On Sep 25, 2014, at 9:54 AM, Jim Scott <[email protected]> wrote: > > Also, go ahead and run DiskWarrior. It may not find any of the usual > directory issues, but it may well find "volume information" issues. I deal > almost 100% with Mac problem machines, and I frequently have found that a > mysterious hang during boot or similar failure to complete the boot sequence > is fixed by DW correcting a volume information issue. I don't know why this > happens, but my experience is that it is a cumulative error problem that > seems to be triggered by too many improper shutdowns, brownouts, etc.
Well, I've made some encouraging progress. I've managed to log on! I deleted /var/db/.AppleSetupDone while booted into the recovery volume. I then created a new local admin user and, after a much longer than usual delay, got through the account creation stuff and arrived at last in the Finder, which was sluggish as heck. Checked user accounts, and according to system prefs they're all there. Fired up Activity monitor and found that opendirectoryd was consuming 365%-405% CPU. I unbound the system from our Active Directory domain, not really expecting it to work but it did. cpu load dropped to nothing. I rebooted, was able to log in as the original local admin user (woohoo! Progress!) Re-bound it to AD and boom CPU shot right back up. I unbound it again and am currently backing up the drive with CCC (conversation with professor yesterday "Time Machine? What's Time Machine?") If CCC dies, I'll run DW on the original, but I'm now pretty sure my issue is a borked opendirectory database. I don't have Drive Genius, my usual weapons are CCC, Disk Utility, Disk Warrior, and, in extremis, dd and a lot of time. I've managed to recover a fair bit of data from dying HDD's using the latter, and a bucket of ice in one case, to keep the drive cool enough to work. (Admission, it was my own, un-backed-up laptop drive with some irreplaceable stuff on it. "Do as I say, not as I do!") Plan going forward: I'll nuke&pave the iMac, restore the apps, but NOT users and computer settings from the CCC during the re-install, create a new local admin, re-bind to AD see what happens. If it doesn't go nutz again, I'll have him log on so it creates the local directory, copy over his original user directory from the backup drive, make it his actual home on the disk again and in theory he should be ok. It's amazing how often just laying my problem out in public makes my brain think of new things to try :-) -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs -- -- You received this message because you are a member of the iMac Group, a group for those using Apple iMacs and eMacs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/imaclist --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "iMac Group" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
