On 12/30/09 7:31 PM, "Len Levin" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Richard, > > Good thing you had a good back up. > > I am not sure that 'Folder with ? Mark" after the hard restart mean that the > the drive had gone bad. > > When you boot up any Mac, the first part of the boot process is contained in > the EFI, Extensible Firmware Interface. Check out this link for a complete > explanation, <http://www.intel.com/technology/efi/> > > The system then tries to read a BootRom file off the hard drive. If it > can't find the Bootrom file, you get the Folder/? Mark. > > The first thing I do when the Folder/? Mark shows up, is boot from an > alternate device, either the Install DVD that came with the system, a Retail > Install DVD for the verison of the MacOS you are using, or a FireWire > diagnostic disk. I have two FireWire diagnostic disks (I am a full time Mac > Consultant), one for PPC, 10.3, 10.5, 10.5 and one for Intel, 10.4, 10.5, > 10.6. > > I run Disk Utility, Repair Disk, Repair Permissions. You can also check the > SMART status ( Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology ) of the > drive. If the drive is in failure mode it will be reported. I also have > the latest version of Disk Warrior on the the FireWire drives, which I use > to rebuild the disk directory. After you run all of these tests, without > any non-repairable issues, re-boot the system. If may take a little longer > to start up because of the journaling that is part of all the drive formats. > You should be back to where you where short of any lost data do to the hard > reboot. > > I hope this was helpful and will come in handy the next time you get the > Folder/? Mark > > Regards, > > > Len Levin > Business Systems Consulting > Wakefield, MA 01880 > 781-683-4040 > Len, Thanks for the advice for the next time. The Macintosh HD really died DEAD. I was copying from Entourage when it froze and would not recover. I could not even get the Force Quit to work. I tried all of the tips you mention with the exception of Disk Warrior that I do not have. I had no problem booting from an external drive and the Apple Disk Utility could see something called "Media" but could not mount it. I had no warning from the S.M.A.R.T. thing. The tech at the Apple Genius Bar confirmed it was a bad hard drive and they replaced it for me under AppleCare. The replacement Hitachi HDT721032SLA380 drive seems fine. How do you check the SMART status ( Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology )? -- YouTalk mailing list List address: [email protected] List information: http://entourage.mvps.org/support_options/list.html List moderator: [email protected], [email protected] To unsubscribe: mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe
