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Bought a Mac: What a mistake

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To amplify on what iGary said: not an Archive and Install, not an Update, but an Erase and Install, (Erase=Initialize) which will flatten your machine back to the stock configuration (All data will be lost).

In fact: I woul boot from the OS DVD, and after the first response choosing Language, do not proceed with the install, but go to the Installer menu at the top, choose Disk Utility, choose the hard drive icon, go to Partition and delete all partitions, creat a single new Partition, then go to Erase and re-format the volume as a Macintosh Extended (HFS+) volume. Then go ahead with an install of the OS.

The un-repairable errors you have reported indicate that the logical structure of the hard drive volume is b0rked. IMPORTANT: No amount of reinstalling will solve this, short of erasing the disk completely and starting over. This is why you were spinning your wheels reinstalling earlier.

If the problem persists after a reformatting of the hard drive, then it indicates a probable hardware failure in the hard drive, cable, ATA controller or RAM.
 
Well see what happens after a clean install without Bootcamp on it. If it works properly again the the problem seems like it is probably with Bootcamp/Windows. Bootcamp is still in beta and you install it at your own risk.
 
dmurray14 said:
OK so I just put in the OSX install disk and, for ***** and giggles, ran the disk utility, and tried to repair permissions and then the disk. Here's what happened:

Verify and Repair Disk "Macintosh HD"
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Keys out of order.
Rebuilding Catalog B-tree.
The volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit

1 HFS Volume Checked
1 Volume could not be repaired because of an error
Repair attempted on 1 volume
1 volume could not be repaired
Click to expand...

Well yeah, I guess you could do a fresh install and tell us what happens but this looks like a hard drive failure to me. At least it does if these errors still show up after reinstall. I'd take the machine back and get a new one. Never in my life have I even known that it's possible for a "darwin prompt" to come up at start up by itself. Tell us what happens after you reinstall but even then, I'd get a replacement. Sorry you had to start out this way.
 
CanadaRAM said:
To amplify on what iGary said: not an Archive and Install, not an Update, but an Erase and Install, (Erase=Initialize) which will flatten your machine back to the stock configuration (All data will be lost).

In fact: I woul boot from the OS DVD, and after the first response choosing Language, do not proceed with the install, but go to the Installer menu at the top, choose Disk Utility, choose the hard drive icon, go to Partition and delete all partitions, creat a single new Partition, then go to Erase and re-format the volume as a Macintosh Extended (HFS+) volume. Then go ahead with an install of the OS.

The un-repairable errors you have reported indicate that the logical structure of the hard drive volume is b0rked. IMPORTANT: No amount of reinstalling will solve this, short of erasing the disk completely and starting over. This is why you were spinning your wheels reinstalling earlier.

If the problem persists after a reformatting of the hard drive, then it indicates a probable hardware failure in the hard drive, cable, ATA controller or RAM.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I did. Erased the whole disk then made a HFS+ partition and let the installer use that. We'll see how it turns out, it's almost done installing...

wronski said:
Well yeah, I guess you could do a fresh install and tell us what happens but this looks like a hard drive failure to me. At least it does if these errors still show up after reinstall. I'd take the machine back and get a new one. Never in my life have I even known that it's possible for a "darwin prompt" to come up at start up by itself. Tell us what happens after you reinstall but even then, I'd get a replacement. Sorry you had to start out this way.
Click to expand...

Makes sense. I'll definitely run the disk utilities again after the install completes.

And thank you all for your excellent help - if this is any indication of the mac community, then it's probably going to be worth the extra effort.

Dan
 
The error you recorded after the Disk Repair attempt is exactly the same as the one I got when my Hard Drive died (the latch on my iBook opened in my bag when I was walking - not good). If the fresh reinstall doesn't help I'd say it's definitely a fritzed HDD - the most likely time for a HDD to fry is very early on in it's life.

If it is the HDD, take it back and have it replaced under warranty, it's unfortunate that you got a bung Mac but everybody has their share of production line stuff-ups. That's what warranties are there for though so use it as soon as you can.
 
form said:
Based on personal experience, I second (or is it third?) the hard drive failure theory.
Click to expand...

I third the bad hard drive vote with one caveat. This error message came up on my new 12" powerbook when I imported some corrupted files from a previous hard drive. I had to delete the files, run repair disk while the OS disc was in; hard drive been fine since.
 
You know, one thing I hadn't considered - I installed MacDrive on the Windows install. Do you think this could have messed it up? It would have been writing to the Mac partition. I'll see how it goes for a few days...

Dan
 
You installed MacDrive? Thats a little dodgy.. I mean, having a windows partition, and then having macdrive try to access your mac hard drive, lol.. :D My MacBook experienced 2-3 kernel panics everyday when I installed bootcamp. So I formatted the entire thing, reloaded OS X, and instead of bootcamp I am running windows through Parallels. Works the same speed as any pc (I have 2 gb of ram)

However, I just installed windows to have fun, you know, to see how windows runs on a mac.. now that I'm over it and satisfied, I think it was such a waste of money (bought win xp retail) !
 
dmurray14 said:
You know, one thing I hadn't considered - I installed MacDrive on the Windows install. Do you think this could have messed it up? It would have been writing to the Mac partition. I'll see how it goes for a few days...

Dan
Click to expand...
Did you format the Windows partition as FAT32 or NTFS. If it was NTFS that could be the problem because only under FAT32 can your mac can read AND write to the windows side.
Could that be the problem?
 
medea said:
Did you format the Windows partition as FAT32 or NTFS. If it was NTFS that could be the problem because only under FAT32 can your mac can read AND write to the windows side.
Could that be the problem?
Click to expand...
Don't think so, because normally the Mac OSX side would totally ignore the Windows side partition, which is as it should be. That's the rationale for separate partitions in BootCamp, anyway.

I installed MacDrive on the Windows install. Do you think this could have messed it up? It would have been writing to the Mac partition. I'll see how it goes for a few days...
Click to expand...
No way to say definitively, but: anything that alters disk information -- whether as a result of a crash, or from an outside OS -- can potentially corrupt the logical volume structure. The classic is crashing or powering down a machine while in the middle of a disk write operation.
 
Im with everyone else on this one... Just take the darn thing back and get a new one. You have some hardware problem, they'll swap it out for you almost no-questions-asked given the age of the unit.

Once you get your new one, one with no glitches, you'll see what you've been missing out on :)
 
darrengreer said:
To be honest, this seems like a hardware problem. Could be a bad logic board, HD, Memory, any number of things. I'd take it into the store where you purchased it and ask for a replacement.

I've had 3-5 macs over my short "Apple" lifespan, and never have seen anything like this.
Click to expand...

I concur and the first thing one should check is bad ram...terrible things can happen with bad memory.

Less likely is a bad logicboard.
 
OK, I might try running over to the store tomorrow and talking to them. I don't know what they're going to be able to do considering it's working now, but I guess it's worth a shot....

Dan
 
CanadaRAM said:
Now that it is working... run the Apple Hardware Test again and see what it reports.
Click to expand...

Came back fine, as did the Verify Disk portion of the disk utility...
 
CanadaRAM said:
No way to say definitively, but: anything that alters disk information -- whether as a result of a crash, or from an outside OS -- can potentially corrupt the logical volume structure. The classic is crashing or powering down a machine while in the middle of a disk write operation.
Click to expand...

You know, I DID turn off the computer while it sounded like the hard drive was doing something. But keep in mind, it had been doing NOTHING on screen for quite some time. I just held down the power button. What other option do I have in this situation?

Dan
 
dmurray14 said:
You know, I DID turn off the computer while it sounded like the hard drive was doing something. But keep in mind, it had been doing NOTHING on screen for quite some time. I just held down the power button. What other option do I have in this situation?

Dan
Click to expand...
Waiting longer would be the other option -- depending what it is chewing on, if there was an error or improper shutdown before, or if the OS files were damaged, it may take 10 minutes or more to try to get past the gray screen. Turning it off while it is accessing risks compounding the damage.


I would now use the computer as a Mac (no BootCamp for now) for a day or two to see if symptoms reappear. It is possible that the reformat and reinstall has solved the logical problems... althought there still may be hardware problems that only crop up when hot, or something.

Boot from the OS DVD daily or twice a day, and run the Disk Utility Verify Disk to monitor the condition of the hard drive and the logical volume. Loook for the S.M.A.R.T. status - if it says it's anything other than OK, that is a prediction of hard drive failure.

IF you have another episode, document exactly what happened, what was running, what you had dome just prior, and what you had installed or altered.
 
UPDATE, for what it's worth. I was talking to my friend who has the exact same MBP as me tonight and he was saying that he experienced a very similar issue after using MacDrive on his MBP. And this DID only happen after MacDrive was installed and had been used...

Dan
 
dmurray14 said:
UPDATE, for what it's worth. I was talking to my friend who has the exact same MBP as me tonight and he was saying that he experienced a very similar issue after using MacDrive on his MBP. And this DID only happen after MacDrive was installed and had been used...

Dan
Click to expand...

P: Doctor, it only hurts when I move like THIS
D: Don't move like that then...

;)

Resist the WinUrge for a while to satisfy yourself the machine is functioning. Then, probably don't do the MacDrive thing...
 
Guess you shouldn't have MacDrive installed on the Windows partition..

If you want to have read/write on the Windows partition just make sure it is smaller than 40GIG and format it as FAT32..This way you can move files to Windows from OS X..


I'd personally suggest not using Windows at all unless you absolutly had to.
 
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