Disk is no longer start up volume

I can no longer use my original hard drive as a start up disk. it does not show up in the system preferences.It has tiger on it. I put leopard on another drive and use that to start up, but would like to use the previous one as well for certain applications. the system folder no longer has an "X" on it. any suggestions on how to make the old volume a start up drive again.
thanks

Bad news... You must repair the HD, your best bets are DiskWarrior from Alsoft...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
Data Rescue II...
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
This last one would require another HD with plenty of space to recover to.
Unfortunately, Disk Utility can't fix all that much, and the only other Apple Options are erasing the HD, or installing OSX to a second drive, then using Migration Assistant to move stuff over to the new HD.

Similar Messages

I am trying to do a full Time Machine Backup to a new external disk. The backup starts, and it says "Time remaining about 4 days." That seems like a very long time, but the real problem is that the computer "logs off" after a few hours, and the b.u. stops

I am trying to do a full Time Machine Backup to a new external disk. The backup starts, and it says "Time remaining about 4 days." That seems like a very long time, but the real problem is that the computer "logs off" after a few hours, and the backup stops. The system preferences are set to "Never" for Computer sleep and Display sleep. The computer does not ordinarily log off automatically, but it has done this twice since I started the Time Machine backup.

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the search box.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

MacBook pro no longer starts after a month of kernel panics. What to do?

After about a month of kernel panics, my Mac crashed one more time and will no longer start. It sits at a black screen and just beeps, sometimes once, three times or more. I've been waiting for a friend to bring me an osx startup disk so I can fix it from the disk utility, but in the meantime I've been avoiding suspect programs as well as starting the computer holding command + s and typing /sbin/fcsk fy as many people have told me, and each time it said my hard drive was all right. My friend is coming back this week with the disk, but I am afraid it will be impossible even to boot from that. Does anyone have any suggestions? I don't have apple care or a warranty so going to the nearest apple store (one hour away) or the nearest servicer (a few minutes away) doesn't seem good. What should I do? I'm also slightly worried because I installed a firmware update not long before the panics started, to get around the region limitations of the DVD drive. I'm hoping this didn't cause any problems, since these panics seem to be related to RAM but the timing is just too convenient. Could this be a factor?

Thanks again BDAqua, and sorry for the long delay between reponses. The computer's been out of sight and out of mind for me the past few weeks, but my wife reminded meabiut it this morning.
So I tried the repair disk function within disk utility on the install disc, and everything seemed to be ok. I got a message in green that says "the volume Jeffs OW Mac appears to be ok." And then "Volume repair complete." I also noticed that the capicity of the drive appeared to be 119.69 GB and the available space 119.61 GB, which I guess meant the drive was completely empty but working.
So I tried once again to restore from my time machine backup, and wonder of all wonders, it worked this time! Two hours of restoration later, I'm writing to you now from the restored computer, and my wife is thrilled (and thinks I'm a genius!). So thank you thank you thank you for taking the time to walk me through the steps! I really appreciate it!
But now we're afraid to try again to upgrade to Snow Leopard. Do you think there's any reason trying again would throw the computer into another state of confusion, flux, and ultimately disaster, or should I just give it a shot? It's a 2009 Macbook Pro 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, running OS X 10.5.8. Perhaps it just can't handle the new software?
All the best, and thanks so much again!
Jeff

MacBook No Longer Starts

This is going to be a long one, so please bear with me.
I have a macbook, an original one (purchased May 2006), and have had many problems (hardware and software). My latest problem started when I put on the OSX.4.10 update. After the update it will no longer start ... it just hangs at the white apple screen (I've left it on for over 20 minutes).
As I've said, I've had many previous problems so I decide to just reimage OSX. I have another mac and connect it via target disk mode, but some directories take a long time to list, and sometimes completely hangs the host computer. Each target disk mode restart allows me to access different folders, so once I finally get my stuff backed up, I stick in the install disk.
The install disk starts fine but when it gets to the point of which destination to install, nothing is listed. So I open disk utility and run verify disk it says "invalid node structure" and "the volume needs to be repaired", but it also presents a modal dialog that says "first aid failed" and "the underlying task reported failure on exit". When I proceed and run repair disk it gives the same error.
So I read around and learn about fsck so I start the terminal, run the fsck as described here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
It doesn't do anything ... as if I just pressed enter at the prompt, it immediately returns. I just restate that at this point am at the main OSX install and using the utilities. The hard disk will not mount at all.
So what is going on? Is my disk dead and it is just a coincidence it happened after the update? What are my options?
And I should mention that I'm a software engineer and although it is certainly possible I missed something obvious, I've been repairing computers for many years.
Thanks for reading!

If you are logging into this drive as an external hard drive (which you are when you connect it via firewire to another computer) and you cannot pull up things like the directory listing then it is hardware because you are using a working OS on the second computer and just trying to read the bits of data. The data is corrupt and majority of times it is corrupt due to hardware and not software.
marcos

Long start up

I have an old ibook (500 Hz 10 gb 128 ram) that I use at the cottage for email. It has been fine until recently it goes through a long start up. After the screen appears (normal) the first task it is given results in a spinning coloured ball. This lasts for about 4 min then all is OK. I haven't been adding anything to its memory (about 7 GB free) and have tried to empty all the caches I can find.
Any suggestions or is the poor old thing just getting too tired?
Thanks
Arthur
10.2.8

I would say that 128 MB of RAM is really running on the spartan side of things, but since that's what you've had all along and this change in performance is noticeable, evidently something else is going on here.
If you haven't done any disk maintenance lately, you may want to try booting into Safe Mode. This will take quite awhile longer than a normal startup because it does a file check and repair of the hard disk.
You will see your normal desktop. Once completely started up in Safe Mode, restart normally, and go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Select the named boot volume in the left sidebar, ("Macintosh HD" unless you've renamed it). What is the hard drive capacity and how much space remains available on it? Repair permissions on it.
See if a little hard drive maintenance helps things out.

HT4848 How do I create a Recovery System on my start up volume/hard drive?

So i discovered the article about using the Recovery Disk Assistant....but, I noticed it says that in order to create a Recovery on an external HD that it requires an existing Recovey System on my start up volume...I assume this means a Recovery partition on my startup hard drive? If someone could explain to me how to create one or if I already have one, I would great appreciate the help...
If its relevant I am using a
MacBook Pro Mid 2010
Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz
4GB RAM
Intel 120 GB SSD 320 Series

Hopefully you already have it.
The only time a recovery partition can be created is during installation from mac app store, it's automatic and cannot be done manually.

Plugging in camera no longer starts iPhoto

Hello,
Recently I found that plugging in my Canon S2 IS no longer starts iPhoto.
I see that in System Profiler, the camera shows up as a USB device, but Image Capture does not show that the camera is plugged in.
I have tried to:
- Use a card reader (which used to open iPhoto),
- Remove Image Capture and iPhoto .plist files,
- Use a different USB port,
- Plug in the camera when a different user is logged in,
- Recharged camera batteries,
- iPhoto repair (Shift+Option on start)
- Try a different, new SD card,
none of which starts iPhoto.
My current workaround is to use a card reader, manually mount the card with Disk Utility, start iPhoto, and manually import files. Not ideal.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
PowerMac G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Thanks for the suggestion, but the Image Capture setting was always set to open iPhoto (left that bit out of the original description).
As an experiment, I changed the option to open Image Capture, closed Image Capture, then plugged in the camera. Nothing happened. I then changed the option back to use "iPhoto".
Image Capture displays "No Image Capture device connected." even when the camera is pluggeed in.
PowerMac G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

I have a G5 imac that is using Disk Warrior as the start up disk and can't change back.

I am using a G5 imac (OS 10.4.8 I think the last update is) and I was attempting to use Disk Warrior to recover a lost file. On my other Macs you made Disk Warrior the start up disk to use it, which I did here but I think that was a mistake. Now I can't change back to the regular start up disk.
I tried starting in safe mode but I think I'm getting kernel panic because it goes to a gray screen and tells me to restart.

I don't think Disk Warrior does file recovery. See:
Basics of File Recovery
Files in Trash
If you simply put files in the Trash you can restore them by opening the Trash (left-click on the Trash icon) and drag the files from the Trash to your Desktop or other desired location. OS X also provides a short-cut to undo the last item moved to the Trash -press COMMAND-Z.
If you empty the Trash the files are gone. If a program does an immediate delete rather than moving files to the Trash, then the files are gone. Recovery is possible but you must not allow any additional writes to the hard drive - shut it down. When files are deleted only the directory entries, not the files themselves, is modified. The space occupied by the files has been returned to the system as available for storage, but the files are still on the drive. Writing to the drive will then eventually overwrite the space once occupied by the deleted files in which case the files are lost permanently. Also if you save a file over an existing file of the same name, then the old file is overwritten and cannot be recovered.
General File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive. Two free alternatives are Disk Drill and TestDisk. Look for them and demos at MacUpdate or CNET Downloads.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.

Free space on 250gb wont start new volume

hi i have a 250 GB Samsung external hard-drive but for some reason it only showed me 58.8 GB available so when i opened the disk manager it said there is 116.14 FREE SPACE so i tried making a new volume of that but it won let me it keep saying there is
not enough space on disk to complete this operation i really need this space since im formatting my computer and i need that hard drive to take some of my stuff on the computer right now ill appreciate any help thank you

If it is indeed showing as free space have you tried just extending your existing volume instead of making a new one?
You can right click your existing volume in disk manager and say extend partition and just next through the wizard. It should auto set all the values to consume is all the space.
Option 2 is to use the command line utility called diskpart. Go to start, type cmd. After the command prompt is open you will type diskpart.
First list the disks by typing "list disk" then select the disk you wish to work with. Example "select disk 1".
Then list the volumes, similar to disk you do "list volume". You then select the desired volume you want to extend. Select the 58.8 GB volume similar to selecting the disk. After the volume is selected you will type "extend" and
it will grow the volume into the free space.

Start-Up Volume Is Ear-Shattering

Everytime I boot up my Powerbook, the volume is turned up to the max, scaring the crap out of me with each boot. I always turn it down to normal, and make sure it's normal before powering down. But it still starts up with max volume.
Any tips?

Hi, Vlade - You really should be able to control this by setting the volume, but for some reason, that doesn't always work. I know I experience this issue when I reboot after having booted into a clone or Disk Warrior or another secondary startup volume. I understand you only need to press the mute button on startup to disable the chime--never tried that, but if nothing else works, there are a coupe of freeware utilities that can help:
http://www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/~arcana/StartupSound/index.en.html
http://www.mistatree.org/Freeware/Psst.html
Good luck!
Tuttle
1540/8248
PS, I didn't know you got a PB. Congratulations!

Can no long resize primary volume

I've been trying to use the disk utility to shrink my startup volume, to make room for another OSX partition (so I can defragement or otherwise maintail the startup volume, since so many tools refuse to work on the startup volume).
Well, it starts working fine, but during the shrinking partition stage, it runs into an error and recommends trying a smaller resize. I've gone all the way down to 10GB, and I still get the error. What are my alternatives? I have Tech Tool Pro, but got it via a digital download special, so never got a boot dvd (and they only allow making a boot partition from the installed software.. and the volume optimizer that would move data off the hind end of the partition won't work on the startup volume). I can't seem to run installed utilities from the Snow Leopard upgrade dvd I bought (and even running disk utility from the SL install disk runs into the same error).
I guess A) is there an 'easy' way to make a bootable osx disk or thumb drive and then run the techtool software? B) I have a bootcamp partition, but I suspect I would have to erase it entirely to be able to use that space (I doubt I can resize it or relocate it successfully). I'm very reluctant to do this, but it might be necessary... unfortunately, at this point the only windows licensing I have is Win7, so I'd lose my XP.
Advice?
Paul

Cloning the (boot) partition, repartition, and restore was fraught with risks I didn't want to invoke while travelling.
My external drive was formatted ntfs, so using it as a time machine destination wouldn't work (though I could wait until I was home and use my time machine drive there, I wanted a fix in the short term, not a couple of weeks from now).
Note:
<quote>Also it's not necessary to defrag an OSX volume - but if it makes you feel better knock yourself out....</quote>
Prior to my fix, I could not modify the partition size of my boot (system) volume in any meaningful way. It would always error, and force me to revert. Examination with tools, showed data piled up against the partition boundary (apparently, disk utility's ability to resize does not include the ability to move data around on the partition and reindex, only move boundaries relative to free space or unpartitioned space).
After my fix, once all data was stacked at the beginning of the boot (system) volume, I could freely resize it without any errors (leading me to believe my theory about data written at the end of a volume will prevent resizing the volume without a third party application being involved).
I would say this is a case where it was necessary to defragment the volume.
Fix I chose:
Winclone (3rd party application for backing up windows partitions from OSX, works fine with bootcamp partitions), backed up my bootcamp partition to my external ntfs drive (ended up making an 86GB partition, with 2GB free space) into a ~60something GB file).
Removed boot camp partition with bootcamp assistant (included with OSX).
Used disk utility (included with OSX) to allocate a 15GB partition. Used my snow leopard DVD to install OSX onto that volume (apparently, tech tool's 'eDrive' solution STILL requires a boot DVD to install onto a volume, even though it's quite possible to have never had a boot DVD due to buying it directly from their site as a digital download). The install process made the new (small) volume the boot volume.
once the install was done and solid, copied the techtool application from the old (big) volume to my current start volume (small), re-registered it. Used that application to optimize my free space (which first defragments files, which OSX will do for you at shut down by and large, from what I read... then also defragments free space, which OSX WILL NOT do that I've found). Volume optimization creates the largest amount of free space towards the end of the volume, with all of the used space at the beginning of the volume.
Once that was done, system preferences to change my default boot volume back to the big one. Restart system onto the large volume. Verify things are working ok. Removed the small partition (boot camp assistant will only work with a single-partition configuration. Having the second partition, even though it was small, kept boot camp assistant from 'prepping' my partition). Used boot camp assistant to make a 110 GB windows partition. Discovered that BCA likes FAT, even when it's silly. Used disk utility to remove the FAT partition, and create an NTFS-3G partition with the same name.
Used winclone to restore my saved bootcamp partition file from external harddrive to the new bootcamp partition (expanding my bootcamp by 24GB in the process).
Reloaded onto the boot camp partition, allowed checkdisk to run, it restarted again and my bootcamp was working. Back to the mac, verified function.
At this point, I can resize my mac volume smaller as desired (though I have to be careful about volume numbers if I insert a volume. Boot camp is allocated to disk0s3, and I have to pay attention to that if I further alter partition structures). This should allow me to re-create the alternate bootable volume for system repair and disaster recovery, though I haven't proven it yet beyond creating the partition.
Paul

Firmware update and very long start-up

Hi,
I had a firmware update recently and I think that having MB21.00A5.B07 makes my MacBook start-up very long. It takes lot of time before I can see something more then a grey screen.
Am I the only one to experience long start-ups?
Do you have any idea how to solve the problem?

Hi Jovik,
not sure if it helps, but worth trying out:
Open System Preferences - Startup Volume and choos your internal OSX Volume as startup.
Do the needed restart.
Good Luck
Stefan

Starting up in a start up volume with no OS........Help

I'm a Pc user who bought an old mac (PowerBook G4- Titanium.) I moderately liked it, until I tried to install classic using an older version of a Powerbook start-up Cd. (Dumb, I know this now, but I am still learning the differences between mac computers.) I bought my laptop from ebay and it didn't come with the original start-up disks. Being new to mac, I went and bought what I thought were the proper replacement ones- (Powerbook G3.)
I thought I had properly installed classic, and I chose it as my system defalt volume instead of my MAC- Os 10.3.9... So I tried to start up my laptop, and now it is blinking this random question mark. I tried a few different things to start up my mac:
1. Starting up using the old restore CD= random whirling and no results
2. Using the install Cd
3. Using command + alt+ p+ r- 2x;
4. Using option =(I just got this random blue screen with what looked
like a refresh button and an enter button)
5. Holding Command+X= no results
So in short, I need to change the start-up volume before my computer starts up. I tried the start-up manager; but, thus far I have had no success. Any help that you could supply would be much appreciated.

violinist31, welcome to Apple Discussions & the Mac community.
Using option =(I just got this random blue screen with what looked like a refresh button and an enter button)
Pressing the Option key at startup activates the Startup Manager window. This window shows the available startup volumes (hard drives, CDs, DVDs, etc) Was there not a hard drive icon in this window? If there is a HD icon, click on it & then click on the right arrow.
Will it boot in Safe Mode? See
What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? (Mac OS X)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107392
Takes a while to run, but it usually "fixes" problems.
 Cheers, Tom

Mail's Account Directory - accessible from a different start-up volume?

I have two internal hard drives in my PowerMac G4. One volume has Tiger 10.4.11 installed; the other had Leopard 10.5.6. I have not yet fully transitioned from Tiger to Leopard, but I want to do so. However, before I do so I want to know if I will be able to:
(1) run the applications which reside on the Tiger volume when I boot up in Leopard (so that I do not have to waste hard drive space by installing the same applications on two different internal hard drives; and
(2) access the email messages that reside on the Tiger volume when I boot up in Leopard (so that I can keep all my mail in one place, and so that I can access my email no matter whether I boot up in Leopard, or in Tiger, when I need to use older applications that may not be Leopard-compatible and which I do not wish to spend more money on upgrades).
Since this forum addresses Mail and Address Book issues, I would like to get a definitive answer to the second inquiry, namely, if I boot up in Leopard, can I access the mailboxes and email messages that reside on the Tiger volume, or must I absolutely (somehow) bring all those messages into Leopard and be compelled to use only one Mac OS to access the Mail application on its associated start-up drive.
In trying to figure this out myself, I notice that, in the Mail preferences panel, on the Advanced tab of the Accounts button, there is an option called "Account Directory:" that lists "~/Library/Mail" as the path to the directory where email messages are stored. While there is a "Choose" button next to the file path, both the pathname and the button are shadowed out, and I can see no way to activate that option.
I am a little bit confused here, because the appearance of that option implies that one might be able to actually direct the Mail application to store email messages on a volume other than the start-up volume. However, the fact that the "Choose" button and the actual path name are shadowed out appears to cancel out that capability.
Can anyone shed light on this mystery? Is it possible to access email that resides in Library of another volume other than the one used to start-up the Mac, and, if so, how is that accomplished?
bowlerboy_jmb

BowlerBoy_JMB wrote:
I have two internal hard drives in my PowerMac G4. One volume has Tiger 10.4.11 installed; the other had Leopard 10.5.6. I have not yet fully transitioned from Tiger to Leopard, but I want to do so. However, before I do so I want to know if I will be able to:
(1) run the applications which reside on the Tiger volume when I boot up in Leopard (so that I do not have to waste hard drive space by installing the same applications on two different internal hard drives; and
it might work with some self-contained apps that are installed by drag and drop into /Applications but should not be done in general. It will definitely not work with any apps that use installers to install.
(2) access the email messages that reside on the Tiger volume when I boot up in Leopard (so that I can keep all my mail in one place, and so that I can access my email no matter whether I boot up in Leopard, or in Tiger, when I need to use older applications that may not be Leopard-compatible and which I do not wish to spend more money on upgrades).
Since this forum addresses Mail and Address Book issues, I would like to get a definitive answer to the second inquiry, namely, if I boot up in Leopard, can I access the mailboxes and email messages that reside on the Tiger volume, or must I absolutely (somehow) bring all those messages into Leopard and be compelled to use only one Mac OS to access the Mail application on its associated start-up drive.
yes, you must transfer all your Mail to the leopard partition and use it from there. yes, you are compelled to do so and no there is absolutely no way around it.

I have an MacBook Pro 10.6, using disk utility I tried to verify my disk, but it came up with the message, please use your start up disk, I tried this, starting the computer up and pressing C, but it ejected the disk, the same thing happened while I runni

I have an MacBook Pro 10.6, using disk utility I tried to verify my disk, but it came up with the message, please use your start up disk, I tried this, starting the computer up and pressing C, but it ejected the disk, the same thing happened while I running the computer. Is the hard drive damaged as laptop doesn't seem to recognize the start up disk ? If so, I presume I will have to put in a new one.
There haven't been any problems with the computer, apart from a sticky curser,I have run a permissions programme from disk utility, there were a lot of different ones, but it seem to be able to fix them.
Any comments or ideas ?
Thank you in anticipation.

First backup your users files off the machine to a external storage drive (not TimeMachine!)
Most commonly used backup methods
Next to startup from the disk, have it inserted, hold c or option/alt (wired or built in keyboard) and then boot the computer and or select the disk when it appears and click the arrow.
Disk Utility is under the Utilities menu on the second screen.
Step by Step to fix your Mac
If you used the wrong 10.6 disk, it will spit it out or have issues, use the one that came with that machine or if it's defective, call Apple for a new one.

Disk is no longer start up volume

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