Hi everyone,

Hopefully some people still remember me....
Well my 2007 iMac running is 10.6.7 is driving me crazy!!!
A few weeks ago it started "beachballin" but after a few shut downs everything seemed normal, note I was only running Safari and Mail. 300 GB HD only using about half of that. Well it started again Saturday nite and I have been unable to get my desktop back after many shut downs, fsck's, repair disk utility,..ect I was going to do a reinstall, but it starts to go through and then about 10 minutes into it, says not enough space!! There is 150 GB of free space!! I have not tried to restore from Time Machine yet. Please help and old forum member....

Joe

set up a Genius Bar appointment....but would still love some input from all the wisdom, I know resides on here!!

Does fsck say all is well?

Sounds like you may need Disk Warrior, it seems you may have some disk corruption that Disk Utility can't fix.

Another fix would be to reformat the drive to clean up the corruption then restore from Time Machine. Takes much longer but it is much cheaper than having to buy Disk Warrior.

Could even be bad RAM, or a hard drive that is physically failing.

Good luck with the "Geniuses."

Reboot!!

I knew there were "good people" on here!

fsck fixed a few things and did say all was well

I thought about doing the disk format and reinstalling from scratch, but wanted to keep "looking" first.

did use the original Leopard install disk and ran Apple Hardware Test, not sure how extensive that is, but it said all was well...

I take it you're not to fond of the geniuses in the Apple stores?

so if unless I get no where with the genius, I should reformat with disk utility and do a clean install?

Also, if I bought a new imac, I assume I could just use Time Machine to basically make it my "old" imac? Thinking I would lose applications like Office?

Glad to help.

The Geniuses tend to just nuke and rebuild from scratch in order to "fix" things. In the case of disk corruption or a system part being broken it does work, they are just doing assembly line type repair. Nothing fancy and nothing non-Apple.

The Genius bar does come in handy for me to determine if it is a power supply on a mini, or the power supply or charging circuit on laptops since I don't have every power supply. They are the most knowledgeable in the store but how knowledgeable? YMMV.

For your problem if you boot from the install disk and on the second screen go to Utilities/DiskUtility you can erase the disk, then for the next step, under Utilities, you can run Restore System from Backup to rebuild from Time Machine.

If you get a new machine, when you first start it up it gives you a choice to rebuild from Time Machine or a backup. You won't lose any apps. It does a great job. There may be an app or two, QuickBooks is one that comes to mind, that will require a new serialization as they are machine specific. Office should be fine.

So the name will soon be NewiMacsoontobe?

Edit - It will take probably 4-5 hours to rebuild 150G of data BTW.

Thanks!!

I'm wondering now if it is worth the trip or if I should just to a reformat and clean install.

Probably go, just in case it is something else.

And yes, I'm due for a NEW iMacsoontobe!! That is why the name remains!! LOL

Hope all is well with you.
How was your Easter?

I think Reboot has it pretty much defined. I had the "disk is nearly full" warning once on my trusty G4 when I knew that it wasn't. It was some kind of extents overlap error (DW couldn't fix it, so I had to run TechTool Pro and then DW to straighten it out).

Good luck getting it sorted out.

Letting it just rebuild from TM would be less configuration and quicker than a reinstall then migration. You don't even need to install, it will just rebuild from your last backup point.

Although a clean install is a fresh start. You can do a clean install then run Migration Assistant when it starts back up to get a fresh system yet still retain your apps and settings. Make sure after running Migration Assistant that you run all software updates before trying to run any apps.

Make sure you erase the drive first before doing anything, to get rid of the disk corruption. You probably should Partition the whole drive again. Choose 1 Partition, then choose GUID under Options in the Partition tab.

Disconnect the TM drive after it rebuilds the system. After you're 100% positive that it's up and running again you'll probably want to erase the TM drive before letting it backup again as it will probably want to backup everything again anyway since it will see a new install.

Easter was a hoppy time, thx.

Michael!!!
Good to hear from you on here! Hope all is well in the sunshine state.

Reboot, went to the Genius Bar, it looks like a bad HD. :((
They wanted $220 and 5 to 7 days!!!

There is an independent Mac Retailer in this neck of the woods, called them and it will be somewhat cheaper and should be able to get it done in a day.

Since you have a backup I'd try reformatting first, I don't trust their talents.

If you launch Disk Utility, click on the drive on the upper left of the DU Window, what does SMART status on the bottom right say?

Last nite when I got home, I selected the the drive in disk utility and and hit erase, after 15 minutes of doing nothing I shut it off.

I will check tonight when I get home the SMART status thing. The local Apple retailer has been around forever and it is going to cost 190 out the door for a new drive installed and they can have it done that day.

Okay, that shouldn't do that, probably is bad.

Glad you got it sorted out for cheap anyway, that's a fair price. Those are a PIA to work on.

LOL
yeah, I watched a youtube vid, there are like 30 screws to remove!!

They also told me TM works beautifully. The one question I had was, will TM bring in all the updates and put on 10.6.7 for the OS and of course all the others Safari, iTunes ect, to there current version?

Yes it will. I have heard where some people have to do it twice but that's rare. I've always had good luck with it.

After restoring, as soon as you reboot off of the hard drive repair permissions first before launching any apps.

When you launch Mail, and maybe iPhoto and iTunes, it will act like a new install but just say "Okay" and let it rebuild your databases, all of your mail, photos, and tunes will still be there.

Things a very well here in the sunshine state, mostly.

so...
1. connect TM external drive via USB2
2. Start up iMac
3. It will ask me if I want to restore from TM, click yes
4. after several hours of restoring, it will ask me to reboot iMac
5. Reboot from snow leopard disk, and run Repair permissions from Disk Utility
6. Reboot

Do I have that right?

Close.

1. connect TM external drive via USB2
2. Start up iMac with the Snow Leopard install DVD in. Hold C key to boot from DVD.
2.a After the language choice screen go to Utilities in the menu bar
2.b Choose "Restore from Time Machine Backup"
3. It will ask me if I want to restore from TM, click yes
4. after several hours of restoring, it will ask me to reboot iMac
5. Reboot from snow leopard disk, and run Repair permissions from Disk Utility
6. Reboot from Hard Drive
7. Repair Permissions

That is why i ask the expert!!!

Thanks!!!

Wait till you get my bill.

iMac HD is installed!!!! Just got the call, picking it up at lunch and following Reboot's instructions when I get home!!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!

I plan on sticking around and causing some trouble if that is ok?

That's not just ok.. it's a requirement!

In a house full of troublemakers?

The more the merrier!!

When does the regular crowd shuffle in?

As we've become older regularity is more of a challenge.

Umm… You haven't been in here for a while, have you?

Time Machine seems to have lost some pics during the restore?
Any ideas??

What was the date on the last backup, the last one before the restore date. You can dig down into the TM drive and see. Was it after you downloaded the pics?

Recent pics or old ones. To iPhoto I take it?

Pics from Thanksgiving and Christmas.
When I enter TM it goes back in time, but I can't seem to get "access"
says I don't have permission to view those folders.

Okay, that's a new one on me??? Let me check.

Don't know why it didn't restore from the most recent backup.

You can also go right to the TM backup drive on the desktop rather than going through TM. backups.backupdb/Your Mac's Name/the most recent backup. You'll then see "the name of your HD"/Users/you/Pictures/iPhoto Library. You can copy the iPhoto Library there in place of thr current one.

If that one doesn't work you can go back in time nearer the day that you downloaded the pics in case some recent corruption caused it not to back up correctly.

It did use the latest backup. The missing pictures are from Thanksgiving and Christmas of last year. It is like it "randomly" omitted certain pictures. There are pics from before, during, and after those, but some are missing. Very strange.

Ok clicked on the TM drive and went back into the day before drive failed, when I got to the "Pictures" folder and clicked on it I get this
"The folder “Pictures” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents."

Get Info on that folder and see what the permissions are. You might have to give yourself Read/Write permission.

Thanks Michael

I don't know why your permissions are so fubar. Did you ever add or delete any users?

If Michael's suggestion doesn't work we'll need to set the drive to ignore ownership. In Leopard and lower there was a checkbox in the Get Info, but Snow Leopeard is protecting us from ourselves.

Launch Terminal, then type the following below ([space] = a space)

sudo[space]vsdbutil[space]-d[space]

then drop your TM hard drive on the Terminal window, it should then read "sudo vsdbutil -d /Volumes/Name of your HD," then hit Return. It will ask for a password.

To set it back change the -d to a -a. Running TM should change it back too.

Once you get everything rebuilt, sometime down the road I'd wipe the TM drive and start over, there is some kind of corruption, possibly due to your HD failing.

ok, at work right now, but maybe can try this tonight...

So will this terminal process, do another restore from TM to my imac or just give me access to those pics?

Now I CAN access TM backups made after the new HD was installed in my iMac.

So.....
HD in iMac "died" 4/23/11.
New HD in iMac 4/27/11.
First new TM backup 4/28/11.
I can access 4/28/11 back ups forward.
4/23/11 backup and previous give me folders with a little (-) in the lower right corner of the folder and wont give me permission to open them.

Just wanted to be clear.....

And you kept the same username as you had before the HD replacement? This is odd if you did...

changed nothing, just turned on iMac, with TM drive hooked up and restored from TM drive...most stuff went over perfectly, it just seems to be a few events of pics

The Terminal thing will change permissions of the TM drive. If all you need is the pics you should be able to access them now.

Turn off TM temporarily as the next time it runs it will change the permissions back.

I'm wondering what else may not have come over correctly that you don't know about yet. You might want to do the Terminal thing, then immediately reboot from the install DVD and try another full restore.

After the restore, when you reboot repair permissions right away.

Thanks again Reboot, I'm hoping to do this when I get home today..

So I open Terminal and type

1. sudo[space]vsdbutil[space]-d[space]

2. Then drop TM HD in Terminal Window

3. type in iMac password

4. ???


Should I shut off TM first? in Sys Prefs, before I start any of this?

Yes.

iMacsoontobe, you could have a problem external drive. I have helped several people that had their computer slow down and beachball from having a misbehaving external drive. Eject it or startup without the external drive connected to see if that is the problem. Some of them have a reset button on the back and the drive gets in a unusable state and must be reset. Just another thing to try.

well the iMac drive was bad and has been replaced but...one thing that was strange, it only took about 2 hours to restore from TM, I did expect it to take longer

Reboot HELP!!!

I can't get into terminal!!

You are not authorized to run this application.
The Administrator has set your shell to an illegal value

I think you can boot from the Install DVD and do it?

I cant get a disk in slot, it will not accept it

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Your permissions are hosed for sure. Have you repaired permissions yet? If not Run Disk Utility and repair permissions while booted from the HD, if it will launch. If not run Disk Utility permissions repair while booted from the install disk if you get that going, then reboot and repair permissions while booted from the HD.

Exactly what happens when you put the install DVD in?

I cant get the dvd in slot

have run disk utility few times

Would you have time to "take over" my computer via ichat

ok I got terminal up

Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent" has been modified and will not be repaired.

UGHHHHHHHHHHH

How did you do that?

Don't worry about that.

ichat?

I did it by fixing "shells" in private/etc folder

I don't get it. That's a new one on me. How did you fix it, change permissions?

Regarding your install DVD problem. Reboot the machine then see if the DVD works. If not, try rebooting again, and quickly popping the DVD in after it chimes, then hold the C key down to try and boot from the DVD, in case something is fubar with the system preventing the DVD from showing up.

Do any DVDs or CDs work?

Edit - I'll check back later, gotta run for an hour or so.

Nicely done. I'm impressed.

Are you having trouble launching anything else? The Terminal was a permissions problem too. Poke around and try a bunch of apps and utilities too to see if they launch.

I'm still leaning towards rebuilding everything from TM again, but running the vsdbutil Terminal command while booted from the DVD to change the TM drive to ignore ownership so that maybe TM can read all of the files and you can get a complete backup.

Did you get the DVD working? We would need to do that to rebuild again.

LOL
actually got some of my pics back, problem is can only go back to 4/22/11!! Won't let me go back any further currently....at some point pics I'm still missing were there, but now gone.

I didn't actually follow those exact instructions, wasn't able to to "edit" the "shells~orig copy" in the etc folder, so I copied it on to the desktop and edited there, and then dragged it back into etc folder....yikes!!! Now I'm not even sure Terminal is giving me the proper response with Reboots sudo command.....but I'm putting a hold on that currently...

Next problem is TM hd is 500 GB but it is saying it only has 70 gb available!!! the iMac is a 320 gb that has 152 gb available. Now I know TM is making multiple copies that take up more room, but since it only lets me go back to 4/22/11 something is out of whack!!
Think there must be corruption somewhere, but should i format the 500gb TM drive and then to a fresh backup of my current iMac? Or has my imac been corrupted in the restore process?

AGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

We've raised him well.

LOL that was before you read my last post!!

No!! You don't want to do that since the current install isn't working right. See my previous post, we should rebuild again sans ownership on the TM drive.

The whole drop the TM drive in the Terminal?

You lost me.

lol
Remember you said to launch Terminal, type in the sudo command then drag my time machine icon into terminal window?

Sooo are we iChattin tonight?
If we are just pop up on iChat, handing the web over to my daughter for a while, but i told her if you pop up on ichat to tell me...

Thanks!

Okay, I see, "The whole drop" part confused me. I get what you were saying now.

Yes, the vsdbutil -d command. Then reboot from the DVD to rebuild the whole drive from TM again from a backup before you recently restored, from one before you lost your pics. If you think Apr 22 is a pretty complete backup use it.

Have you got the DVD drive working? We need to get that worked out before we can rebuild anyway. Try what I suggested to see if it is the DVD drive, the disk , or some system corruption.

Still busy on this end, don't know if I can iChat tonight. Tomorrow may be shot, a possible 2 hour window in the mid afternoon, and Sunday later afternoon/early evening should be good.

Super Driver is fubar!!

I finally nudge a cd in and it is stuck, can't get it out, keeps making ejection noises but can't eject, already tried a credit card in the slot...no go

Is there a way in terminal to shut down the super drive?

Suggestions anyone on external "super drive"
I gotta believe it is gonna be way cheaper than getting a new one in my imac.

Will I be able to use idvd, and everything else with it?

Does it look like they put the case on right? Maybe the slot is just misaligned.

No way to turn it off other than unplugging it.

I assume we tried the startup holding the mouse button down? Probably wont work with an external drive, but worth a shot

Ok here is the latest......

I finally "found" the old pics I lost in TM.

Had to click on TM drive icon and drill down to an older date, one that I couldn't access by going through iPhoto into TM. So I get down to the date of backup, user, my iMac, pictures folder. The folder has a "-" sign on it. I do a get info and unlock it and add myself with read/write privileges. For some reason I was not on the list. Now I open iPhoto and go into TM through iPhoto to the date I just gave my self privileges for and viola I restore my photos. Hope this makes sense....

I still have a blank CD in the superdrive, not sure what I'm going to do about that.

Have you tried the paperclip method?

http://brokensecrets.com/2010/02/11/rescue-a-disc-from-your-cd-drive-with-a-paperclip/

slot loading, I have tried a credit card, didn't work...


Oh wait, link to paperclip method with slot loading, I will give it a go, when I get home!!

THANKS!!!