Messed up boot drive, how to fix it?

I accidentally changed permissions on the boot drive to "no access" (applied to all enclosed items), everything froze, had to shut down from the power button, and now my Mac won't start (gets stuck at the grey apple screen with the spinning wheel).
I tried to use the SL install CD to repair permissions, etc., but nothing seems to help.
I'm ready to reinstall the OS but want to do it in a way that will preserve all my applications installations and preferences. I noticed there is no option for Archive&Install on the SL CD, so how do I do this?
Thanks for your help!
PS. I have back-ups of all user files but not for apps or system files. I can however boot up from a USB drive and access the internal disk to copy files if necessary.

kaymanjr wrote:
I accidentally changed permissions on the boot drive to "no access" (applied to all enclosed items),
you completely hosed your system by doing this. reinstall snow leopard on top of your current install. this will preserve your user data and applications. and in the future NEVER EVER use apply to enclosed items" on ANY system created folders, your startup drive and the TM drive. use it on folders you make yourself only.
everything froze, had to shut down from the power button, and now my Mac won't start (gets stuck at the grey apple screen with the spinning wheel).
I tried to use the SL install CD to repair permissions, etc., but nothing seems to help.
I'm ready to reinstall the OS but want to do it in a way that will preserve all my applications installations and preferences. I noticed there is no option for Archive&Install on the SL CD, so how do I do this?
Thanks for your help!
PS. I have back-ups of all user files but not for apps or system files. I can however boot up from a USB drive and access the internal disk to copy files if necessary.
you should do regular full backups of everything. use Time machine or one of many 3rd party backup tools
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7495315#7495315
Message was edited by: V.K.

Similar Messages

Navigation bar is messed up... how to fix?

Help! My navigation bar looks fine in iWeb, but the site shows the words in the wrong places, with pieces missing, and includes one heading (jean ann pics) that I eliminated from the navigation bar. I continue to make changes and those come out fine, but that navigation bar (just the welcome page) won't be corrected!
site is www.mcelroykin.com
I think that one time when it was publishing there was some kind of error, but I can't recall what it was-- I was on my way out the door...
Any thoughts on how to fix this??
Thanks!!!!!
Liz (frustrated in NC)

Yes! There are multiple versions of files like you suggested. How do I know which ones to keep?
Well, the ones to 'keep' should be inside this folder: iDisk/Web/Sites/iWeb/McElroyKin/McElroyKin Blog (News)/McElroyKin Blog (News)_files. If you are viewing your iDisk's contents as icons and you have View Options set to show the icon preview, it should be possible to visually identify the navbarXnormal.png and navbarXrollover.png files to delete from other folders and to copy the correct ones from McElroyKin Blog (News)_files — but, and it's a BIG 'but', this would be a painstaking process at best, and would inevitably be prone to error.
I'm afraid my advice is quite radical. I would delete everything in iDisk/Web/Sites/iWeb (assuming McElroyKin is your only site) and publish again from iWeb.
While you're at it, might I also offer some advice about naming your Blog page? All the rest of your naming convention is excellent (I especially like the main site name of McElroyKin), but by naming your Blog 'McElroyKin Blog (News)' you're asking for long, ugly URLs like those which are showing up — for example,
http://web.mac.com/bakerlizzie/iWeb/McElroyKin/41F182C9-9B24-42A2-AC53-704C9EAB8 FFA/1316BA2A-99C1-44E5-8F35-0517E4AC5298.html.
Individual blog pages will always finish with that 30-odd-character combination in their URLs, but you can prevent having another one of those earlier in the URL by avoiding certain characters which Apple recommend against using. In this case, I suspect that the parentheses in your Blog name are responsible for this long-windedness, especially when combined with spaces (which, as we all know by now, on their own result in those ugly %20s in iWeb URLs).
Having said all this, I also have to say that I too have experienced this navigation bar problem. I found that the situation righted itself after multiple browser cache-clearings and refreshes and re-publishings. If you're anxious about following my recommendation about deleting material from your iDisk prior to re-publishing from iWeb, you could first try re-publishing a couple of times without making any further changes in iWeb. Empty Safari's cache each time. See if this clears things up. If not, then it's time for the heavy artillery.
800 MHz 17" iMac G4 | 1 GHz 14" iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.4) 2 x AirPort Express; Apple wireless keyboard and mouse; LaCie 160GB external HD

[solved] dhcpcd seriously slowing boot time, how to fix?

As the title says, dhcpcd is really the limiting factor in my boot process. Of the 4.125 seconds spent doing userland boot stuff, 2.95 are spent waiting for dhcpcd to finish loading so the network.target is reached and the last few things can continue loading. It might seem petty to complain about an 8 second boot, but I'm just trying to get it as quick as possible. What can I do to make it go faster? I've read through the wiki on improving boot times, dhcpcd, etc. and haven't found anything that has helped significantly. This is on a permanent ethernet connection, by the way.
Last edited by davidjosepha (2015-06-01 21:02:29)

roy@uberpc ~ $ sudo dhcpcd -k
sending signal ARLM to pid 3015
waiting for pid 3015 to exit
roy@uberpc ~ $ time sudo dhcpcd
dev: loaded udev
enp3s0: adding address fe80::8d30:2b85:75ba:2d40
wlp4s0: adding address fe80::893f:45de:2864:e33f
DUID 00:01:00:01:1b:79:14:0c:e8:94:f6:3f:9b:95
wlp4s0: IAID f6:3f:9b:95
enp3s0: waiting for carrier
wlp4s0: soliciting a DHCP lease
wlp4s0: offered 10.73.2.30 from 10.73.1.1 `uberserver.marples.name'
wlp4s0: soliciting an IPv6 router
wlp4s0: leased 10.73.2.30 for 3600 seconds
wlp4s0: router 10.73.1.1 requires a host route
wlp4s0: adding route to 10.73.2.0/24
wlp4s0: adding host route to 10.73.1.1
wlp4s0: adding default route via 10.73.1.1
ntpd | * Stopping ntpd ... [ ok ]
ntpd | * Starting ntpd ... [ ok ]
forked to background, child pid 3276
real 0m5.083s
user 0m0.031s
sys 0m0.009s
So, with ARP checking it's just over 5 seconds, which is about right.
roy@uberpc ~ $ sudo dhcpcd -k
sending signal ARLM to pid 3276
waiting for pid 3276 to exit
roy@uberpc ~ $ time sudo dhcpcd -A
dev: loaded udev
enp3s0: adding address fe80::8d30:2b85:75ba:2d40
wlp4s0: adding address fe80::893f:45de:2864:e33f
DUID 00:01:00:01:1b:79:14:0c:e8:94:f6:3f:9b:95
wlp4s0: IAID f6:3f:9b:95
enp3s0: waiting for carrier
wlp4s0: soliciting a DHCP lease
wlp4s0: offered 10.73.2.30 from 10.73.1.1 `uberserver.marples.name'
wlp4s0: leased 10.73.2.30 for 3600 seconds
wlp4s0: router 10.73.1.1 requires a host route
wlp4s0: adding route to 10.73.2.0/24
wlp4s0: adding host route to 10.73.1.1
wlp4s0: adding default route via 10.73.1.1
ntpd | * Stopping ntpd ... [ ok ]
ntpd | * Starting ntpd ... [ ok ]
forked to background, child pid 3537
real 0m0.170s
user 0m0.030s
sys 0m0.010s
roy@uberpc ~ $
Without ARP, it's under 200 milliseconds. This was a lucky run due to RFC mandated randomised startup delays (this is noted when you add --debug, I omitted this otherwise this post would be quite huge with other debug info)
But wait, we can go faster yet by ignoring these RFC mandated delays.
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $ sudo dhcpcd -k
sending signal ARLM to pid 5994
waiting for pid 5994 to exit
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $ time sudo dhcpcd -A --nodelay
dev: loaded udev
DUID 00:01:00:01:1b:79:14:0c:e8:94:f6:3f:9b:95
wlp4s0: IAID f6:3f:9b:95
wlp4s0: soliciting an IPv6 router
wlp4s0: soliciting a DHCP lease
enp3s0: waiting for carrier
wlp4s0: offered 10.73.2.30 from 10.73.1.1 `uberserver.marples.name'
wlp4s0: leased 10.73.2.30 for 3600 seconds
wlp4s0: router 10.73.1.1 requires a host route
wlp4s0: adding route to 10.73.2.0/24
wlp4s0: adding host route to 10.73.1.1
wlp4s0: adding default route via 10.73.1.1
ntpd | * Stopping ntpd ... [ ok ]
ntpd | * Starting ntpd ... [ ok ]
forked to background, child pid 6272
real 0m0.126s
user 0m0.028s
sys 0m0.013s
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $
I'm sure we can get under 100ms here!
Let's strip the NTP options to avoid restarting that.
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $ sudo dhcpcd -k
sending signal ARLM to pid 6653
waiting for pid 6653 to exit
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $ time sudo dhcpcd -A --nodelay -O ntp_servers
dev: loaded udev
DUID 00:01:00:01:1b:79:14:0c:e8:94:f6:3f:9b:95
wlp4s0: IAID f6:3f:9b:95
wlp4s0: soliciting an IPv6 router
wlp4s0: soliciting a DHCP lease
enp3s0: waiting for carrier
wlp4s0: offered 10.73.2.30 from 10.73.1.1 `uberserver.marples.name'
wlp4s0: leased 10.73.2.30 for 3600 seconds
wlp4s0: router 10.73.1.1 requires a host route
wlp4s0: adding route to 10.73.2.0/24
wlp4s0: adding host route to 10.73.1.1
wlp4s0: adding default route via 10.73.1.1
forked to background, child pid 6815
real 0m0.068s
user 0m0.019s
sys 0m0.007s
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $
Lets go nuts and not bother running any scripts.
After all, DNS from DHCP is optional - a good local resolver will try DNS ROOT servers by default.
But screw fast DNS lookups, we want a fast boot!
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $ sudo dhcpcd -k
sending signal ARLM to pid 7025
waiting for pid 7025 to exit
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $ time sudo dhcpcd -A --nodelay -O ntp_servers -c /dev/null
dev: loaded udev
DUID 00:01:00:01:1b:79:14:0c:e8:94:f6:3f:9b:95
wlp4s0: IAID f6:3f:9b:95
wlp4s0: soliciting an IPv6 router
wlp4s0: soliciting a DHCP lease
enp3s0: waiting for carrier
wlp4s0: offered 10.73.2.30 from 10.73.1.1 `uberserver.marples.name'
wlp4s0: leased 10.73.2.30 for 3600 seconds
wlp4s0: router 10.73.1.1 requires a host route
wlp4s0: adding route to 10.73.2.0/24
wlp4s0: adding host route to 10.73.1.1
wlp4s0: adding default route via 10.73.1.1
forked to background, child pid 7030
real 0m0.024s
user 0m0.001s
sys 0m0.002s
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $
palm, meet face! I was stupidly releasing the lease between runs. lets just clear the IP from the network stack to instead.
After all, we are rebinding to the same network each boot.
oy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $ sudo dhcpcd -x
sending signal TERM to pid 7900
waiting for pid 7900 to exit
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $ sudo ip a d 10.73.2.30/24 dev wlp4s0
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $ time sudo dhcpcd -4A --nodelay -O ntp_servers -c /dev/null --nodev
DUID 00:01:00:01:1b:79:14:0c:e8:94:f6:3f:9b:95
wlp4s0: IAID f6:3f:9b:95
wlp4s0: rebinding lease of 10.73.2.30
enp3s0: waiting for carrier
wlp4s0: leased 10.73.2.30 for 3600 seconds
wlp4s0: router 10.73.1.1 requires a host route
wlp4s0: adding route to 10.73.2.0/24
wlp4s0: adding host route to 10.73.1.1
wlp4s0: adding default route via 10.73.1.1
forked to background, child pid 7992
real 0m0.015s
user 0m0.002s
sys 0m0.000s
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $
There are other ways of making dhcpcd go faster, but that involves hacking the code NOT to query the kernel for any existing IP addresses or routes so we don't break networking needlessly even for a every small window and other such things.
So at 15ms I think dhcpcd is pretty fast, and this is just profilng via the time shell command.
Of course, dhcpcd by default provides the most RFC compliant way of autoconfiguring your network address.
But of course, I leave the best trick until last. A well configured system with well written programs shouldn't need to forceably wait for the initial DHCP run to finish.
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $ sudo dhcpcd -k
sending signal ARLM to pid 7992
waiting for pid 7992 to exit
roy@uberpc ~/src/dhcpcd $ time sudo dhcpcd -b
dev: loaded udev
forked to background, child pid 8217
real 0m0.004s
user 0m0.001s
sys 0m0.002s
If you still believe dhcpcd to be slow, add the debug option and post some logs, ideally with timestamps and then we'll talk about making it go faster to meet your needs.

Boot Drive fixed but now is not bootable

First let me say DiskWarriar is an amazing program.
I had some major issue with my boot drive and DiskWarriar fixed the structure so now I can access the files etc.
However, the drive is no longer bootable.
Any suggestions what I should do from here?
I can see my user folder etc.
Is there a way to make the disc bootable and all will be as it was before?
If not, am I going to need to back up certain files and then erase the drive and reinstall the OS?
Any help would be appreciated.
Dwaine

Try resetting your parameter RAM, by following these instructions (instead of typing mac boot):
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42642

My new WD hard drive is no longer able to boot. How do I fix this?

I got a WD10EALX Cabiar Blue drive last week and copied my existing internal drive that had Tiger OSX on it. It booted fine until I copied an iphoto library from a friend's Mac and now this disk won't boot. I get the circle with the slash through it and the folder with the question mark on it. I ran it through disk utility and it was verified with no problems. What should I do from here?
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB,7200 RPM (WD10EALX) Hard Drive

Well, assuming you mean you repaired permissions in Disk Utility, and that you ONLY copied some data/media files, and didn't go beyond 85% full, I'd say go back to square one on this experiment.
A better approach is to leave or have an "OS only" boot drive, with apps of course, and keep data and media files on another disk drive - the beauty of having four internal hard drives.
By the sounds of it you are using an external drive too. That alone can sometimes be a problem.
As for "verify with Disk Utility" back in Tiger, I give it iffy grade and marks. Repair AND use Disk Warrior.

How to fix Grub after moving arch to new drive [SOLVED]

I moved my Arch install (/ and /home partitions) to a new drive and I was wondering how to fix Grub so that it knows /boot is on the new drive. What I've done thus far is
create partitions on the new drive and dd my current / and /home partitions to them. The new partitions are bigger than the current ones, so I also re-sized the filesystems to fill the new partitions. My disk/partition setup is the following
/dev/sda1 2048 488392703 488390656 232.9G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT (Storage)
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 206847 204800 100M 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT (System reserved)
/dev/sdb2 206848 102402047 102195200 48.7G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT (Windows 7)
/dev/sdb3 * 102402048 141472127 39070080 18.6G 83 Linux (Current Arch /)
/dev/sdb4 141472128 250069679 108597552 51.8G 83 Linux (Current Arch /home)
/dev/sdc2 * 206848 105064447 104857600 50G 83 Linux (New Arch /)
/dev/sdc3 105064448 234441647 129377200 61.7G 83 Linux (New Arch /home)
After I resized the filesystems, I then created a new grub.cfg file (on /dev/sdb3) that is aware of the new Arch system. I can boot to both my current and new Arch installs and run them fine, but ultimately I want to remove the current Arch install so I can make more room for my Windows 7 install. What do I need to do to grub, so it knows to use the new Arch system.
Last edited by tlawren (2014-08-17 21:42:46)

@Xyne - Thanks! Installing grub on my /dev/sdc did the trick. Because I dd'ed my old setup to a new drive, /boot/grub was already populated, so all I had to do was install and configure grub on the new drive via the following.
grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck --debug /dev/sdx
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
I used os-prober to find the other OS's (Windows 7 and my old Arch). After some testing, I will wipe my old Arch setup and then resize Windows into the free space.

How to install Windows on a SATA boot drive

Here is how to install Windows XP on a SATA boot drive. This procedure was first developed by syar2003 and has been used by many iusers ncluding myself. Although it was originally developed for Neo2 mb's and Windows XP Pro, it has general applicability to systems as well.
1. Have only the SATA drive you want to be the boot drive active in your system. Disconnect the power to all other HDD's if any.
2. Have only one optical drive active. Disconnect the power to the other opticals if any. (Best to have a burner optical as master on IDE1.)
3. Plug SATA drive into SATA 1 on the mb. (it may show us as an IDE drive somewhere down the list in BIOS. That's okl)
4. Enable appropriate SATA options in BIOS. Set boot order to floppy, cd, SATA drive. Set boot priority to SATA drive.
5. Partition and format the SATA HDD using the utilites CD that came with the SATA drive. (If you don't have an HDD utilities disk, download one from the website of your HDD manufacturer.)
6. Run Windows setup. No need to load drivers at the F6 promt unless you are planning to do a RAID configuration.
7. Windows XP should install without incident.
8. After you are up and running, plug the power back into your other HDD and optical drives if any.
If you have a board older than the K8 series, it may be necessary to load the SATA drivers at the F6 prompt. If the above procedure does not work, than try it again loading the SATA drivers.
If this procedure does not work for you, it is likely that your particular SATA HDD has some compatablity problem with Windows setup and/or your motherboard. The solution to this is to try another SATA drive. In general, most failures using this procedure have been traced to certain WD, Seagate and Hitachi SATA drivers of smaller capacities. Fewer problems seem to have occured with Maxtor HDD's.

Kaplan, from an earlier post of mine regarding sata2 hdds - I have them plugged into the sata1&2 ports, installed the nvidia raid first and then installed winxp (in both raid 0 and raid 1). My bios is 3.1 and its a known problem that bios 3.3 & 3.4 have nvidia raid problems but seems to be fixed in the beta bios 3.53:
I just purchased 2 hitachi deskstar sata2 80gb hdds ($60 each at zzf) and the interesting thing about them is that you have to "enable" sata2. I have been testing the performance of sata1, sata2, raid1 and raid0 and the results are below.
The drives themselves are factory default set at sata1. Since I purchased OEM, no software or instructions were included. I had to go to the hitachi website download section to download a dos based program (the features program) to enable sata2. After enabling the hdds to sata2, they were recognized in winxp in the nforce ADMA controller device driver and the screen reads with the primary channel as Serial ATA Generation 2 - 3G...and all 4 boxes below it are checked (the boxes enable bios select xfer mode, enable read caching, enable write caching and enable command queuing are checked). An interesting thing about the sata2 spec is that all sata2 hdds must come standard with NCQ...its not advertised on these 80 gb hdds on the hitachi website (unlike the larger hitachi sata2 hdds) but its a standard sata2 spec and these 80gb hitachi hdds are recoginized in winxp as sata2.
The other interesting feature about the hitachi sata2 hdds is setting them up to operate in an adjustable "performance" to "silence" mode. The hdds are default set at high perfromance but you can manually lower the performance to increase the silence of the hdds which is fully adjustable to your liking. I tested the highest silence/lowest performance setting and you cannot hear the hard drive at all.
Testing - I tested the 2 hitachi sata2 deskstars with the first result in sata1 mode, the second in sata2 mode, the third in raid1 mode and the fourth in raid0 mode.
First, a significant increase in raid0 over sata1, sata2 and raid1 with sequential reads and writes (PC Wizard).
Write: 28mb/s vs 29mb/s vs 27mb/s vs 53mb/s
Read: 45mb/s vs 46mb/s vs 43mb/s vs 83mb/s
Second, significant increase in sata 2, raid 1 & raid 0 over sata1 with buffered reads and writes (PC Wizard).
Write: 104mb/s vs 176mb/s vs 165mb/s vs 266mb/s
Read: 123mb/s vs 200mb/s vs 200mb/s vs 293mb/s
Third, significant increase in sata 2, raid 1 & raid 0 over sata1 with burst reads (HD Tach).
Burst Read: 133mb/s vs 225mb/s vs 219mb/s vs 334 mb/s
It is interesting to note that raid1 is better than sata1 but marginally slower in all tests over sata2. Raid0 is significantly faster on all tests.

Lost a 2 hard drives, have 7 k photos on a touch that I need to load on IMAC with a new hard drive, how do I do it. Just never went from a Touch to iMac. I have the cable hooked up and then what, I don't want to mess up,my last chance to save 7k pics!

Lost my hard drive and also an Ipad, but have 7 k photos on a Touch that I need to load on fixed IMAC with a new hard drive, how do I do it. (There were more photos than the 7k, but they were saved on other drives, thank goodness). 7K pohotos on the Touch are no where else, must be saved! Just never went from a Touch to iMac. I have the cable hooked up and then what, I don't want to mess up,my last chance to save 7k pics! New Aperture and IPhoto on IMAC with no other photos loaded on the new hard drive yet.

I'd ask in the iTouch forum where there are more iTouch users there than here and they should know how to off load the photos. It might take a 3rd party app.
OT

When I try to use the internal hard drive as a scratch disk I get this error "unable to set scratch disk- the selected directory is on write protect or non-writable media. Any ideas on how to fix this. It only happens in fcp.

When I try to use the internal hard drive as a scratch disk I get this error "unable to set scratch disk- the selected directory is on write protect or non-writable media. Any ideas on how to fix this. It only happens in fcp.

By internal, I assume you're referring to your systems (boot) drive. Is it, by chance, a partitioned dive?
Also…although many people successfully use their systems drives as scratch disks, over time you'll have better results using a dedicated drive for your media.
Good luck.
Russ

I have a 21" iMac that only boots as far as a folder icon with a question mark in it. Anyone know what this means and how to fix it?

I have a 21" iMac that only boots as far as a folder icon with a question mark in it. Anyone know what this means and how to fix it?

It usually means your OS has corrupted files. You need to reinstall OS X.
If you are using Snow Leopard:
Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
Do the following:
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install the Combo Updater for the version you prefer from support.apple.com/downloads/.
If you are using Lion:
Reinstalling Lion Without Erasing the Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.

How to fix computer freeze with external USB drive attached

Hi, My computer has frozen a few times lately when my external drive was hooked in, mostly to upload music to Itunes on my MacBook Air. Anyone know what's happening and how to fix it?
Thanks
Peggy ;~)

the image isnt just 1 big file
its got a bunch of files
som .ini configuration files here and there
the trick is to find which files controls the directory to start loading from
and change the waiting for f:
to waiting for anything else
external ODD, flash drive, or anything other than the internal ODD cuz its broken
the files on the disc are
recovery disc+
.....boot+
..............fonts
..............bcd
..............boot.sdi
...................eftsboot.exe
......efi+
.................microsoft+
...................................boot+
..............................................font s
.................................................. ......bcd
.....HDDPREP+
............................boot
............................sources
............................bootmgr
......HTMPREP+
...........................readme.html
...........................toshiba.jpg
......sources+
.......................boot.wmi
.......tools+
..................crtdll.dll
...................imagex.exe
...................version.txt
...................vRecoFastCRC.exe
...................XcludeCRC.ini
...................zlibwapi.dll
....06466XR1.CRC
....06466XSP.SWM
....06466XSP2.SWM
....06466XSP3.SWM
....06466XSP4.SWM
....06466XSP5.SWM
....06466XV1.CRC
....bootmgr
....Setenv.ini
im know im not super computer expert but as far as my knowledge goes its probably 1 of thos xxx.ini files cuz usually contain settings and stuff like that
they are easy to open with notepad and easy to just change one of them and burn a new disc with the corrected file
i just need someone to help me figure out which one to change and what to change it to the rest is easy

Hey Guys i have a problem with my mac since last month and it wont boot up it freezes in a grey apple logo and and spinning gear any body know how to fix this?

Hey Guys i have a problem with my mac since last month and it wont boot up it freezes in a grey apple logo and and spinning gear any body know how to fix this?

Take each of these steps that you haven't already tried. Stop when the problem is resolved.
Step 1
The first step in dealing with a boot failure is to secure your data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since your last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at the startup chime, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in the support article linked below, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
How to back up and restore your files
b. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode by holding down the key combination command-T at the startup chime. Connect the two Macs with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable. The internal drive of the machine running in target mode will mount as an external drive on the other machine. Copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode
c. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
Step 2
Press and hold the power button until the power shuts off. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to boot, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Use a different keyboard and/or mouse, if those devices are wired. If you can boot now, one of the devices you disconnected, or a combination of them, is causing the problem. Finding out which one is a process of elimination.
Before reconnecting an external storage device, make sure that your internal boot volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
Step 3
Boot in safe mode.* The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Shut down your computer, wait 30 seconds, and then hold down the shift key while pressing the power button.
When you see the gray Apple logo, release the shift key.
If you are prompted to log in, type your password, and then hold down the shift key again as you click Log in.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
*Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode. Post for further instructions.
When you boot in safe mode, it's normal to see a dark gray progress bar on a light gray background. If the progress bar gets stuck for more than a few minutes, or if the system shuts down automatically while the progress bar is displayed, your boot volume is damaged and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to step 5.
If you can boot and log in now, empty the Trash, and then open the Finder Info window on your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) Check that you have at least 9 GB of available space, as shown in the window. If you don't, copy as many files as necessary to another volume (not another folder on the same volume) and delete the originals. Deletion isn't complete until you empty the Trash again. Do this until the available space is more than 9 GB. Then reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)
If the boot process hangs again, the problem is likely caused by a third-party system modification that you installed. Post for further instructions.
Step 4
Sometimes a boot failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 5
Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see above for instructions.) Select your startup volume, then run Repair Disk. If any problems are found, repeat until clear. If Disk Utility reports that the volume can't be repaired, the drive has malfunctioned and should be replaced. You might choose to tolerate one such malfunction in the life of the drive. In that case, erase the volume and restore from a backup. If the same thing ever happens again, replace the drive immediately.
This is one of the rare situations in which you should also run Repair Permissions, ignoring the false warnings it produces. Look for the line "Permissions repaired successfully" at the end of the output. Then reboot as usual.
Step 6
Boot into Recovery again. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, follow the prompts to reinstall the OS. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with proxy servers, or with networks that require a certificate for authentication.
Step 7
Repeat step 6, but this time erase the boot volume in Disk Utility before installing. The system should automatically reboot into the Setup Assistant. Follow the prompts to transfer your data from a backup.
Step 8
If you get this far, you're probably dealing with a hardware fault. Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store to have the machine tested.

How does external boot drive bind to computer?

What mechanisms bind an external boot drive and the host computer when running? In particular, how is the user environment determined? Examples:
1.I boot from my external drive (10.5.1) to my home mini 10.5.1) and I get one desktop with specific background (that I chose); when I boot to the mini at work (10.3.9), I get another desktop and background (which I also chose). Each mini, booted internally, has its own desktop and background. How does the desktop environment get determined?
2. When booted to one or the other mini from the external drive, iTunes sometimes wants to authenticate permission to play a song. It always comes back with "3 of 5 computers enabled". Why does it forget, and why does it then remember the same three computers?
Where can I find out more about the nature of these behaviors as determined by the operating system?
Thanks,
Fred

If you have the same system (Leopard 10.5.2 latest and lot of fixes) you can easily set the home folder to point to another disk drive so you have the same prefs and home folder. All it is doing is using your home account.
Normally it is /Users/home_account
But you can unlock and change the Account control panel (Advanced option by control click on account) to any location with 'browse' on path field to...
/Volumes/volname/Users/homeaccount
and use the same prefs (like desktop but also email etc)
That would allow you to use carry your home account and always use the same email and such wherever you are.
I always keep home account on another disk drive. In Panther it was done using NetInfo Manager, now modifying home path is in Account control panel. And to me, that is what 'binds' the boot drive to your user environment that you asked.

HT201295 Recently Apple replaced the hard drive on Mac running Yosmite 10.10.2 and now when i try to rn FaceTime, the computer says "no camera available". Does anyone no how to fix this?

Recently Apple replaced the hard drive on Mac running Yosmite 10.10.2 and now when i try to rn FaceTime, the computer says "no camera available". Does anyone no how to fix this?

Assuming there is no hardware problem try reinstalling Yosemite. If this does not work then take it back to the Apple Store.
Reinstalling OS X Without Erasing the Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Reinstalling OS X Without Erasing the Drive
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility and press the Continue button. After Disk Utility loads select the Macintosh HD entry from the the left side list. Click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If Disk Utility reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit Disk Utility and return to the main menu.
Reinstall OS X: Select Reinstall OS X and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.
Also see:
Reinstall OS X Without Erasing the Drive
Choose the version you have installed now:
OS X Yosemite- Reinstall OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

How do i install reader to a drive other than the boot drive?

how do i install reader to a drive other than the boot drive?

Hi nicksdaddy,
There is an offline version:
http://get.adobe.com/reader/enterprise/
Hope that helps!
Stacy

Messed up boot drive, how to fix it?

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