Really urgent OSX problem

joshua1

I need help. For serious.

I just got home and saw my iMac was off. Odd, considering i left it on before i went to uni.

Trying to turn it on, I watch it just........return back to off. No fanfare. This happens just after the apple logo pops up, and the busy indicator swirls. (still on the grey boot screen)

Tried this about a million times, no change.

Tried booting into my XP partition via boot camp. Sucessfull.

Only problem in that partition is the sound does not work.

Only thing to have changed was that I installed DOWII and steam on my XP machine, followed with a few improper shut downs. (Holding the power button down etc.) I didn't do those at what would seem to be a critical time though, so i have no idea why my OSX partition will not start.

I have to rush off to work now, but if anyone has any wisdom I would REALLY REALLY appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

ZackSchilling

Try booting off the OS X install DVD and running Disk Utility repair.

It doesn't usually help if the problem is very serious, but it does work on occasion. Plus, it would be helpful for troubleshooting if we knew the machine could boot OS X off of a DVD.

joshua1

"First Aid Failed"

Filesystem verify or repair failed

The log has a bunch of stuff about (it should be 1 instead 0)

Am i boned?

joshua1

Fuck it, i will just restore a 3day old image from time machine.

ZackSchilling

Hopefully that won't copy back over whatever corruption let to this.

DiskWarrior is a good disk repair tool if it turns out your backup is corrupt too.

joshua1

argh, now its hung up on "calculationg space required to restore disk" its not stuck, but it has been thinking for like, 30mins now

exoplasm

It's possible that powering it off improperly could have corrupted parts of the disk or even cause more severe damage that might not be repairable.

lilB

You might have a defective hard disk. Check the hard drive's SMART status. If defective replace with something big and awesome.

Senshi

Sounds like what happened to my iBook when the hard drive failed on me. Any weird clicking/whirring sounds coming from where the hard drive is?

joshua1

Senshi wrote: »

Sounds like what happened to my iBook when the hard drive failed on me. Any weird clicking/whirring sounds coming from where the hard drive is?

Sorry to drag this back from the depths. I did fix my main iMac, eventually i was able to restore a 3day old time machine image. Some annoying niggly things, but its mostly better.

This clicking whirring thing however, has been happening with my Air, and for quite some time. Its never doing it constantly, just an occasional spate of clicking/whirring, no longer than 3 seconds. Is that the same thing?