Name : leopard Type : Volume Disk Identifier : disk1s2 Mount Point

Question

Early in October, after installing SL and the first upgrade, I began experiencing colour flashes on transitions on slideshow projects created in iMovie '09. I contacted Apple Support and began working with one of the technicians. She reported that after viewing a short sample slideshow/movie that I sent her, Apple engineers concluded that something in SL was interfering with the video card. So far, no fix from Apple.
One workaround suggested by a reader on these support discussions was to install Leopard on an external drive and work with iMovie from there. My contact person helped me connect and set up the external drive. She also talked me through steps that allowed me to continue using iMovie '09, my photos in iPhoto, and the iTunes Music Library on my internal drive to build my slideshows and have all of this 'show up' on the external drive. Really, all I was doing on the external drive was using iMovie to export my project and create a *.mov file.
Until three days ago, I hadn't tried to access the external drive for about a month and I found that I couldn't. I called Apple Support again for help. In the end, the person I was working with suggested that he would get in touch with my first contact to see if written instructions could be sent to me so that I could repeat her process. At the same time, he suggested I ask for help here. When I first noticed the problem, the icon for the external drive was on my desktop; today it isn't. Below is the information that is relevant (I hope).
*+From Disc Utility: Information on External Drive+*
Name : leopard
Type : Volume
Disk Identifier : disk1s2
Mount Point : Not mounted
File System : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Connection Bus : USB
Device Tree : IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/USB7@1D,7
Writable : Yes
Universal Unique Identifier : CED756E6-8A72-33BB-B79B-469908923E54
Capacity : 999.16 GB (999,157,620,736 Bytes)
Owners Enabled : No
Can Turn Owners Off : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : No
Disk Number : 1
Partition Number : 2
*+Information from First Aid/Repair Disc+*
Invalid node structure
The volume leopard could not be verified completely.
Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
*+Information at bottom of Disc Utility Window:+*
Mount Point : Not mounted Capacity : 999.16 GB (999,157,620,736 Bytes)
Format : Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Available : -
Owners Enabled : - Used : -
Number of Folders : - Number of Files : -
I have no idea what is wrong or what to do now. I do know that the first thing is to reformat the drive, but I don't know how to do that. The second thing will be to install all the upgrades so that both internal and external drives are exactly the same - that I can manage! The third thing is to figure out how to get back to the original set up.
If anyone can help or point me to sites that will tell me how to do any or all of this, I will be most appreciative.

Answer 1

{quote:}I wanted help with two things: (1) getting the external HD back up and (2) reestablishing the connections that had been made so that iMovie, iPhoto, and iTunes pointed back to those applications and libraries on the internal HD. In other words, before I lost the connection to the external HD, when I clicked on iMovie on the external HD, what opened was iMovie on the internal HD, with all of my projects available. Same with the other two.{quote}
To be honest I'm not sure why you were opening an Applications from the External HD and pointing it to the Library on the Internal HD? Seem's like it would be a lot simpler and easier just to open and run everything right from the Internal HD. Some folk's will open and run the Application from there Internal HD and then point it to the Library on the External HD, but you need to be very careful doing so because if the external HD fails then you lose your data.
{quote:}Until about 3 hours ago, I couldn't use Disk Utility to erase the external HD and start over because the icon wasn't showing in the Devices panel. I have been at this all day and finally the icon did appear and I erased the external drive. After 4 attempts to reinstall Leopard OS, that, too finally worked. I have now reinstalled iLife '09 and all of the necessary upgrades.{quote}
Not sure why you lost the connection to the External HD, could be just a bad connection or a early warning sign for a failing drive?
{quote:}I knew that if I erased the external HD I would lose all of the connections I had between the two drives. That was why I was hoping for a way to fix it without erasing. So now I need help with (2) above: reestablishing those connections. I'm afraid I don't understand partitioning - what it is or what it does. If you have time to explain it to me, I will certainly give it a try.{quote}
I think you need to run everything from your Internal HD and only use the External HD as a backup drive either with Time Machine or on the great advise of elmac using SuperDuper.
As for Partitioning and Formatting I can give you some article's to study, but would suggest not fussing or experimenting unless you had a second External HD to play around with.
Dennis