The term "invalid node structure"

can anyone out there explain (in real simple terms please) what "invalid node structure" means. this appeared when i ran disk utility and attempted to verify my start up disk. one day the disk was perfect, the next day it had invalid node structure and "needs to be repaired". so i started up from the install dvd and then ran disk utilities on the offending disk. the start up disk then indicated all was perfect. i restarted from the normal drive and again ran the utilities test. all is fine. so what is a node and how does it become invalid structurally and why did it get well by itself????

Google "invalid node structure" and you'll find many mentions of this problem. It basically means a directory entry on your disk has become corrupted. Running Disk Utility's Repair Disk option can sometimes repair the problem. If not, Disk Warrior from http://alsoft.com/ is my disk repair tool of choice.

Similar Messages

I got the dreaded "Invalid Node Structure" Error

Hi All,
I entered the Mac world recently with a spanking new Macbook Pro 15". Updated it online to the latest OS 10.6.4 Snow Leopard.
Today I was trying to install some more free application from the Official Mac Software Site. After installing a couple of softwares, I popped in the included recovery Disk and tryed installing xcode from the 'additional software' folder on the disk. But this failed
After this I thought of restarting the mac and try again. However, the **** thing now wouldn't boot anymore. Just stays on the Gray apple screen with the small ring rotating below it for ever.
Then I tried repairing it using the Disk Utility booting form the DVD. On verify Disk, it shows 'Invalid Node Structure'. So I clicked 'Repair Disk', And it just stayed there for ever without any progress. So I stopped it. And after trying the above 3-4 times, I Hard rebooted the system, and this time entered the console mode (Command + s).
Entered the command fsck_hfs -rf /dev/disk0s2 (disk0s2 is what Disk Utility showed me).
The output of this command shows:
** /dev/rdisk0s2
Executing fsck_hfs (version diskdev_cmds-491.0.2~7).
** Checking Journaled HFS Plus Volume
** Checking extents overflow file
** Checking catalog file
** Rebuilding catalog B-tree
disk0s2: I/O error.
disk0s2: I/O error.
disk0s2: I/O error.
disk0s2: I/O error.
disk0s2: I/O error.
disk0s2: I/O error.
disk0s2: I/O error.
disk0s2: I/O error.
disk0s2: I/O error.
disk0s2: I/O error.
And this goes on and on and on.... :((
Now what to do???

Hmmm, yeah that could be the last option, but I can't format the disk right now, 'cause I've some extremely important (not-yet-backed-up) files in it
So I'd like to try out all possible ways to recover the system before even thinking of a format!
BTW, the above fsck_hfs command I ran was by booting from the DVD itself.

IMac (March 2009) - Invalid Node Structure problem

Hi All
I was using my iMac as normal yesterday, when suddenly the system ground to a halt (something I never seen since using OS X). As I had work to do, after about an hour, I restarted, expecting it to be an app misbehaving or something straight forward, but on restart the same thing happened almost straight away.
So, I restarted again, only for the iMac to get stuck on the blue screen which follows the grey 'cog' screen. After looking through these discussions, and some other Mac forums, I booted from the installer disk, tried to run Disk Utility, which found issues and couldn't repair the disk.
I then tried Safe-User mode and fsck, which reported the aforementioned Invalid Node Structure problem. After checking a few more forums, I thought I would try to Erase the disk and reinstall Mac OS. I restored from my Time Machine backup, and finally got it to start, but the system moved at a snail's pace, and wouldn't open any apps or files.
I've tried again with fsck, and also fsck_hfs -r /dev/disk0s2 but all I get is the same error message:
disk0s2: I/O error.
Invalid Node Structure
(4, 38403)
** Volume check failed.
/dev/rdisk0s2 (hfs) EXITED WITH SIGNAL 8
So, does anyone know if there is anything I can do to save the iMac? Or does it need a new HD? It is my primary work computer, so I really need to get it back, and after buying it in the UK, am now in France for 6 weeks, so it's difficult for me to take it to an Apple specialist.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance,
Daniel

As the last user stated, Disk Warrior maybe able to correct it, however if you search the net, you will see there are more than one user with this problem. I had the same problem, however, my machine is out of warranty, It started like you are saying, I RAN disk warrior which corrected the problem long enough to boot the system. In a matter of 10 minutes or so, the system started pausing (apps hung, but in a matter of seconds recovered). I was checking the disk with fsck_hfs and fsck while booted from a USB drive with a maintenance install of 10.5.6. After running fsck the 5th time with different options suggested from the internet, I rebooted with my disk warrior DVD only to find the drive NOT mounted, Drive utility see's it (even can attempt to run disk repair, but it locks up the system when trying this). Disk Warrior doesn't even see the disk to run a directory repair, although in the "check s.m.a.r.t status it sees it as a sata device, and SAYS ITS NORMAL).
Since my iMac was out of warranty, I followed the online instructions to replace the hard drive (not too difficult) and everything is fine now.
The old drive still wont mount, but another utility I bought (data rescue II) has been able to quick scan it and access all the data, even though it wont clear a fsck fsck_hfs or disk warrior, anyways, get it back while you can, IT IS THE hard drive itself, and lots of other iMac users online with the same issue (can you say WHY is my iMac SOOO HOT on the apple in the back (right where the drive is and not sufficient cooling in my opinion, but hey, some people might want to lay their computers face down and fry eggs on the it or something... ))
-SD

'Invalid node structure', 'Invalid B-tree node size', Disk Warrior useless

Hi everyone, I am getting sick of this, it's the second time it's happened to me in a relatively short space of time, the first time with an Iomega external 500GB drive, this time with a 1.5TB Western Digital.
I gave the Western Digital drive two partitions, (as I did for the previous Iomega drive), one for doing backups of my MacBooks internal drive, the other for random media, mostly VIDEO_TS folders.
After going away for a couple of weeks, I returned home, plugged in the Western Digital drive via USB, the Internal backup partition showed in Finder, the other did not. Obviously I ran Disk Utility which was only able to show an error report with the usual 'Invalid node structure etc' message.
I tried running Disk Warrior 4.2 (supposedly the version which works with Snow Leopard) from the DVD, (holding down the C key after restart), and..... nothing, just the grey screen and spinning wheel showing, so I gave up on that and installed DW to the Utilities folder. Now it starts up, the corrupt drive showed up, I hit the Rebuild button in DW, things seemed to be happening, but then the Beach Ball appeared and there was a (very) long hang before I decided to Force Quit.
I am assuming that if DW can not fix the drive, it is done for, and may as well be used as a door stop.
I am prepared to buy yet another drive, but can someone please give me an idea about why this has happened to me twice now, and what I can do to prevent it from happening again?

Just erase the partition. Nothing yet suggests the drive is bad. When you got the drive did you prep it correctly? Usually bare drives are pre-formatted for Windows. You might consider doing this:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your 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 two and size them as you prefer. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition 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 Options 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.
Repeat Steps 4-6 for the other partition. Alternatively, you can start with a single volume. After the zero data erase you can then re-partition the drive.

HELP! "Invalid node structure"

what does this error mean?
i booted from the install dvd and ran disk utility
them clicked Repair Disk
it doesn't complete because of the error "Invalid node structure"
Bootcamp won't partition my drive because the verification fails
PLEASE HELP!

no, now i have a really strange problem
i've managed to successfully image my whole hard drive onto an external FW disk
i did this by booting from the osx install dvd and opening disc utility from the utilities menu
but before i wiped by drive i (thankfully!) tested the restore fuction
i can choose a source but i can't choose a destination
it says to drag the destination disc into the box
but when i try this, all my mouse does is selects the discs i drag on/over in the left hand panel of disc manager
it doesn't pull them out of the panel so i can drag them into the input field
it doesn't do this when i boot up normally and run disk utility off the hard drive
very strange
i think i'll wait until leopard comes out and do a wipe and full reinstall of all my software then - no big fan of upgrading, better to wipe and reinstall afresh
until then, i'll have to use a pc to run windows!

WTFKK is "Invalid node structure"???

I had Mac OS X 10.7.4 and a weird problem that i did mention in this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4110520?start=0&tstart=0. I did erased Macintosh HD with Zero Out Data option and try to reinstall Lion, but failed all the time. So i decided to reinstall Snow Leopard with DVD come with my 2011 based-iMac. It failed for some first times, but finally it successful installed.
I guess that the problem was gone, but no. When i try to update to 10.6.8 to upgrade to Lion again, it failed. Try again, again and again, finally it succeeded, but the update for iTunes still failed, whatever, i don't care about that any more. I inserted Applications Install DVD to install iLife, and O...M...G, failed, failed, failed. But finally, it succeeded too. And now i'm going to reinstall Lion on my iMac, failed, failed,failed, and so crazy, it finally succeeded. I logged in, doing some update, oh god, failed. I took a look at Disk Utility, "Invalid node structure", ooohhhh mannn, this make me so hate iMac and Mac OS. So i shuted it down and go out for a while. When i came back, it's bulllshittt, the startup with long gray bar again, and suddenly shut down. I'm gonna unplug it and throw it out of my house!! I reinstall everything again like what i did, and now i'm writing these with Snow Leopard 10.6.8, and maybe the daamn "Invalid node structure" still waiting for me anytime!!!

You might want to check the health of your drive with the free demo of SMART Utility. That is, if you can get it booted.
http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php
Did you ever run Disk Utility Repair Disk?
For memtest:
To test the memory, get memtest and run it in single user mode, where it will test as much memory as possible, more than with the OS loaded.
You can get memtest + directions from the link below. However, ignore running it from Terminal. Instead, boot into SU Mode, Cmd-s at the startup chime. (Best to startup from a full shutdown.)
At the prompt, simply type /usr/bin/memtest all 3 -L (From this link It will be installed in /usr/bin/) Then hit return. This will run three loops of memtest and create a log in Console in Utilties.
If you want to run memtest longer, which may be advisable, since RAM errors can be very elusive, just remove the "all 3" which will give you /usr/bin/memtest -L and hit return. It will keep testing until you quit it.
If you want to quit the test, just hit control-c
When finished, you can just type in "reboot" and hit return.
http://osxdaily.com/2011/05/03/memtest-mac-ram-test/
Direct link for the download.
http://cdn.command-tab.com/2008/memtest_422.zip

Startup partition dies in the middle of booting, Invalid node structure?

Hi! In the last few weeks, possibly since I last upgraded Lion and Safari, my iMac has been performing very badly. It's been sluggish, Safari and Finder repeatedly freezing and crashing/rebooting. Last night it escalated, and I launched Disk Utility to repair permissions. Ten hours later and no problems found. Not ten minutes later, the FInder crashes badly and I have to force a shutdown. When restarting, I get the grey progress bar, but it only reaches about 10%, then the hard drive whirrs and clicks a few times, and the computer shuts off. This happens every time I try to restart.
So instead, I boot into the recovery partition, and launch Disk Utility from there. Repair disk says the boot partition has an invalid node structure and I have to backup and reinstall. Now, I do have a Time Machine backup (a few days old since I don't have my Drobo on all the time due to the noise it makes), but since it's 800 GB of data I'm a bit reluctant to commit to that, hoping there is a simpler/faster solution. I'll see if I can try Disk Warrior. Or do you think I'd be better off to just nuke the entire drive and start from scratch?
The strange thing is that I have a Bootcamp partition with Windows 7, which works fine and actually can browse the files on the Lion partition. What does that mean? Can I use that to my advantage? If I do restore from Time Machine, will that affect my Bootcamp partition?

Disk Warrior confirmed that there were problems, but couldn't repair the node structure, possibly because of bad blocks. Support at the local Mac store (we don't have Apple stores here) said I should just try reinstalling the system, so that's what I did. It didn't work the first time, but then I reformatted the partition and since then everything has worked allright. I have now restored everything from the TM backup (which took about a day). I'm now guessing that the whirring was not actually some mechanical problem with the drive, but on the other hand DW wasn't too happy about the drive, so maybe I still have to replace it? I'm using it now and it seems better than before, but I won't do any serious work on this computer until I have a new TM backup in place.
(On that note, is it possible to "link" the restored system to the old TM backup that it was restored from? Or do I have to start over with a completely new TM backup, losing all the versioning of the old backup?)
UPDATE: Just ran Disk Utility, which now reported an erroneous block count in a file. Crossing my fingers hoping it's nothing critical adn that DU can repair it ...

On verbose mode i get the next leyend, CSRUSHBBluetoothHCIcontroller: setupHardware super returned 0, invalid node structure (4,14279), my bluetooth is doomed and so my macbook or just change it?

end yes i got the macbook summer 2006 still working and sharp, got this problem,
CSRUSHBBluetoothHCIcontroller: setupHardware super returned 0, invalid node structure (4,14279),
and it shut down
im thinking of open it up and check the bluetooth chip, or antenna, if something is not in place, or someone knows another way ?

there is nothing out of place, i reinstall mac os 10.6 and i run disk first aid, and it says my disk is ok, still it turns off random

Disk Utilities can not repair my disk - invalid node structure. How can I repair my disk? I have restarted with the CD.

Hi,
How can I repair my hard disk. Computer Starts up and then shuts down.
I've started up with the CD and disk utilities can not fix the disk, invalid node error.
How can I fix my disk?
I need to get to the file on the hard disk.
Thanks
Peter

With Disk Warrior can I start with a CD/DVD and get at the files on the hard disk?
With apple disk utilites I can not see my files that are on the hard disk.
If I could get at my files I could back them up and reformat my hard disk.

Hard disk w/ invalid node structure - Disk Util Repair fails

I have a 15" MacBook Pro that started having problems when software installs were run on it. It came back with out of disk space on volume ("null"). I ran Disk Util after booting off my OS X install disk. I get the following:
Verify and Repair disk "Macintosh HD"
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid node structure
Volume check failed.
Error: The underlying task reported a failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
I did a repair disk permissions before executing the Repair Disk so that is all set.
Any guidance here would be helpful. I would rather not reformat the disk and start over if I can help it.

Hi, William.
See the "Disk Utility cannot repair the disk" section of my "Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption" FAQ.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Kernel panic/invalid node structure; please help retrieving my files!!

Hi everyone, thank you for your time in advance... if anyone has ideas about how to solve it, I appreciate this very much!
OK, here is how it began: while I was working on the airplane using PowerPoint, the gray spinning wheel appeared after which PowerPoint stopped working. I pressed the power button to exit (all applications froze). (So much for trying to get more work done...)
Next, I powered up the computer but it would not boot up, with only gray spinning wheel showing.
Next, tried to boot up while pressing power button and holding shift key. After some time (10 minutes), an error message appears. Researching it on discussion forums, I found that it is called “kernel panic”. Here is beginning of the message:
panic(cpu 1 caller 0x47f5ad): "Process 1 exec of /sbin/launchd failed, errno 8\n"@SourceCache/xnu/xnu-1504.15.3/bsd/kern/kern_exec.c:3145
Debugger called: <panic>
[additional information here]
Also, message “You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button until it turns off, then press the Power button again” is shown transparently in the middle of the screen over the “panic” message output.
I turned on and off the Power button many times, but I get the same error message.
I also tried Apple Hardware Test but it did not work (it did not generate any messages).
Next, I tried to use the Disk Utility using the Installation Disk that came with the computer. After I clicked “Disk Repair”, here is the log:
Verify and Repair volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Invalid node structure
Rebuilding catalog B-tree.
Invalid node structure
[many repeats of “Invalid node structure” ~ about 400 repeats]
Rechecking volume.
Checking Journaled JFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Missing thread record (id=18)
Missing thread record (id=110)
[many instances of “Missing thread record” ~about 200 repeats]
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely.
Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk…disk, and restore your back-up files.
At the end, a window presented over the error log stated :
“Disk Utility stopped repairing “Macintosh HD”
Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your back-up files.
I need to retrieve my recent files!! Please Help!! Argh!! I promise that I will promptly back up my files now! I did not use Time Machine, and only some of my files are backed up.
From what I read on the discussion forum, I will probably need to erase the disk and then do a fresh installation, but could someone please guide me with regard to how to back up the data / retrieve the files? I may have access to another mac so I’m thinking that the FireWire Target Disk Mode may work. I also have spare external harddrive (formatted for mac) (not partitioned). Also, how do I retrieve the files from the other computer if the FireWire transfer works?
Also, the second step is to do a new installation, but is there any reason why “Archive and Install” using Disk Utility won’t help? I have some additional programs installed (Illustrator, Photoshop) so this means if I do a new installation, I will need to re-install those as well?
I did some investigation, and it looks like this problem is similar to this:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18098343#18098343
But my main issue now is to retrieve the files!
Also, how do I investigate whether this problem is due to a failing hard drive or a natural file system corruption ? (so should I get a new harddrive or do a new install).
http://forums.macnn.com/t/459376/heart-attack-invalid-node-structure
I don’t know what is the OS version; it is Snow Leopard OS X ……. I bought it in September 2009.
I appreciate any help, thank you so much for your time…

Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
Step by Step to fix your Mac
Most commonly used backup methods

Failed Time Machine backup... Invalid node structure

My Time Machine gave me a Backup Failed notice this morning. I noticed that my dedicated 1TB disk for backups is not mounting in the finder. I went into Disk Utility and it shows as greyed out. When I click on it and verify, it says I need to repair. So I click repair. I get the message below...
Verifying volume “MacPro Backup”
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Invalid node structure
The volume MacPro Backup was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.
Verify and Repair volume “MacPro Backup”
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Invalid node structure
Rebuilding catalog B-tree.
Invalid key length
The volume MacPro Backup could not be repaired.
Volume repair complete.Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.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.
What should I do? Any way to salvage some of the backups? Or do I just reformat the drive and go from there?

See Pondini's TM FAQs, for starters.

Power Mac G4 - invalid node structure

I am hoping someone can help me. I have a Power Mac G4 - 933....we had a power outage and the Mac would not turn on...the power light lit up when pressed but the computer wouldn't boot...I reset the PRAM and all was good...except a file I had was corrupted and couldn't be opened....after that, a month later, another power outage. This time I had more trouble as resetting the PRAM didn';t work...I reset the logic board (taking out the battery for 30 minutes then replacing) and that didn't work either...I tried several combinations of the above to no avail...I finally took out the battery for over and hour, powered up the computer without the battery and it started...so the battery was corrupted. I replaced the battery (correct one of 3.6 volts) and the computer fired right up. I ran disk utilities to see if all was okay. Checking preferences was fine but when I tried to verify, Disk Utilities came up with the message that it could not complete verifying and that it found "Invalid node structure" and that it could not repair the disk. I then tried fsck to repair and to no avail...fsck gave me several messages depending on the repair options I tried including one that included that the problem was in "memory 4, 23412"....it said it could also not repair due to "os/10 i/o error" and the second run I took at it with a different method told me there was a problem with "DIMM 2/J23 memory"...Apple's website says that if I get an uprepairable message from disk utility that I should back-up, erase and do a clean install...but with these messages indicating the problem is in the memory, since the battery runs the memory, could it be in there instead? ...of important note, I do not have the original install disk...the operating system running it is Tiger 10.4.11...I don't have the orignal disk and I have an empty 10.5 Leopard disk box with no idea where the disk is...I have snow leopard, but that cannot be installed on the G4....after running the last fsck attempt, the computer shut down and is back to only having the power light lit when pressed but no computer booting...where should I start/what do I do? I am hoping you all have good suggestions for me because some of my files were bnot backed up (I know...don't judge) and I got them onto a flashdrive right before the computer went down again, but I have no idea if they took,...further, I love this old dinosaur...

Hi, only thing I've seen repair that is DiskWarrior, you'd need an older version...
http://supportdb.alsoft.com:591/FMPro?-db=alsoftsupport&-lay=main&-max=15&-forma t=AlsoftSupport-qa.html&-script=counter&-token=177&-Skip=96&-find
But it does sound like you have some bad RAM, but have you blown the dust out yet & tried reseating the RAM?

Invalid node structure

I have a Hitachi 500GB Go usb disk and its throwing Invalid node structure errors. I tried ripping an image from this disk, after about an hour or so of data copied (approx 100GB in the dmg) it will just close out and delete the .dmg, no errors, no nothing!
Disk warrior and Disk Utility fail to repair the disk/directory.
What's next for low-level access to this disk without having to buy expensive recovery software?
Also, it happens on both mine and my client's MacBook Pros'

Self-resolved:
Fixed by booting into bootcamp Windows 7 (ironic right?) It seems to ignore this HFS error...
Just so you know, the Windows app Recuva + Bootcamp will in fact give you a last-ditch chance to recover your data from a corrupted HFS disk like this one.

Invalid Node Structure on Time Capsule.

Hi,
I was using my time capsule (7 months old) as a temporary network drive (Until I get a new network drive) for my iTunes library. And, no, currently this is my only computer without a time machine backup. One day last week, I was listening to some music and I tried to add a video to my library. It locked up and my time capsule stopped responding. Upon restart of the device, the drive wouldn't show up int he finder.
After a call to apple support (who were most gracious even though it was out of warranty), I still couldn't mount that partition. I had about 500gb of stuff on the drive (including my 300gb iTunes library) and was eager to retrieve it. I resorted to removing the drive from the time capsule and put it in a USB case. I plugged it into my mac and low and behold the drive showed up in the finder and disk utility.... except the partition with my data.
From what I understand disk1s3 is the standard partition for the data on a time capsule. It shows up in disk utility, but fails to mount and is grayed out. When I try and repair it, I get an error stating "invalid node structure".
After searching the internet for days, I found a site that had some terminal commands that should fix it, but it didn't.
I even tried diskwarrior and after DVD boot, even it wouldn't see that partition. The other two on the disk are fine and dandy.
Now, I'm stuck with a $300 brick and no data.
I don't have the money to do a professional data recovery.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Brian

You have exhausted all the options you can at user level.. basically if the tools like disk warrior cannot recover it, then it has to go to professional disk recovery people.. who use different methods. And may still not get back data in the form you want it.
This is precisely why we tell everyone do not use TC for network storage. It is not suitable.

The term "invalid node structure"

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