Startup volume damaged?

I ran a utility called Onyx and it told me that my startup volume was damaged and needed to be repaired. I ran another utility app and it said the same thing! It advised starting from a OSx disk and using a utility. I am running 10.4, latest update. Would anyone know how to do this, I am a mac newbie! Thanks for any help.

John,
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
You will need to use the OS X installation disk for this procedure, which is described in Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck.
The Repair Disk function link by Dr. Smoke will also elaborate on the procedure.
;~)

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Can I move MobileSync to a hard disk other than startup volume?

I have been told many times by others 'in the know' that you have to keep certain files on the start-up volume. However, I have 2 internal HDs on my iMac, and the SSD (start up volume) is quite small - only 250GB. The other drive is 1 TB and I have about 15 TB of externals available via Lightning connection. The problem is that the internal SSD is continually filling up, and since I have several mobile devices I am synching with iTunes, they are gobbling up tons of disk space on the startup volume. Is it possible to move MOBILE SYNC to a different drive? There is nothing in 'preferences' for mobile sync that can specify the volume where these files should be stored. They are taking up almost 85GB of disk space. My temptation right now is to clone the 1TB internal over to an external drive, then clone the SSD internal over to the 1TB internal, and make that 1TB internal drive the new startup volume, but it would require reformatting and reinstalling operating system software, since there isn't any on that drive.
I am sort of 'stuck' because when I setup a replacement iPhone on Monday from a backup of the previous phone (that had a defective antenna), about 100 recordings in the RECORDER APP were not restored to the new iPhone, and I need to dig through some iPhone backups to try to find one that might have them on it. I hate to lose some of those very valuable recordings from a one-week intensive graduate seminar. Any suggestions for pruning the startup volume?
Disk Inventory X is showing only 7.2GB of open space and 225.8GB full on the SSD startup volume. Here are the big space 'hogs:'
Users - 168.5 GB (library 151.3GB; movies 15GB, which is odd, since all of the movies are stored externally.) In 'application support, MobileSync is taking up 82.5GB and Mail is taking up 47.9GB. (some of this mail goes way back, and needs to be archived, but I am not sure if that possibility exists in current OS)
Applications - 16.5 GB
Library - 11.5GB
iMac - intel (3 yrs old)
OSX 10.9.5
iPadAir
'the new iPad'
iPhone 5S
various other mac devices...

Well iTunes itself takes up virtually no space. I believe what you are suggesting is a move of your music files. Now these files can be moved to another drive and iTunes will act just like normal. The catch is that your music files pretty much have to be in one place. If you already have all your music stored in the My Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder than you should be good. If you do not its a little trickier. In your preferences menu of iTunes under the advanced tab there are the options to "Keep iTunes music folder organized" and to "Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library". You will want both of these checked. Then under the advanced tab (The one not in the preferences menu) There is an option to consolidate library. This will copy all the music in your library not in the iTunes folder to the iTunes folder. Thus you will want to delete duplicated when the process is over. (If your drive is too slim on space for this opperation... then I don't know what to tell you.) With all your music in the iTunes folder just drag and drop said folder onto the new drive. Then under the advanced tab in preferences the first option is to change the location of your iTunes music library. Simply change it to where you have stored your library on the new drive and you will be set to go.

I have a mid-2010 27" Quad Core i5 iMac running 10.8.3. Startup disk recognizes the primary hard drive as a startup volume but will not boot from it. Have tried zapping PRAM, ran disk utility. No errors reported Any thoughts?

I have a mid-2010 27" Quad Core i5 iMac running 10.8.3. Startup disk recognizes the primary hard drive as a startup volume but will not boot from it. Have tried zapping PRAM, ran disk utility. No errors reported Any thoughts?

My bad Eric. The startup preference recognizes the primary as a 10.8.3 startup volume but when u select it the system does not boot. I can only boot from my external backup drive

Startup Volume screen keeps on appearing - no keys pressed though

I've had this problem since I've had my Mac mini (about a year now). Sometimes the startup volume screen appears despite not having any other Hard Drives connected apart from the boot drive (which is the internal Hard drive) and despite not pressing any keyboard keys on startup.
I am using 10.5.2 with the latest mini firmware and am unable to think what could be causing this? I have selected my main hard-drive in the startup disk preferences and have no permissions/hard drive problems (so says disk utility) but the problem persists. It's a minor annoyance but one I would welcome any help with.
Many thanks,
Paul
Message was edited by: Paul Woodford

Hi and many thanks for the reply.
The only drive I attach is a firewire one to do time machine backups but I always disconnect it once I've finished backing up (the firewire lead is still attached to my Mac though, just not to the drive).
The SMART status of the drive in Disk Utility is verified.
I've taken this Mac back once to be repaired for this problem but they found nothing wrong with it. It is a very intermittent problem though and only occurs rarely. A small, but annoying niggle. I am also using a KVM switch but I didn't have this problem with my last Mac, another mini, connected to the same KVM.

Cant install ML - Error "You cant use this Volume as Startup Volume"

Hello,
i have Lion 10.7.4 on an mid 2010 MBP17"
Whe i try to install ML my Bootpartition (also my only one partition) is grayed.
An i became an error simmilar to "you cant use this volume as your startup volume for your computer"
I am verry confused, becouse it is my startup volume.
I have over 50GB of free space.
anyone an idea, about this problem?
PS i have no recovery partition.
When i startup with alt key i only can select my "one - and only" partition.
Greetings from Hamburg
Marc

PS i have no recovery partition.
When i startup with alt key i only can select my "one - and only" partition.
Running the Lion installer on your disk again should re-create the Recovery partition.
Edit: I hope you've saved the installer?

Partition appearing twice in "startup volume menu"

I have two partitions on my MacBook : Macintosh HD 1 and Macintosh HD 2.
But when i'm booting holding the option (alt) key to select a startup volume the partitions Macintosh HD 1 and Recovery are ok but the volume "Macintosh HD 2" appears twice (basically i have from left to right : MHD 1, MHD 2, MHD 2, Recovery).
I've repaired my hard-drive, permissions... using Disk Utility but it didn't solve the issue.
I've tried to boot on both MHD 2 partitions and they are exactly the same, i think one of them is just an alias or something but i don't know how to delete it.
It's not a big deal but it's awkward !
Any idea ?

The duplicate Macintosh HD 2 appears only when i'm booting holding the option key not in Disk Utility !
I'm getting this :

Did 10.6.5 alter the permissions of the top level of the startup volume?

Since applying the 10.6.5 update it seems that non-admin users have read/write access to the top level directory of the startup volume. That means that non-admin users can create items there.
I am wondeing if this is a normal change for 10.6.5 or if something is weird with my system.
We updated from 10.6.4 via Software Update. This machine has only ever had Snow Leopard installed on it.
(Note that top level sub-folders such as Library and System do not appear to be affected by this)

Are you referring to the ownership and privileges for the drive? If so then if they aren't set at the default it's because of something a user has done because the installer makes no such changes. You can return them to the default as follows;
1. Select the drive and Press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window.
2. In the Ownership and Sharing section at the bottom is a checkbox labeled, "Ignore permissions on this volume." If the box is checked then click on the lock icon and authenticate. Uncheck the box.
3. Open the Terminal application in the Utilities folder and enter the following command then press RETURN:
sudo chown root:admin "/Volumes/Macintosh HD"
You will be asked to enter your admin password which will not be echoed.
If you now click onto the still open Get Info window you should now see the proper info:
Owner=system with r/w privileges
Group=admin with r/w privileges
Everyone is read-only
Click on the lock icon to prevent any changes. Close the window then quit the Terminal.

Starting from external disk: cannot unmount standard startup volume

Hi all,
I started my my mac from an external disk to do some maintainance on my standard startup volume but this volume cannot be ejected.
I already tried lsof to find out whether there is still a process running on the starup volume but lsof doesn't list anything.
what else could be a reason for this problem?

Hi Konstantin;
How did you get the system on to the external drive?
It sounds like there is still something that is dependent on the internal system drive.
Allan

Volume setting memory / startup volume

does quicktime player or plugin have any setting to activate volume memory? thus it could remember the volume it was set at during last closing. if not, how about a way to set startup volume. i would prefer if the player and plugin started up with volume at 50%. starting at 100% everytime blows me out of my seat. i googled this question and poked around in quicktime's preferences/settings to no avail. thanks in advance for your time and replies.

Post what exactly have you tried.
Read the wiki.

Powerbook G3 Startup Volume problems

I am using a G3 Pismo Powerbook I bought off eBay. It's a 500 Mhz G3 and it's been upgraded to 1 gig of Ram and a 100 gig hard drive. It came with OS 9 and Tiger installed on it, but I wanted to do my own clean install and I ended up using XPostFacto to install Tiger on it. It runs okay, but the problem is it only boots if I press Option-Command-Shift-Delete during startup, which bypasses the primary startup volume. If I press and hold C to try and boot from a OS 9 CD nothing happends and if I hold Option it hangs on a screen with a refresh button my volume icon and a next button.
Any Ideas?

sean,
It sounds like the Pismo's DVD-ROM drive is at fault here. If the Tiger DVD has "Update" any place on the label, it will not install a fresh Tiger OS. The "Update" Tiger DVDs are used to update a previous version of OSX to Tiger, i.e Panther/10.3.x to Tiger/10.4 (not sure if it will update Panther/10.2). The bottom line...you must have the previous version on the HD in order to run the Update DVD.
The Pismo with a PowerPC CPU can boot 9.x from the USB port but NOT OSX; this only became available the new Intel Macs. See if you can get 9.x to boot from the USB external DVD-ROM. Power on the USB drive with the 9.x CD in place, then restart while pressing the 'option' key. If the USB drive is available as a boot drive along with the internal HD, give it a try. However, don't erase the HD or install 9.x until you have a solution for OSX.
Do you have another Mac with a PowerPC CPU (G3, G4 or G5) that is compatible with Tiger and also running Tiger? If so, there is a way to install Tiger from this computer...please post back with details.

Mac mini occasionally boots in startup volume screen (SOLVED).

Here is my original message from March 08:
"I've had this problem since I've had my Mac mini (about a year now). Sometimes the startup volume screen appears despite not having any other Hard Drives connected apart from the boot drive (which is the internal Hard drive) and despite not pressing any keyboard keys on startup.
I am using 10.5.2 with the latest mini firmware and am unable to think what could be causing this? I have selected my main hard-drive in the startup disk preferences and have no permissions/hard drive problems (so says disk utility) but the problem persists. It's a minor annoyance but one I would welcome any help with."
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1433640&tstart=0
Because the original post is archived I thought I would post the answer in a new thread. The answer to this problem was to replace the network cable connecting my Mac mini to my Apple router.
I think the previous faulty cable was causing the mini to do a phantom network boot and that's why the startup volume screen came up from time to time.
Since, the cable change no more startup volume screen problem.
Phew, this has been bugging me ever since I bought my mini. It's nice to know sometimes it's the simple answers that work

I have a similar problem. Whenever I startup my Mac Mini, an icon of the "Macintosh HD" appears in the middle of the screen. It doesn't go away until I click on it. After that, every thing works fine... until I use Safari. If I use Safari long enough, some type of glitch occurs that doesn't let me type correctly; Safari will stop working as it should be, and every time i try to type, some really weird symbols appear, like these ones: ßêÄ©¶¢. The only option I have left is to restart the computer, over, and over, and over again. Please help!!!!

Re-apply the Mac OS X 10.4.9 combo updater from an alternate startup volume

Most instructions that I have read say:
" Re-apply the Mac OS X 10.4.9 combo updater from an alternate startup volume. "
( Yep, I got the security update blues: which makes me always wonder if Apple programers can program an updater they should also program an uninstaller. )
However I do not have a alternate startup volume and I do not want to do that firewire thing by using another Mac.
After I insert the CD that that has the 1049 combo updater in my iMac20 drive can I install the updater from my eDrive ( TTPro 4.5 ) ?

I do not have a alternate startup volume
Then, just reapply it on the hosed startup volume. I know nothing about eDrives, but just copy the COMBO updater from the CD to the IMac and run it from there.
Your reluctance to use external FWHDs for bootable backups/clones severely limits your ability to restore the OS back to its previous incarnation. See http://www.macmaps.com/upgradefaq.html and http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/installswupdates.html for developing a proper strategy.

Macbook Pro (10.6.4) thinks there are 2 startup volumes...

I have been having some trouble with Snow Leopard after updating to 10.6.4 and have been trying to troubleshoot some issues and discovered the computer sees 2 "Macintosh HD" startup volumes.
I started the computer holding Option to get to the startup manager, and I was surprised to see 2 harddrives there with the same name, and both will boot, one gives a few errors, and I forget exactly what they were, but I still had access to all my files.
I had this issue shortly after I got the computer (originally running Leopard) and upgraded to Snow Leopard (with a legit copy). I spoke to Apple tech support, they were clueless, and just had me wipe everything out and reinstall Snow Leopard clean, I guess it worked for a while, but when I updated to 10.6.4 the problem came back...
I was wondering a few things:
1. Has anyone seen this issue before if so what causes it?
2. Is there any way to reconcile the issue without wiping everything again?
3. Any other solutions?
Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance!

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
It sounds like your boot drive has somehow become partitioned into 2 partitions, but I have no idea how since partitioning is generally something you have to do on purpose. Did you ever partition the drive, perhaps to create a Windows partition or something like that?
Open Disk Utility and look at the left column. Do you see your hard drive by brand name with two volumes under it?
Select the drive by brand name and go to the partition tab. Do you see two volumes? The blue part represents stuff on the drive.
It is possible to eliminate one of these, but first you need to be sure where your data is--possibly it is all on one partition, but you could have some on one partition and some on the other. You want to be sure to back up ALL of your data onto an external drive before eliminating a partition.
What you want to do is to get all of your data on the top partition. Once the bottom partition has nothing that you want to keep, you can highlight it and then hit the "-" sign. It should then disappear. Then you should be able to drag the bar down and increase the size of the top partition to take up the space formerly occupied by the second partition. Then you can hit "Apply", and you should end up with just one partition.
Again, be sure to have a good backup on an external drive before trying to repartition your drive. If something doesn't work, there is always the chance that you will have to erase the drive and start over.
Good luck!

Mac does not show startup volumes

Hello, I've got a problem with my MBP!
It's the latest model (Core i7) and I'm using it with an Intel X25-M G2 SSD (160GB).
On a third partition of the SSD, I installed Windows 7.
(a little gaming, a few win-only applications)
Booting Windows (or from CD/DVD) should be possible by holding down ALT.
This worked fine for years on my old devices - But this does not work with my new MBP! Holding ALT during startup ends with a grey screen showing nothing! Without ALT, my MBP boots OSX. In the System Preferences I can choose to reboot to Windows (or from a CD/DVD). This works without problems, Windows boots...
But why can't I select my bootdevice by starting with ALT down? Any Ideas?
And please don't tell me to install reFit! I'll never do so!
I'm asking because I'm a little afraid of what to do in the case of reinstalling OSX to a broken/empty Drive where I can't select my bootdevice from within the running OS...

I definitely do not need to modify my Mac that way.
Selecting the startup-volume is possible without refit, or at least should be and works on many many Macs I know/own.
As long as a feature is provided by any "preinstalled Tool" I wont use 3rd party. If a feature is missing I write my own program - but I'm not going to write my own bootloader...
So why does my 2010 MBP have problems with showing startup volumes when booting with the "ALT"-Key?

Is it possible to delete the boot/startup volume from Terminal

Is it possible to delete the boot/startup volume from Terminal?
What sort of command would/could allow this?

Is it possible to delete the boot/startup volume from Terminal?
Do you mean is it possible to destroy your system from the Terminal? Anyone that has spend long enough working with Unix from a command line knows that answer. Yes! And a painful lesson it has been for many of us.
The real question is, what is your goal?
If you just want to erase lots of files, then the 'rm' command is available. Once all the files are erased, the rm command will be one of them, and so that is the end of the game. You will not be able to execute any more commands. The file system is still there, and the data in all those files is still on the disk, you have just eliminated the easy way to access that data (via file names).
If you want to initialize a new file system on the disk, you could most likely do that (diskutil - it will be the last command you run from the terminal, but you could most likely do it). Again, the data is still there, but the file system structure that held all the names and allocation information has been eliminated.
If you want to securely erase the disk, that is also possible (diskutil), and again, that will be the last command you will run from the terminal. Now nothing is left behind, neither data nor file system structure.
What sort of command would/could allow this?
rm and diskutil come to mind (in combination with sudo).
You could also just boot from the installation DVD, and then from the Menu select the Disk Utility and erase the disk as well as give it a new file system. And since you are running from the OS stored on the DVD, you can do other things after the Disk Utility is finished.

Startup volume damaged?

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