Hi Scott,
I've had the same situation with some iMacs in the past. What appears
to happen is that the volume header information is somehow damaged and
thus you're unable to even do an Archive and Install. Usually you
can't even see the internal drive when you start up from an external
drive. This makes it difficult to retrieve your data but not
impossible. The only way I've been able to totally recover the drive
is using a software package called "Disk Warrior". This software
requires you to startup in target mode on the affected machine from an
external drive or using the provided CD. Once repaired, your drive is
right back to how it was prior to crashing. The problem is that
you'll need sighted assistance to run this software, at least with the
version I have. Things appear accessible but the physical buttons are
not located where VO reads them, thus when you press the button,
nothing happens. Amazingly good recovery software but again you'll
need sighted assistance. Just Google it if you're interested, it
costs about $100 if I remember correctly. Not cheap but better than
losing everything.
Later...
On 24-Dec-08, at 6:57 AM, Scott Chesworth wrote:
Hey folks, I have here one very unhappy macbook pro, hopefully someone
on here has ideas that I haven't yet tried to get him back on his
feet.
So the other day, I boot the mbp up, get the usual chime sound, the
apple logo comes up, stays there for a minute or so, and the mbp turns
straight back off. "not good" says I. I can't think of anything I've
installed or changed lately to cause this. I've tried holding option
and forcing it to boot from macintosh HD with the same result, holding
shift key for safe mode with the same result, holding s for single
user mode with - you guessed it - the same result. I've booted from
my Leopard DVD and tried varifying and repairing the volume from Disk
Utility there. In both cases, I get an error that says "filesystem
varify or repair failed", and ocasionally I get a "the underlying task
has failed" instead... uh oh! Some frantic Googling later, I found
myself in terminal trying to repair the volume with fsck_hfs because
it seems some folks have had more luck this way, but no joy. Terminal
does give me messages about an invalid sibbling link though sometimes,
which while it isn't what I want to hear, at least it's something a
bit more specific.
If anyone has any thoughts, they'd be so worth a shot. I've got 100
GB or so of data on this thing that isn't backed up (yep, apparently I
can be that stupid). I have space on an external drive that I just
picked up, if I can only figure out a way to get the data off and go
for a clean install.
TIA
Scott
Tim Kilburn
& Carter the Canine
Fort McMurray, AB Canada
