D'oh!!! Is this bad?

[coopdig]

JUST got a new rev. B iMac and am really, really liking it. Needless to say, now that I have it, and it works, I'd like to do my best to take good care of it and to make sure it continues operating smoothly.
However, IN SPITE of my good intentions, I pulled a doofus-maneuver which I can only hope wasn't such a bad thing as it seems. More specifically, I pulled the power-plug while the computer was on.
Since that happened, I have turned the computer on and have noticed to obvious ill-affects. . . Is this USUALLY a bad thing to do? Might bad things happen down the road as a result of my doing this?
Thanks you all so much for alleviating my worries! (Or, at least, preparing me for the worst!)
Cooper

 

[mad jew]

It's not recommended, obviously, but I can't see that pulling the plug would do any harm other than if you are installing software (particularly parts of the OS).

It's not all that clear from your post (well, maybe it's just too early in the morning), are you having problems with the Mac now or not?

 

[Heb1228]

I've heard of one instance of pulling a power cord causing problems, but in 99% of cases there will be no ill effects. The only problem comes in if the hard drive was accessing an important file at the exact moment and corrupts it.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Well, boot from the OSX DVD and from the top menu, do a Disk Utility: Repair Disk.

Then reboot and do a Applications: Utilities: Disk Utility: Repair Permissions.

If you get those done without significant errors, then breathe easier, you appear to have dodged the bullet.

The danger in a non-graceful shutdown is that the drive is writing at the time the hammer falls; whatever sector it is writing will likely have corrupted data. If you are unlucky enough that that was a critical OS component, or the drive Catalog, then the OS or the catalog could be borked. Usually that can be recovered from with Repair Disk, Disk Warrior (a 3rd party catalog repair app) and/or reinstalling the OS. If it was an individual file, that file might be irretreivably damaged.

 

[wwooden]

I hit the switch button on my power surge strip a couple of days ago when my iMac was on. I was a little worried at first when I started it up, but no problems occurred. I can't imagine it is a good thing to have happen all the time, but I wouldn't worry about it if nothing seems wrong.

 

[coopdig]

Whoo! Quick answers - thank you all again!

I'm pretty sure that no programs were running at the time that I pulled the plug and I haven't noticed any ill-affects since I pulled it, so that bodes well. However, I will try those repair-disk things, just in case.

<<PHEW!>> Glad to hear I (most likely) didn't futz things up TOO badly!

Take care.

 

[Jay42]

I don't think this should have any real lasting impacts as far as your nice iMac goes. However, the computer *possibly* could have been interrupted in some sort of system process. The most likely effect would be slightly screwed up permissions. To be safe I would "repair permissions." If you're new to macs, there's no shortage of people to tell you what that is.

edit: whoops, my bad. Should have read a little slower. Make that two for repair disk

 

[fyzle]

I've heard of one instance of pulling a power cord causing problems, but in 99% of cases there will be no ill effects. The only problem comes in if the hard drive was accessing an important file at the exact moment and corrupts it.

Actually, hard disks are designed to automatically park the heads in the event of power failure to prevent this kind of disk damage.

 

[Nermal]

If it was in the middle of writing a file, the file will be corrupt. Parking the heads prevents physical damage, and doesn't guard against corrupt files.

 

[Lacero]

Happened to me once. I was vacuuming my carpet when I accidentally tripped the powerbar on/off switch. My whole Mac setup, everything, just shut down. It was eerily quiet, very strange. Well, when I rebooted my Mac, it completely lost all networking settings. I spent the next 10 minutes retyping in my manual DHCP address.

 

[TMA]

In the olden days when my Performa 6320 would crash (often!) the only way to get it back was to pull the plug. The computer had a reset button, but it rarely worked.

Got to love System 7.5

 

[iHacker]

Yesterday their was a huge storm and the power went out while I was on the iMac. I was scard but it seems nothing wrong.

 

[Plymouthbreezer]

Yeah, I was gunna say, doesn't the same basic thing happen when the power goes out?

 

[mgargan1]

well, i used to sell macs at a retail store, and we had a service center that helped macs. A lot of times you can mess up your preferences and they become corrupt when you unplug by accident. So it's not really the hardware, but the OS... once or twice probably wont do anything bad, but when it keeps happening...