MBP late 2006 starts up with Disk Utility - Disk Utility can't repair disk

[r1k1n]

Hello there all,

I've had my mbp since 2006 and it's been lovely.
I've had times when it froze or it'd restart and inform me that the OS had to restart the mbp due to a serious problem. I used to back up via time machine when it came out but stupidly, I haven't done so in a very long time.

I've had SMART status installed and have always monitored the disk. I frequently run fixing disk permissions, using onyx and delete any unwanted files.

Last night I out the MBP to sleep and this morning, I turned it on and it was frozen. No response.
I hit power button and waited then hit it back on and rest the PRAM as that too has sorted any funny business out. Sadly not this time as it booted into Disk Utility. So whenever I turn he MBP on it goes straight into DU.

I ran a diagnostics on the drive and verifying the disk and this error message came up;
"Invalid record count.
The volume could not be verified completely.
Error: the disk needs to be repaired. Click repair disk"

A window pops up saying:
"Disk utility stopped veryifing Macintosh HD. Click repair disk."

I hit repair disk and it reads;
Updating boot suppor partitions for the volume as required.
Error: disk utility can't repair his disk...disk, and restore your backed up files."
A window pops up saying;
" disk utility can't repair is disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk and restore yr backed up files."

I can't open the Mac in safe mode too, when pressing shift I see a no entry sign and it flickers back and fourth to a apple logo.
My CD Rom drive doesn't work too and I was running Mavericks.

I also had an error message about a problem with the EFI system partition file system.

I really need to get my documents back as there are lots of sorties I need to get back and sentimental photos!

I have a 1TB external hd too.

Please help a desperate Illustrator!

 

[AppleSmack]

You'll need some $, access to another mac to download and put it on a USB stick: Diskwarrior

If Diskwarrior rescues your disk, the first thing to do is back it up to an external hd using Time Machine (free, some people report reliability issues), or Carbon Copy Cloner ($).

After that, you can replace the hd in your MBP (I think the 2006 has replaceable hd, someone else here could confirm), restore from your backup.

And then, most importantly, backup, backup, backup. Google for the 1-2-3 backup methodology (one backup drive, a second backup drive, and another backup off site). It will cost to buy Carbon Copy Cloner even when Time Machine is free. But no one who has had a hard drive fail, then found their backup was corrupt, has ever said they wished they didn't spend the money or time on multiple backups!

 

[ZapNZs]

Agreed. I would argue that DiskWarrior holds the highest chance of success here short of professional data recovery. Possible alternatives include trying single user mode or putting the HDD in an external and trying to manually recover the data if it will mount (or even attempting to update the EFI...which arguably carries a huge risk of making things worse.) However, if I were in your situation, and decided to try software recovery, I would go straight to the Warrior to maximize my chance of success. YMMV.

As you do not have backups of these files, the $120 for DiskWarrior can be a bargain at 5 times the price. You will want to find someone with a Mac running Mavericks to make a bootable recovery drive, since your Recovery HD is not usable (or buy a new hard drive for your Mac, install OS X via a fresh install using a flash drive or external DVD drive, install DW, and then plug the old hard drive into the system where you would rebuild the directory using DW without needing a recovery drive.) It's worth noting that DW does NOT fix physical hard drive failures, it ONLY targets directory corruption (which it sounds like you probably have), despite some misconceptions you do NOT need to decrypt the drive if protected by FileVault (as all you have to do is 'unlock' it through Disk Utility), and if this is a physical drive issue [that SMART failed to detect] the most viable solution is usually hardware data recovery (which can quickly run up a bill higher than a new MacBook Pro.)

I also agree with the backup recs. In the future, if you have files that are extremely important, you may want to keep three (or more) copies of them: one on the computer itself, one on an external hard drive or flash drive via Time Machine in the form of incremental point-in-time backups, and one on an external hard drive via Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper as a bootable clone (this is a very robust type of backup, in my opinion.) Ideally, at least one of those disks will be a high-reliability drive. If you want to store files in a more long-term sense, appropriate archival storage mediums are often a good investment IMO.

I hope things work out for you and you recover any data you need. Many of us have been in your place (myself included) - it's a learning experience, and sometimes a very stressful and expensive one. Luckily, future vigilance can & will prevent you from having to go through this again.

 

[AppleSmack]

… As you do not have backups of these files, the $120 for DiskWarrior can be a bargain at 5 times the price. You will want to find someone with a Mac running Mavericks to make a bootable recovery drive, since your Recovery HD is not usable (or buy a new hard drive for your Mac, install OS X via a fresh install using a flash drive or external DVD drive, install DW, and then plug the old hard drive into the system where you would rebuild the directory using DW without needing a recovery drive.) It's worth noting that DW does NOT fix physical hard drive failures, it ONLY targets directory corruption (which it sounds like you probably have), despite some misconceptions you do NOT need to decrypt the drive if protected by FileVault (as all you have to do is 'unlock' it through Disk Utility), and if this is a physical drive issue [that SMART failed to detect] the most viable solution is usually hardware data recovery (which can quickly run up a bill higher than a new MacBook Pro.)…

Thanks for adding some much needed detail here, ZapNZs.

Good luck one-post-only OP, please remember to come back here and let us know how you get on.

 

[sparkie7]

Agree about the DiskWarrior suggestion. It is my go-to when my drives get sick. Usually it's a directory problem. If DW can't fix it, then your HD is failing and is gonna die sooner or later completely. So recover/backup, then replace it with an SSD