On Saturday, October 13, 2012 9:56:02 PM UTC-7, Kris Tilford wrote:
On Oct 13, 2012, at 11:34 PM, Les wrote:
I have a new Western Digital My Passport Studio external USB/
Firewire drive for backup. Unfortunately this thing has been
overwhelmingly problematic. It won't mount, Disc Utility can't fix
it, and Disc Warrior hangs up while locating directory data. My CCC
data is on this drive as it was meant to be my insurance when my
main machine fumbled. I'm convinced the file structure is hosed so,
I'm requesting help with UNIX commands in Terminal to attempt a fix.
BTW my machine is a G5 1.8 DP, OS X 10.4.11
I don't think any Terminal commands are going to help, after all, Disk
Utility is just a GUI for fsck, so if Disk Utility fails, it's nearly
100% certain anything you'd try in Terminal would also fail.
Since you have both USB Firewire ports, you should be using Firewire
as your first choice option, and default connection. Firewire is
faster and much more stable than USB on Macs. If Firewire won't work
for you, then try USB. Tiger 10.4 is more problematic with some USB
chipsets than Leopard, so upgrading to Leopard might possibly help
with a USB connection?
You should note, there was a firmware update for the My Passport
Studio, and if you haven't applied this update, do this first before
trying anything else:
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=211lang=en
In this download area, there is a WD Universal Firmware Updater for
Mac which I assume you might need, and also something called WD
Macintosh +TURBO Drivers which may be necessary? I suspect that once
you get the firmware updated, and the drivers (or Leopard update) you
may be able to repair any file system damage with Disk Utility? If you
can't get Disk Utility to work, the next level is Alsoft DiskWarrior,
and if DiskWarrior can't salvage it, the next level is ProSoft Data
Rescue 3, and the final level is a commercial data recovery service. I
suspect you can handle this with a firmware update, some drivers or
system update, and Disk Utility? I'd think DiskWarrior would certainly
be capable of salvaging this HD completely as possible, likely with
little or no data loss.
I have to take exception to the statement that the GUI of applications is
more capable or reliable or even as reliable than command line in terminal.
I have personally completed repairs in terminal that GUI interfaces failed
to do so. In terminal I have usually found that there were so many errors
that the GUI version just gave up. Numerous repeating of the GUI
application will also tend to complete the repair as the number of errors
decreases.
All that being stated and understood, in all most all cases errors (except
permissions) are reason for concern. It can indicate that the drive was
unmounted improperly or power issues to the drive. Drives that are powered
by the port are more likely to be damaged by improper drive removal. I
prefer to use an external power source.
You should have a solid understanding of terminal use and disk repair
before attempting to diagnose and repair a disk in terminal.
The basic steps for terminal repair of a disk are:
diskutil list - this shows all disks in the system and partitions and fs
type of each partition
diskutil verifyVolume /Volumes/diskname or /dev/disk#
diskutil repairVolume /Volumes/diskname or /dev/disk#
diskutil verifyVolume /Volumes/diskname or /dev/disk#s#
diskutil repairVolume /Volumes/diskname or /dev/disk#s#
If that does not solve the problems and I suspect not since you have
probably used the GUI tools already, then you need to run fsck. You will
need to either have sudo rights or logged in as root. Do NOT run fsck on a
mounted volume or you will most likely kill the fs on the volume. You will
want to use the correct fsck program for the fs type. The two standard fsck
program are fsck_hfs and fsck_msdos. You can install additional fsck
programs if you need them.
fsck_hfs -q /Volumes/diskname or /dev/disk#s# - this will tell you if the
volume was cleanly unmounted
fsck_hfs -p /Volumes/diskname or /dev/disk#s# - this will repair the most
common problems but not all
fsck_hfs /Volumes/diskname or /dev/disk#s# - this will attempt to repair
all problems that fsck can repair. This is interactive any requires you to
sit there and repeatedly hit y to make the repair. You can specify -y to
automate the repair and what I normally use. You can also test a mounted
volume with -l which will test but not make any repairs.
You should read the man pages before using any of the terminal tools. man
fsck, man fsck_hfs, man diskutil.
--
You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for
those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs.
The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette
