Mds not running. Lazy indexing

Question

I have been having problems with Finder and Spotlight recently. I've done a clean install and an archive install in the last three weeks but this hasn't helped.
Spotlight will only carry out a brief index not even nearly indexing my entire drive. The mds process is not running and I can't find the little expletive is hiding in order to manually start it up.
Finder crashes when I use More Info in the Inspector. I've verified disk permissions and repair both permissions and the startup disk itself.
I've tried to force a rebuild but it finishes far too quickly.
sudo mdutil -E /
is the command for those of you who haven't tried that option yet, does require root access of course.
Anyone else having similar problems? I've got no idea how to get OS X playing nicely again. In all honesty I feel like I've hit a brick wall.
All help is appreciated. Thanks fellow Mac-enthusiasts.
MBP   Mac OS X (10.4.10)   2.33GHz Core2Duo, 3GB, 256MB RadeonX1600, 120GB & 500GB LaCie d2.

Answer 1

I have fixed the issue myself using a sledgehammer approach as the feather-light touch did not help.
Here's an extract direct from my blog with all the info you need.
*Indicative Symptoms*
If Spotlight is not indexing your drive properly you may notice the search in Mail no longer finds any results. You may also notice Finder slows to a snail’s pace in column view and looking for more info in the Inspector does nothing short of induce a fatal hang within Finder.
*Feather-light Solutions*
Apple and other websites will tell you to put your entire drive in the Privacy section of Spotlight’s preference pane and then remove it. This did not work when I tried it as the index was totally corrupted. You may want to try this however as it has worked for some people.
I opted for using the command line to reindex as I’m a bit of a command line junkie. If you get an indexing status unknown error during this process you’ll need to proceed to the sledgehammer steps.
If you do not wish to use the command line for this step you will need to refer to http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n302223 for more information on fixing spotlight issues.
And for those of us who aren’t *nix nerds, but still want to use the command line, you will need to enable root user access to employ this fix. Apple have documentation on how to this at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106290.
sudo mdutil -i off /
sudo mdutil -E /
sudo mdutil -i on /
These three commands, executed using root user permissions, allow you to firstly turn off indexing on the startup volume (the startup volume is mounted at / hence the forward slash at the end), clear the index completely using the -E flag, and then turn on indexing once again.
*Sledgehammer Steps*
These steps should only be used as a last resort as they go above an beyond the typical guidelines for repairing Spotlight, they did however work for me.
First you’re going to have to remove the main spotlight directories on your HDD using root permissions.
Then repair disk permissions and reboot.
The commands necessary are below. This is a _last resort_ and should not be attempted before a simple uninterrupted reindex.
sudo rm -r /.Spotlight-V100
sudo rm -r /Library/Spotlight
diskutil repairPermissions /
Alternatively, you can use Apple’s Disk Utility to repair permissions. The Disk Utility application can be found within your Utilities folder (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app.)
After carrying out these steps reboot your system. Once you’ve logged in DO NOT TOUCH SPOTLIGHT! Just leave your computer alone until the pulsing white circle within the Spotlight icon has disappeared or you will have achieved nothing.
Happy sudoing!
Message was edited by: James Conroy-Finn