Critical directory information erased - help please

I was running Tech Tool Pro 4.0.4, while running their version of defragging application, it (the app not me) chose to do 2 hard drives at one time, the application froze.
So 2 HDD’s were stopped in the middle of the defragging. So next, of course, the drives would not show up or mount.
So I ran disk warrior 3.0.3 and I get the message
“The directory of the disk “XXXXXXX” cannot be rebuilt. The disk was not modified. The original directory is too severely damaged. It appears another disk utility has erased critical directory information. (3004, 2176).
All the data is still is still on the HDD’s (500 + gigabytes) is there any chances of saving the data? Just have to find a way for something to recognize that it exists, right – I hope?
If I go out and bought another HDD of equal space, could anything be done?
I do not know anything about Linux or Unix, but is there any chance that could help me?
Do I have any choices? Do I have any chance to get the data back?
I am on a Power Mac G4 digital audio 533mhz, with upgraded sonnet CPU, 1 gig of ram, running 10.4.3
Thank you in advance for any help you will bring me.

Boy, this is not the first time I've seen users report serious directory damage from defragging! Defragging is not neccesary for the average Mac owner, unless they do alot of video editing.
This won't help you now, but I don't do anything to my Mac, repair wise, unless I have a bootable clone of my main drive, made with SuperDuper, installed on my external FireWire drive. I then make sure my external is disconnected so it can't be accidentally repaired by a utility. I learned this the hard way when my main drive and my external were destroyed in a similar way as yours. I lost all my data. Had to re-enter 7 years of financial data, off of paper copies, so Quicken would be usable to me again!
But, at that time I did not know DataRescue existed. If this free demo "sees" your stuff, you'll need to buy the full version to recover everything. This is a program that won't damage your directory more as it retrieves data.
Once you get your data, I would do the following;
This is the best way to Erase and Install. First backup all your important stuff, if you can, as the following will erase everything on your drive; it will be unrecoverable. Put your install disk in your Mac and Restart while holding down the C key. In Tiger, When you get to the install screen, don't click install and go to the title bar at the top of the screen and click on Utilities (in earlier OS's click on the installer menu).
Click on Disk Utility and choose the hard drive you want your OS on. Then click on the Erase tab. In Tiger, click on the Security Options button near the bottom (it's similiar for Panther and Jaguar).
Once in there choose Zero Out Data (write zero's in earlier versions). This will map out any bad blocks on your drive and bring it back to almost new condition (providing there's nothing wrong mechanically with it, bad bearings, defective or damaged surface, etc.).
Once this is done, go back to the install screen and begin the "Erase and Install" installation. This will put a factory fresh system on a clean hard drive and end your directory damage.
I wish you Luck!
Cheers!
DALE

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GUI array information cycler help please

I currently have a program that has 3 classes. Basically one class is the main and has some information hard coded that it submits to one of the other classes. The second class takes that information, formats it and sends it to the third class. The third class creates an array, takes the information from the second class and has a display method that the main can call to display the information.
The program basically spews out all the information in the array in a specific format. The array elements contain strings, ints and doubles. The third class also calculates some things that are displayed with the display method in main.
What I need to do is create a third class. This class needs to make a GUI to display the information. I currently have the programs display method display the information in a GUI but I need it to display each element one at a time with a NEXT and PREVIOUS button. The next button needs to go to the next array element and the previous button obviously needs to go back to the array element.
Here is the code.
// Inventory Program
// Created June 20, 2007
import java.util.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class Inventory4 {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        CD cd;
        Inventory inventory = new Inventory();
        cd = new CDWithGenre(16, "Disney Hits", 11, 13.01f, "Soundtrack");
        inventory.add(cd);
        cd = new CDWithGenre(12, "The Clash", 10, 19.99f, "Classic Rock");
        inventory.add(cd);
        cd = new CDWithGenre(45, "Dixie Chiks", 18, 10.87f, "Country");
        inventory.add(cd);
        cd = new CDWithGenre(32, "The Cure", 62, 25.76f, "Alternative");
        inventory.add(cd);
        cd = new CDWithGenre(18, "MS Office", 27, 99.27f, "None");
        inventory.add(cd);
        inventory.display();
    } //End main method
} //End Inventory4 class
     /* Defines data from main as CD data and formats it. Calculates value of a title multiplied by its stock.
      Creates compareTo method to be used by Arrays.sort when sorting in alphabetical order. */
class CD implements Comparable{
    //Declares the variables as protected so only this class and subclasses can act on them
    protected int cdSku;
    protected String cdName;
    protected int cdCopies;
    protected double cdPrice;
    protected String genre;
    //Constructor
    CD(int cdSku, String cdName, int cdCopies, double cdPrice, String genre) {
        this.cdSku    = cdSku;
        this.cdName   = cdName;
        this.cdCopies = cdCopies;
        this.cdPrice = cdPrice;
        this.genre = genre;
    // This method tells the sort method what is to be sorted
    public int compareTo(Object o)
        return cdName.compareTo(((CD) o).getName());
    // Calculates the total value of the copies of a CD
    public double totalValue() {
        return cdCopies * cdPrice;
    // Tells the caller the title
    public String getName() {
        return cdName;
    //Displays the information stored by the constructor
    public String toString() {
        return String.format("SKU=%2d   Name=%-20s   Stock=%3d   Price=$%6.2f   Value=$%,8.2f",
                              cdSku, cdName, cdCopies, cdPrice, totalValue());
} // end CD class
     //Class used to add items to the inventory, display output for the inventory and sort the inventory
class Inventory {
    private CD[] cds;
    private int nCount;
     // Creates array cds[] with 10 element spaces
    Inventory() {
        cds = new CD[10];
        nCount = 0;
     // Used by main to input a CD object into the array cds[]
    public void add(CD cd) {
        cds[nCount] = cd;
        ++nCount;
        sort();
     //Displays the arrays contents element by element into a GUI pane
       public void display() {
        JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea();
        textArea.append("\nThere are " + nCount + " CD titles in the collection\n\n");
        for (int i = 0; i < nCount; i++)
            textArea.append(cds[i]+"\n");
        textArea.append("\nTotal value of the inventory is "+new java.text.DecimalFormat("$0.00").format(totalValue())+"\n\n");
        JFrame invFrame = new JFrame();
        invFrame.getContentPane().add(new JScrollPane(textArea));
        invFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        invFrame.pack();
        invFrame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        invFrame.setVisible(true);
     // Steps through the array adding the totalValue for each CD to "total"
    public double totalValue() {
        double total = 0;
        double restock = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < nCount; i++)
            total += cds.totalValue();
return total;
     //Method used to sort the array by the the name of the CD
private void sort() {
     Arrays.sort(cds, 0, nCount);
} // end Inventory class
// Subclass of CD. Creates new output string to be used, adds a restocking fee calculation and genre catagory to be displayed.
class CDWithGenre extends CD {
     String genre;
     CDWithGenre(int cdSku, String cdName, int cdCopies, double cdPrice, String genre) {
super(cdSku, cdName, cdCopies, cdPrice, genre);
this.cdName = cdName;
          this.cdCopies = cdCopies;
this.cdPrice = cdPrice;
this.genre = genre;
// Calculates restocking fee based on previous data.
public double restockFee() {
     double total = 0;
     double restock = 0;
     total = cdCopies * cdPrice;
     restock = total * .05;
return restock;
// New output method overrides superclass's output method with new data and format.
     public String toString() {
          return String.format("SKU: %2d     Genre: %-12s     Name: %-20s     \nPrice: $%6.2f Value: $%,8.2f Stock: %3d      Restocking Fee: $%6.2f\n",
cdSku, genre , cdName, cdPrice, totalValue(), cdCopies, restockFee());
}// Ends CDWithGenre class

Hey Michael,
I edited the code to add some more features but I am having some errors. Can you help again?
Here is the code
The additional buttons are for features I need to add. The commented part that says save need to save to a certain location.
But the problem I am having is with the previous and next buttons. I need them to loop so when Next reaches the end of the array it needs to go to the first element again and keep on rolling thru. The previous needs to roll back from element 0 to the end again.
This works when the program is not stopped on the last or first element. If I press the last button then press next, it errors. If I press the first button and press previous, it errors.
I also need to add an icon
Let me know what you think. Thanks a bunch
class InventoryGUI
Inventory inventory;
int displayElement = 0;
public InventoryGUI(Inventory inv)
    inventory = inv;
public void buildGUI()
    final JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea(inventory.display(displayElement));
    final JButton prevBtn = new JButton("Previous");
    final JButton nextBtn = new JButton("Next");
    final JButton lastBtn = new JButton("Last");
    final JButton firstBtn = new JButton("First");
    final JButton addBtn = new JButton("Add");
    final JButton modifyBtn = new JButton("Modify");
    final JButton searchBtn = new JButton("Search");
    final JButton deleteBtn = new JButton("Delete");
    final JButton saveBtn = new JButton("Save");
    ImageIcon icon = new ImageIcon("images/icon.jpg");
    JLabel label1 = new JLabel(icon);
    JPanel panel = new JPanel(new GridLayout(2,4));
    panel.add(firstBtn); panel.add(nextBtn); panel.add(prevBtn); panel.add(lastBtn);
    panel.add(addBtn); panel.add(modifyBtn); panel.add(searchBtn); panel.add(deleteBtn);
    //panel.add(saveBtn);
    JFrame invFrame = new JFrame();
    invFrame.getContentPane().add(new JScrollPane(textArea),BorderLayout.CENTER);
    invFrame.getContentPane().add(panel,BorderLayout.SOUTH);
    invFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    invFrame.pack();
    invFrame.setSize(500,200);
    invFrame.setTitle("Inventory Manager");
    invFrame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
    invFrame.setVisible(true);
    prevBtn.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae){
        nextBtn.setEnabled(true);
        displayElement--;
        textArea.setText(inventory.display(displayElement));
        if(displayElement <= 0) displayElement = 5;
    nextBtn.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae){
        prevBtn.setEnabled(true);
        displayElement++;
        textArea.setText(inventory.display(displayElement));
        if(displayElement >= inventory.nCount-1) displayElement = -1;
    firstBtn.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae){
        firstBtn.setEnabled(true);
        displayElement = 0;
        textArea.setText(inventory.display(displayElement));
    lastBtn.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae){
        lastBtn.setEnabled(true);
        displayElement = inventory.nCount-1;
        textArea.setText(inventory.display(displayElement));
}

I tried installing Yosemite from 10.6.8 and the install failed. Ran a check and disk needs repai but "repair disk" isn't an option (greyed out). Can't start up under old 10.6.8 because it says "could not gather enough information." Help, please!

startup disk fail

Not lame at all. It's annoying that in order to salvage a disk the "official" way is reformat it. It's just a lack of documentation.
Diskwarrior is actually a software from Alsoft. www.alsoft.com
It's been around for ages and usually it's the last resort when everything else failes.
If you don't have the software, you could try one option.
Restart the malfunctioning computer and press T when you hear the startup sound. This will start the computer in transfer mode. You will see a huge firewire icon on the screen that just floats there.
Connect the computer to a healthy mac with a firewire cable and it should appear as a HD, just as an external hard drive would. (don't worry if it doesn´t)
Open Disk utility and in the left pane the malfunctioned Hard drive should appear. Run disk repair on the HD if possible. Once the repair disk has finished, with our without errors, open a new finder window and select the external hard drive.
You could backup the data on the Drive at this stage onto the healthy computer... just to be safe.
On the root of the Malfunctioned Disk there should be a folder named "OS X install data" or something like that. Basically something that normally would not be there...
Delete that folder.
Run Disk repair once again in Disk Utility. If successful, reboot the machine and see what happens.
If that does not work at all, then perhaps you should consider purchasing Disk Warrior. Run the same process as before, connecting the malfunctioning mac via firefire, but this time run Diskwarrior on the healthy machine, locate the malfunctioning HD and select Rebuild for that Hard drive. It will take a little while but once its done processing it will ask you if you want to copy the new build, select yes. That did it for me at least.
I hope that helps. You could check the app store or search online for software that is similar to Diskwarrior, there's probably some app that does the same thing. The only reason I used Diskwarrior is it has proven a good utility for Mac breakdowns and I've used (rarely though) it for years.

I erase my mac book pro to factory setting and cannot re-install the software. I received a message saying my Apple ID has not yet used with the App store. Please review your account information. Could anyone help please. I need to re-install my os.

I erase my mac book pro to factory setting and cannot re-install the software. I received a message saying my Apple ID has not yet used with the App store. Please review your account information. Could anyone help please. I need to re-install my os.

Use Internet Recovery. You shouldn't need an AppleID. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718
Internet Recovery will install the OS that shipped with the Mac. You can then upgrade to Mavericks if that was not it.
Do you have an App Store account? Did you ever use it to install the OS?

I made a dumb decision to 'Erase Free Space' on my drive. I now have no free space, I realize because it wrote 0's over all my free space. Is there a way to undo this??? Help please I can't save any documents now! Thanks in advance all, it is truly apprec

I made a dumb decision to 'Erase Free Space' on my drive. I now have no free space, I realize because it wrote 0's over all my free space. Is there a way to undo this??? Help please I can't save any documents now! Thanks in advance all, it is truly appreciated. how can find the hidden temporary files using the terminal what do i type in?

It's more likely a failed Erase Free Space, which creates a huge temporary file; that's why it looks like you have no more available drive space. You can recover from this. See these links
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http://www.macgeekery.com/tips/quickie/recovering_from_a_failed_secure_erase_fre e_space
Post back if you need any help with this.

I am trying to open PDF files from safari, but when I click on them they open in a separate window and the information is encrypted. Any ideas on how to get them to open them in Adobe? Any help please!

I am trying to open PDF files from safari, but when I click on them they open in a separate window and the information is encrypted. Any ideas on how to get them to open them in Adobe? Any help please!

The pdf is loading as html code. If you save it, it will download as :
605124.pdf.html
Change the extension to .pdf
And it opens and works perfectly, I just tested it:
Use this link to download it automatically:
http://saladeaula.estacio.br/arquivo.asp?dir=00/1020624/605124.pdf&num_seq=59828 4

My ipad mini does not restart when i press and hold the home and power buttons for a minute or more. what do i do? i really need to access some information on it. please help.

my ipad mini does not restart when i press and hold the home and power buttons for a minute or more. what do i do? i really need to access some information on it. please help.

You need to connect to iTunes and restore.
iOS: Not responding or does not turn on
You may need to put the device into recovery mode, this is covered in the link on this page.
Did you back up the device?

Bought a new macbook and want to manually manage music onto my iphone 4s but when i click 'manually manage' and then 'apply' i get the message saying it will erase everything already on there. Need help please!

Bought a new macbook and want to manually manage music onto my iphone 4s (as it is already full of music from old windows laptop) but when i click 'manually manage' and then 'apply' i get the message saying it will erase everything already on there. Need help please!

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I'm trying to sync my iphone in IPhoto. I get this message "our MobileMe account information is not correct. The provided login or password is not valid." when I click on the "Open MobileMe Preferences" button, it doesn't take me there. Help please.

I'm trying to sync my iphone in IPhoto. I get this message "your MobileMe account information is not correct". "The provided login or password is not valid." when I click on the "Open MobileMe Preferences" button, it doesn't take me there. Help please.

Mobile me has been discontinued for over a year. What system and iPhoto versions are you running?
How are you trying to sync? With Photo Stream or thru iTunes?
Do you have an iCloud preference pane in your System preferences?
Do you meet the minimum requirements for iCloud and Photo Stream?
iCloud: System requirements
iCloud: Photo Stream FAQ
OT

Hi I need help please .... I have my credit card information in my account ... But I wanted to delete

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Hi, Ajchenicholas.
Credit cards attached to an Apple ID can be removed and payment method changed to none as long as there is not an outstanding balance. The article below will walk you through this process.
iTunes Store: Changing account information
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1918
You can always add an iTunes Gift Card to your account at any time. Here are the steps that will walk you through adding an iTunes Gift Card.
iTunes Store: How to redeem a code
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1574
Cheers,
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Hi,
See Here
Transfer from Old to New
http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Setup.html

Previously i set up iphone 5 same user (account) with my brother.. Now i want to set up as my own User... but try to Erase all content n settings and plug in itunes to set up as a new iphone but it's keep sync with my brother phone ... help please ?

previously i set up iphone 5 same user (account) with my brother.. Now i want to set up as my own User... but try to Erase all content n settings and plug in itunes to set up as a new iphone but it's keep sync with my brother phone ... help please ?

I recommend that you
Create a NEW account/ID for her using these instructions. Make sure you follow the instructions. Many do not and if you do not you will not get the None option. You must use an email address that you have not used with Apple before. Make sure you specify a birthdate that results in being at least 13 years old
Creating an iTunes Store, App Store, iBookstore, and Mac App Store account without a credit card
Use the new ID on her iPod but only for:
Settings>Messages>Send and Receive
Settings>FaceTime
Settings>GameCenter
and Settings>iCloud
Continue to use the same/common Apple ID for Settings>iTunes and App stores so you can share purchases.

HELP PLEASE! I logged in with my iCloud account and merged her contacts with mine how can I undo this If i log out her contacts erase and stay on my iPhone and visa versa

HELP PLEASE! I logged in with my iCloud account and merged her contacts with mine how can I undo this If i log out her contacts erase and stay on my iPhone and visa versa

One of you will need to migrate to a separate iCloud account, then you can delete the other person's data from each account.
To migrate to a new account, start by saving an photo stream photos that are not in your camera roll to your camera roll. To do this, open your my photo stream album, tap Select, tap the photos, tap the share icon (box with upward pointing errow), then tap Save to Camera Roll. Then go to Settings>iCloud, tap Delete Account, choose Keep on My iPhone when prompted, provide the account password to turn off Find My iPhone when prompted, then sign in with a different Apple ID to create the new account and choose Merge to upload your data.
You can then each to to your iCloud accounts on icloud.com from your computer and delete the other person's data from your account.

Critical directory information erased - help please

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