Level 1

77 points

Apr 26, 2015 11:29 AM in response to John Galt

First I must thank you for taking the time to travel down this road with me, very much appreciated. I've been using Macs of various flavours and vintages for many years and have never fallen into a predicament like this one. I have noticed an occasional circumstance when the Mac Pro at work would not shut down as I was about to shut the door and go home, so I would typically hang around for at least 10 minutes and finally shut down manually, hoping it would boot properly the next morning. Luckily, those "next mornings" always found the Mac booting up normally.

Something I noticed last week, but forgot to mention. I had opened the Activity Monitor to check the memory usage. I have 32Gb installed in that machine, and to my amazement all but 2Gb were being used, and I hadn't opened any apps, nothing. I checked it several times on different days and the readings were virtually the same. That seemed very unusual to me and I had a feeling that could be the source of the problem. I don't know why I had not mentioned that, but checking back this morning I realized I hadn't. When I started up my Mac Pro here at home I immediately opened the Activity Monitor. In this machine I have 16Gb of RAM and only 5-6 Gb were in use. I opened several large image files in Photoshop and then opened Lightroom. With all of that activity, the highest memory usage shown was approximately 12Gb. I do not know what governs the system memory usage etc, but I have to believe that with so little head room it would not even attempt to boot the machine from certain drives. I am now wondering what will happen tomorrow morning when I try to boot up. However, as long as it does actually boot on one of the drives I'll be satisfied for that day, since I have work to complete. I know the Macintosh HD drive on my home machine is in good working order, so I have cloned it to an external USB drive and will then clone to the Mac HD on my work machine and see what happens from there. I hope you might have some ideas/suggestions concerning the memory usage situation I described above on the problem Mac Pro at work.

As far as the WD Software that comes with the drives(and other brands as well), the first thing I do with a new drive is TRASH that stuff, then empty the trash and be done with it. I have no idea what sort of issues it might cause, so I don't bother with it at all. And as far as the possibility of a virus is concerned, I was only throwing that out there out of some feeling of desperation I suppose. I have never, nor will I ever use Anti-Virus software on a Mac, unless prescribed by Apple or other Mac experts.

I will try the NVRAM/PRAM reset in the morning before doing any further cloning etc. I have replaced the logic board battery on a G5 but never on a Mac Pro. However, I doubt it would be much different or beyond my capabilities. I'll check the battery number and order one.

Thanks again John,

Gary

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Answer 7

John Galt

Level 10

141,444 points

Apr 28, 2015 10:11 AM in response to Garnick

For some reason the reply I composed earlier isn't appearing for me... another ASC glitch I suppose. You may or may not be able to see it.

Anyway, what I recommended was posting a new question in the Mac Pro forum, regarding the NVRAM battery replacement, assuming the Mac Pro uses one. I doubt the cause is related to the startup drive capacity or memory, though it's strange that nearly all 32 GB are being used given identical software. If anything is causing a repeated failure to boot from your preferred volume, it is far more likely to be related to NVRAM.

You're definitely going about fixing it the right way.

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Answer 8

Garnick Author

Level 1

77 points

Apr 28, 2015 10:58 AM in response to John Galt

Actually I did post the battery issue on the Mac Pro forum last Sunday. Most of the replies agreed with what I had found elsewhere. The issue being that in the manual it is emphatically stated that the battery number be the same as recommended. Unfortunately that battery seems to be out of circulation now. That was the BR2032 and seems to have been replaced by the CR2032, one with which I am quite familiar. Same voltage etc, so most of the replies suggested there should be no problem using that battery. I then called the local Apple Store and they were essentially useless. Told me to call MyApple. Since I no longer have Apple Care I won't be doing that unless it's the last resort. I now have two new batteries(CR2032). I am now down to my last BootClone(external SATA), the only one the Mac will access. So far it is still booting properly and I'm able to get work printed and keep my customers happy. I've decided to keep working with this clone until the weekend. Then I'll take all of the steps you have suggested and not worry about work. I did actually apply the NVRAM reset, but that didn't work. Of course if the battery is dying a slow death I don't know if the NVRAM reset actually did any good at all. After I install a new battery I will redo the NVRAM reset and then see if the machine will boot up. Well, there's the latest update on my journey down the road of computer frustration, something I have very seldom experienced with Macs.

One stupid question. Last week I once started up while holding the Option key and chose the drive I wanted to boot from. Of course that didn't work, but this week I'm drawing a complete blank. I'm sure I have this procedure recorded somewhere but cannot locate it now. The problem is that I have hardly ever used this procedure, so I can never remember whether to hold down just the Option Key or the Option+Command keys. And, do I hold them down before or after the chime. As I said, a complete blank on this week, so I would appreciate it if you would set me straight before wasting more time at it. I'll keep you posted on my journey, but likely no until the weekend.

Thanks John,

Gary

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Answer 9

John Galt

Level 10

141,444 points

Apr 28, 2015 11:30 AM in response to Garnick

Hi Gary,

Here is Apple's description for Startup Manager:

Turn on or restart your Mac.
Immediately press and hold the Option key. After a few seconds, the Startup Manager appears. If you don't see the volume you want to use, wait a few moments for Startup Manager to finish scanning connected drives.
Use your mouse or trackpad, or left and right arrow keys to select the volume you want to use.
Double-click or press the Return key to start up your Mac from the volume you selected.

That temporarily selects the startup volume. The preferred selection is made with System Preferences, and that's the selection NVRAM stores. A dead battery should only result in a very long startup as it searches everywhere for a bootable volume, but corrupted NVRAM can cause a number of problems that really ought to be fixed by replacing its battery.

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Answer 10

Garnick Author

Level 1

77 points

Apr 28, 2015 12:26 PM in response to John Galt

Thanks for that John. I now have it safely stored in what I believe is a logical location. Time will tell I imagine. I'll be in touch after I have installed the new battery and tested the startup drive(s). So far, it would seem that perhaps the battery is indeed enjoying its last days, since until yesterday and today I was losing access to one BootClone every other day or so. In my former post I mentioned that since I now seem to be on a somewhat stable boot drive I might wait until the weekend to install the battery and reset the NVRAM again. However I'm now beginning to think that perhaps I should do all of that before it creates a worse scenario, as per your words(A dead battery should only result in a very long startup as it searches everywhere for a bootable volume, but corrupted NVRAM can cause a number of problems that really ought to be fixed by replacing its battery.) I think I'll probably do some maintenance as soon as I finish this rather large job.

We'll talk later,

Gary

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Answer 11

Garnick Author

Level 1

77 points

Apr 29, 2015 8:38 AM in response to Garnick

When I shut down yesterday I had been working on BootClone-3, same as Mon & yesterday. However, when I started up this morning it bypassed BC-3 and went to a fresh system install that I had been working on last Sat. Now I am indeed down to my last boot drive. Or to put it another way, the last boot drive that the computer will recognize. As usual, Mac HD and all of the boot clones are shown in SysPrefs>Startup Disk as well as when I use the Startup Manager, but they will not boot. I replaced the battery, quite a job. Had to remove the video card and fan assembly to gain access, but it's done. I tested the battery I removed and it tested GOOD. I tried to start up before resetting the NVRAM, but of course it went back to the fresh system drive. I shut down as normal and then followed the procedure to reset the NVRAM, but I'm still having the same issues. I dare not shut the computer down this evening before I leave, since I might not be able to access any of my boot drives tomorrow morning. I've never been one to leave the computer on 24/7 or even overnight, due to an unpleasant experience I encountered a few years ago on a G5. I guess I'll have to take my chances the next few nights and probably take the computer to a repair shop this weekend if nothing is working by then.

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Answer 12

Garnick Author

Level 1

77 points

Apr 29, 2015 9:50 AM in response to Garnick

Question -- Do you think this might be a faulty board? As I mentioned, I did reset the NVRAM, but have the same issues. I could try to use StartupDIsk in SysPrefs to boot from a clone, but I'm rather leery about that approach at the moment. It seems that since this problem started, whenever I try to select another boot clone to start up on there's the possibility that I will then lose access to the drive was booted on before. It's sort of a domino effect somehow. I'm running out of options I believe, but perhaps you can think of something else I might try. Just a thought.

Gary

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Answer 13

John Galt

Level 10

141,444 points

Apr 29, 2015 11:31 AM in response to Garnick

That is certainly possible. You really ought to post a question in the Mac Pro forum — I see that you asked about battery replacement, but I would post another one regarding the boot volume problem. There are a few Mac Pro experts there and I'm not one of them.

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Answer 14

lllaass

Level 10

210,417 points

Apr 30, 2015 10:34 AM in response to John Galt

The poster had posted in the Mac Pro forum twice. I responded to the first post there. Now both post in the Mac Pro forum no longer appear.

He posted a third-time in the Mac Pro forum asking about why it is not showing

General Forum Question

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Answer 15

Garnick Author

Level 1

77 points

May 1, 2015 9:47 AM in response to John Galt

Hi John,

Back again, but with better news this time. Yesterday I brought my Mac Pro from home to my business, thinking that I might have to use it here. It has all of the apps I use for work and is mostly up to date overall, so it would work quite well if needed. However, before I started changing cables and connections I did something I had thought of about a week ago. I removed one of the BootClone drives from the home Mac and inserted it in the HD Dock, after I had shut down the work computer of course. I then started the machine, not knowing what might happen, or if the Startup Manager would recognize the external BootClone drive. I had been working on the "fresh system" drive I created for the past few days(not a lot of fun) and I had no idea if the Mac would start up at all without that particular drive. To my delight, after about 1 minute I noticed the power light on the dock blinking, signifying that it was being called on to perform. Since it is an external SATA connection it did of course take a bit longer, but it booted with all of my familiar apps etc, ready for work. I shut down as usual last evening and this morning the machine booted up very nicely and I've been working since. I think I'll probably work with this drive for a couple more days and then clone it over to my internal Mac HD volume.

I don't know if you recall, but I had mentioned that I noticed in the Activity Monitor that the computer was using almost all of the 32Gbs of RAM I have installed, which I found rather disturbing. The Activity Monitor is an app that I hardly ever use, but it has certainly come in very handy this past week+. Once I was booted up on the external BootCLone "home" drive yesterday I noticed that it still had the Drive Genius(Drive Pulse) app running, so I immediately uninstalled it and checked the Activity Monitor again, which was till showing a very high memory usage. That was rather disappointing, but I was sure I could somehow figure out what's running in the background at some point and perhaps take care of that situation. However, so far today(still on the external BC) the memory usage has been about 1/3 of the total RAM installed. Obviously the restart had a lot to do with that. The only thing I can surmise from this is that Drive Pulse must be a memory hog. Kind of makes sense to me, since its task is to constantly scan all of the HDs for possible errors etc. I agree, GARBAGE software! As a matter of fact, I did post on the Mac Pro group but there was a problem. I received a few replies but then the post simply disappeared. One of the replies was from "IIIaass" who posted here as well. He mentioned that the initial screen I saw looked a lot like the screen presented for the Recovery Disk. Since I had never seen it before I imagine he was correct, although I had certainly not initiated the Recovery Disk. He also mentioned that my memory usage could have been the culprit and that the computer didn't have enough memory left to start up. That sort of makes sense as well as well, since none of my BootClones would start either. I haven't yet tried to start from one of the BootClones, but I will once I have cloned over from the eSATA drive back to the internal Mac HD. So far I've been doing the work I would normally do(mostly Photoshop related) and the memory usage is steady at about 1/3. So, with all of the gyrations, manipulations and consternation, it would seem that perhaps an intrusive app may have been the main culprit in all of this and that your initial reply was RIGHT ON John. But even though I did uninstall that app it may have been too little too late. I'm hoping everything is going to work properly once I clone back to Mac HD internal and I'm sure it will.

Before I finish I have one more question. I posted this on the Mac Pro group last week and most replies were "NO". Can you think of any logical reason to occasionally leave the Mac Pro on overnight? Some folks I have talked to here leave the computer on 24/7, something I would never do, for various reasons. However, as I mentioned, almost all of the replies on the Mac Pro group indicated they would never do that. One more thing. I had an app named "Checkmate"(from Micromat - Tech Tool Pro) running for a while. It placed an icon in the menu bar. Yesterday I opened the app and changed that preference to not show the menu icon. Then I trashed the app and all preferences. However, today the menu icon it back. Of course I cannot open the app, since it,s no longer installed. Question -- how can I get rid of that menu bar icon?

Thank you for all of your help here John. I may call on you again sometime, but I'll try not to be so wordy.

Gary

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