Startup drive Qwerks

For the last 4 months on my startup drive when i run Permissions i get and error "Error: No valid packages"
If i try to validate the drive "Verify volume failed with error Could not unmount disk"
The drive seems to continue to work with no apperent problems, i have tried a couple of other disk utilities, still cannot unmount volume
Another problem is over 3 months the main ata connectot started to not mount anything.
Now it no longer works at all should i be worried that it's a sign of more probs to come?
Im installing a sata drive and ignore the ata connector problem.
What do you think about my solution?
sknoxx

If the following KB article doesn't help, start in Safe Mode by holding down the shift key while starting until you see the logo and spinning progress indicator. That will run a file check while starting.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302672
John

Similar Messages

Using Time Machine for an external startup drive

I've never used Time Machine; I just kept on using my older backup startup drive software when starting with Leopard three years ago.
My husband is getting a new iMac with an external drive for backup because I convinced him that Time Machine is so easy to use. Yes, I have a lot of faith that Apple knows what it is doing.
However, I don't know how Time Machine works for making an external drive bootable. If it's not super easy for that purpose, I'm thinking that it might be easier to partition his external in setting things up for him, and putting SuperDuper! on one of the partitions.
What do you think? Would Time Machine all by itself be super easy if he needed to startup from the external drive? Do you have to do anything other than to hold down the option key during startup to boot from an external drive backed up by Time Machine?
He's getting an iMac with a 1T drive and an external Iomega 2TB eGo Desktop Hard Drive.
I'm assuming that his new iMac will be coming with Snow Leopard, but it hasn't arrived yet and I don't know for sure about that. But I think if it doesn't come with Snow Leopard, I'd upgrade it for him before installing anything else.
Thanks for any help!
Mary

Thanks so much to you for taking the trouble to help me learn something about Time Machine. I think I've learned enough now to get it set up for my husband without doing anything particularly stupid.
Dave, there's no chance my husband would swing for a second external drive. I had to talk him into having one at all. He's not into managing a computer and doesn't want to think about stuff like backups. Once in awhile I'm in synch with that kind of orientation too, but then I recall the times I've been overjoyed to have good backups for myself... and my backup software is extremely reliable and easy to use.
Pondidni and Thomas, thanks so much for all the links. I've spent enough time reading them that I think I've made up my mind to go with a SuperDuper! partition for the expected way to boot from the external drive. It's also a great reassurance that it would be possible to use a Time Machine backup partition for restoration via an install CD if SuperDuper! should fail, though. SuperDuper! did fail for me once, but fortunately I had another partition with a SuperDuper! backup.
If the single backup drive fails, of course, that would be a nasty inconvenience. On the other hand, at this point I doubt that the actual losses in that unlikely event would impact my husband so horribly as it might for many who have work or school-related necessities stored on their computer. This is mainly a fun computer that he has at home, and if there ever are particularly important documents that he can't afford to lose, extra backups of those files could go onto a CD, DVD, or keychain drive. The chances of needing that are pretty slim.
I know that eventually the backup drive will fail if it's used over a long enough period of time, but he seems ready to follow my advice to only even connect and turn on the external drive once a week and leave it connected only during the time it's actually actively making backups. (Unless some very important work is going on, in which case he knows to keep it connected during that period of time.) An external drive will likely last a good while longer than average under that kind of very limited use.
Thomas, I do also believe in having extra backup external drives and hope to get one for my own computer in the near future. I noticed in shopping for my husband how much less expensively you can get a large external drive now than just a few years back.
Thanks again so much to all for helping me to think through how I can help him get started with his own backups.
Best wishes,
Mary

I've just bought a new iMac with 2 TB hard drive. Can I partition the startup drive?

I've just bought a new iMac with 2 TB hard drive. Can I partition the startup drive?

Glenfern wrote:
The reason I'm considering partitioning is - I'm going to transfer about 50 GB of family photos & music to the iMac. Over time the photos & music library is going to grow. My idea was to point the iphoto & itunes library to the new partition so that the application programs (that will will reside in partition 1), will not get congested with photos & music over time & degrade performance. Also, I dabble a little bit with the music editing program LOGIC & Sound Track Pro, which creates lots of little music files in the process.
In your case I would strongly recommend against partitioning, as dwb mentions a drive loaded with data on an
O SX system doesn't equate to performance loss. However partitioning does. If you were going to tell me you were partitioning to load different OS's on the computer then you would have a good reason to think about partitioning. My suggestion is do not partition.
What I would also recommend is getting some high quality high speed external HD's to store your photo and music libraries on. This helps keept the 2GB drive available while maintaining performance. I have 3 external HD's attached to my iMac, two are backup drives (1 Time Machine & 1 Bootable Clone) the third drive is for storing my my music, photo & movie libraries on. If you go this route the 3 drives I'd recommend are:
http://g-technology.com/products/g-drive.cfm
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10330
Personally I use the Lacie's however OWC or G-Tech would also be welcome on my desk.
Again if you want to take this path Apple has instructions for how to move the libraries to EHDs, if you want those links let me know.

How do I install a new startup drive

My startup drive on my Mac Pro running Mac OS X 10.7.5 is full and I need to replace it with a 2T drive. How do I go about changing over the data and rebooting with the new drive?

Put the new drive into one of the empty bays.
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your new hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Quit DU and boot from the Recovery HD:
Clone Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
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.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the new disk drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

Trying to link existing mac pro time machine backup to cloned startup drive

Hi
I have recently had to replace my startup drive on my Mac Pro as it was failing. I used SuperDuper! for this, and the clone is working fine as my new startup drive. I then went to run my next time machine backup (i backup to a time capsule), and time machine connected to the existing backup but wanted to backup everything as if backing up for the first time.
So i did a bit of researching around, and found this hint:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090213071015789
which changes the UUID registered with time machine, from the old drive to the new drive, so that it thinks that it's the old drive and carries on where it left off. i followed the instructions in the hint carefully and everything seemed to go right (i had to copy fsaclctl from an old leopard backup as it is missing in snow leopard). but when i ran the next backup again time machine wanted to backup everything.
towards the bottom of the hint, there is a comment about the UUID generated under snow leopard, as follows:
"I'm concerned that the output of xattr showed 37 hex pairs, not the 32 hex digits and dashes. By the looks -- I've forgotten all my ASCII -- it is a hex representation of the actual hex UUID (43 41 ...) and its dashes (2D), terminated with 00. That's arguably the same as the UUID, but not quite close enough to give me the warm & fuzzies"
So if anyone can help me get this working right, using the method described in the hint, or some other method, i would be very grateful. Seems like my scenario isn't that uncommon (changing a startup drive), and it baffles me that there isn't a more straightforward way to make this work.
thanks
nick

chadnchady wrote:
3. I am having troubles copying files(iphoto library) from my timemachine backup on to my imac.
That's correct. Time Machine backups retain the original ownership and permissions. So one user doesn't have access to another user's data. Usually, that's a good thing.
4. I don't need anything else except a few particular files, but everytime i try drag or copy it gives me the 'no privilege/permission error'.
Your best bet may be to use +Migration Assistant+ to migrate the user account and selected data. Then log on as that user and use/copy the data as desired. See the pink box in #19 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Mirrored Raid on Startup Drive?

Can I set up a Mirrored RAID with my Startup Drive without loosing the data?
I have a G5 Dual 1.8 running the latest OSX. I want to add a second internal HD, then setup a Mirrored RAID from my Startup Disk to my newly installed second internal drive. How do I set up this RAID without loosing anything on my startup drive? The new Drive will be the same size as my startup drive. I want the second drive as a backup startup drive.
Kevin Hawkins

Hi Kevin Hawkens;
What do you expact to gain by having a mirrored RAID?
Allan

Using MacBook Pro as startup drive?

I need to use some copy-protected apps that are on my MacBook Pro, but I want to use my Mac Pro with dual display to access those apps.
Is there anyway I can use my MacBook Pro as a startup drive? If so, how is this accomplished?
Thanks!

Is there anyway I can use my MacBook Pro as a startup drive?
Yes, if its OSX is new enough.
If so, how is this accomplished?
FireWire Target Disk Mode.
<http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661>
Boot the MacBook Pro while holding the "T" key. Connect a FireWire cable between the computers. Boot the Mac Pro while holding Option, then select the MacBook Pro drive for booting.
This will have the Mac Pro running from the MacBook Pro's drive, but probably won't run the protected software if its key is based on the CPU serial number since it will be that of the Mac Pro.

No startup drive found?

Having trouble with startup drives. First one (my original startup disk) couldnt be found after a software upgrade (not sure which or what, I always accept when I am told there is one to instal). Booted from System DVD and re installed OS 10.6.8 on another drive. All was working again until moments ago when I zapped the PRam and now this drive isnt launching OS. Something is up. Anyone experience this in the last few days? I fear that if I go through the DVD install, and data transfer that this may happen again.
Thanks

Boot to the Installer DVD, but answer only the "what Language" question and wait a quarter minute for the MenuBar to be drawn.
Choose Disk Utility from the Utilities Menu.
Select your drive Mechanism (eg Hitachi...) and click "Repair Disk". Then choose the Boot Volume (Macintosh HD if you did not change it) and click "Repair Disk". Post any unresolved error message here for further assistance.
Then select the Boot Volume and click "Repair Permissions" you can safely ignore these messages unless they appear in RED.
Restart and hold down the Option key. Every bootable drive should be shown. Select the one you want and proceed.

Startup Drive has a Question Mark on it and Wheel is spinning

After I completed the installation of Leopard, my Powerbook G4 would not reboot properly. It only gets as far as showing my desktop, without any startup drives or the DVD. It is all blank. I can see information at the top of the finder. The wheel continues to spin. Because of the spinning, I can't access anything in the finder or the desktop, etc. But I am able to go down to the dashboard and open Safari, Word and my documents. But my finder on the top right continues to spin whenever I put it up there. I see many of the features of 10.5. If I leave a program open, I can access the left side of the finder. When I go to force quit, I see that the finder is not responding. I relaunch it, but then I have the same problem, the spinning wheel. Tried to shut down, but nothing, just the spinning wheel. I am able to shut it off by holding down the start up button. Help!!

Perform a SMC reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964
See if you can boot into recovery.
http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/
Select Disk Utility>First Aid and run Verify and Repair.
Any changes?
Ciao.

Mavericks Startup Drive read only

I can't find details on this anywhere. I waited a while to upgrade because Lion apparently did not play well with Adobe CS5. Mavericks, on the other hand, is supposed to. (I may upgrade to CS6 soon, but I like "owning"" my software and being able to use it even if a server somewhere shuts down.)
I upgraded to Mavericks today, and now my Startup drive is read-only. Apps that update their files under system permissions continue to write OK, but apps that write under my account permissions are kicking back write errors.
Any reason why I can't do anything on my HDD? And what can I do to fix it? I upgraded from 10.6.8. I see some people had similar issues with Lion, but no one seemed to offer a usable "fix."
I can manually change the permissions, but crawling through all of the folders to make that change would prove very tedious. Is there a better way?
Any help would be much appreciated.

I'd recommend booting into the recovery partition and doing a permissions repair
Restart and hold "alt" until you see a list of bootable volumes. Then click the one labeled "Recovery"

"startup drive full" error - help

I have gotten a "startup drive full" error a couple of times while using Microsoft Word. It usually occurs when I am trying to save something. My drives are no where near full. What is causing this? How do I fix it?

One of the reasons (when one exists) for a startup drive full message,
could be if the computer has several temporary files and virtual memory
files on the hard disk drive; this could happen if you have insufficient
installed chip RAM and the computer is using HDD free-space as RAM.
And if you are multi-tasking in Mac OS X, there may be a point where
the drive is fully in-use. The utility "Activity Monitor" could tell you what
is happening in the system at different intervals and perhaps you could
tell what is running in there and using a lot of virtual memory; and also
what that utility says is going on elsewhere at the same time.
You may have to boot the computer from the Installer disc and use
the version of Disk Utility on that (in the Installer's menubar is where
you find options, other than running the installer on that disc) to run
'repair disk.' There also may be some caches and other files on the
drive which are not properly being cleared after quitting applications
or after saving works in progress.
A variety of maintenance tasks can be performed to help the Mac
run better; and maybe these are overdue. I use an easy way out
and do not boot into the single user or other modes to do house-
keeping chores in OS X 10; the software (runs free) I choose to
have do these, on occasion, is called OnyX and is a download
from Titanium Software online. An easy search, to get there and
see the correct download for the OSX version your machine runs.
The OnyX 'automation' selection has several check-boxes and
a few times a year, I run all of the options shown there; otherwise
I only run the default set, and then have the utility automatically
restart itself afterward. There are settings in the OnyX preferences.
Not sure what else may be going on in the computer's hard disk
drive; but to use the boot/install disc's Disk Utility to 'repair disk'
and also to verify or see the status of SMART, may tell you if
the hard disk drive is starting to fail. (Although it could stop work-
ing and not say it was failing; checking anyway, is easy enough.)
If you have a third-party disk utility such as Drive Genius or
maybe DiskWarrior, these may be able to check and repair
some aspects of the hard disk drive's files. Some of these
tools are better at some tasks than others; and so I am not
sure which one(s) are best at specific jobs. Each is a bit
different and so there are times where having more than one
could be very handy... if one knew what they did, and when
to use one over another third-party disk utility. (I don't!)
At some point, it is very handy to have an externally enclosed
FireWire hard disk drive, and be knowledgeable and practiced
in making bootable clones of the computer's hard disk drive
and the contents there in. This can give you great backups
with the ability to clone the complete disk image back as it
was, but on to a repaired or low-level reformatted HDD. I use
a free-running utility to clone, Carbon Copy Cloner.
Hopefully a fix as simple as using the Disk Utility found in
the installer (hold C key on startup with disc in optical drive)
and do not launch the installer, use Disk Utility from menubar;
and 'repair disk' may help. If there is a defect in the Hard Disk
Drive (HDD) a repair may help; or a more invasive approach
may be required, to include other tools in the Disk Utility, which
could totally erase all your stuff plus the OS from that hard drive.
Not sure how much experience you have in any of this; so at
this point...
Good luck & happy computing!

Startup drive at top on desktop... possible...?

i recall in system 9, the startup drive was always at top right... toppamost-rightamost..
not the case anymore... it's user modified... by mere placement...
i'd like to instantly see which drive or partition is my current startup volume...
by having the startup volume first and toppamost...
how...?
thanx...
M

As ‘WZZZ’ wrote, it was in Leopard that Apple abandoned the time-honoured placement of the boot volume’s icon in the top right corner.
The easiest way to see which volume you are booted from is to go to About this Mac from the Apple Icon in the MenuBar
...or double-click on a volume icon on the desktop and in the window that opens (root level) look at the icon of Applications, Users, System or Library. Those will be ‘special’ icons only on the boot volume.
If you manually move the boot volume to the top right it should remain there for subsequent boots -- but note that if the volume is used for cloning a re-cloning may alter the placement again.
Bottom line: Don't suspect that you have something amiss, don't try altering settings -- the 'fix' has to come from Apple.
Andreas

100's of GB of space on Startup Drive have dissappeared

Ok this is bizarre. When I purchased my MacPro, I formatted one drive to be strictly startup/boot drive and it also contains my applications.
My home folder is on another drive.
My startup/boot/applications drive is more than 300 GB.
I've been using my MacPro all year -- and now all of a sudden my startup drive is full. It's impossible since my largest folder is my applications folder and all of them are less than 20GB.
What can be causing this. I now have 0 space on my applications/boot drive on a 300gb drive
Any advice would be appreciated.

Download and run OmniDiskSweeper which will show your hidden folders and directories, pay attention to
"./Volumes/" as that could contain actual files when it should only have 4k alias mount mounts to drive volumes you've used, if one of them didn't mount and you thought you were copying files.
I would also clone your volume to a 400GB sparse disk image or partition on another drive with SuperDuper.
Your boot drive should never get below 10% free space.

Startup Drive Permissions

Can I use 'chmod 777' command on my startup drive? I noticed it fixed some access problems on my external drives. Now I'm having some trouble with applications being able to access certain files that normally work without me knowing. I also get some kext errors. I've repaired permissions via Disk Utility, but that has not solved the problem entirely.

No idea about the "chmod 777", but it might be worth running SMART Utility to check out the physical health of your hard drive:
http://download.cnet.com/SMART-Utility/3000-2248_4-146625.html?tag=vtredir
You can download the demo and run it several times for free. It will give you a more comprehensive view of the physical health of your hard drive than Disk Utility, and although not perfect, will give you some assurance that your problem is not caused by the drive heading south.
If you don't get an answer to your question on this forum, it might be worth asking it on the appropriate software forum.
Good luck!

Startup Drive failure

On my G5 PPC tower running 10.5.4, my main startup disk failed to start up: just a black screen and whining fans. Fortunately, I have a secondary hard drive, which is reasonably recent, (10.4.4) and I was able to start up with that.
I repaired permissions on the original drive, and verified it with Disk Utility. A couple of permissions were out, but no errors reported on the drive itself. I ran repair permissions again, just in case. Everything checked out. It showed up as a valid startup drive in SYS PREFS. When I tried to start from it again, I got the same result.
I erased the drive and cloned over the backup with Carbon Copy Cloner. Again, it showed up as a valid startup drive, and again I got the black screen when I tried to start up from it.
Anyone out there with any ideas what might be wrong?

"Is it possible resetting the PRAM didn't 'take' in some way? Worth trying again?"
Well, not if you did it correctly, but a second go wouldn't hurt.
As resetting the PRAM did not work I don't know what the cause of the problem is.
It has Leopard on it yes? The only other thing to try is boot from the Leopard DVD - same method with the Option key, choose the DVD as the boot volume, choose Disk Utilities from the top menu bar, and run _Repair Disk_ on the troublesome drive. If it finds errors, repeat the process until no errors are reported. Then Restart.

Startup drive Qwerks

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