On May 25, 2011, at 7:12 AM, Geke wrote:
A friend of mine using 10.6 got a problem with his boot disk.
What problem?
So he
restored it with Time Machine, but now the Mac doesn't boot from that
disk anymore: it just showed the rotating cogwheel for an hour or
more.
Well, it's entirely possible that the underlying issue with the boot disk was
never fixed, or that it's a hardware failure. This doesn't necessarily count as
'Time Machine troubles'.
Time Machine faithfully copies what's on the hard drive; if it's some issue
with a driver or corrupted system file restoring with TM won't fix it.
First thing to do is try safe booting: boot while holding down the shift key.
If that fixes it, odds are it's fixed. If it boots in safe mode, but not
regular mode the problem is in something that isn't loaded in safe mode. Boot
in safe mode and look at added drivers, preference panes, etc. This Apple KB
article details what happens in Safe Mode:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564?viewlocale=en_US
Often booting in verbose mode (hold down Command-V) will tell you exactly
what's going on when it fails to boot.
Boot from your system or system restore DVD and run Disk Utility on the disk
check it for problems. If it's a bad disk, replace the disk, restore from TM
and continue. If the disk checks out ok, reformat it, and restore.
If restoring from Time Machine after reformatting *still* gives you issues,
re-install OS X from the system disks (without using the Time Machine restore
option) MAKING SURE to give the first user you create a different name
(otherwise the next step will not work).
Then use Migration Assistant to selectively restore from the Time Machine
backup: just the user files. UNCHECK Applications and System Settings.
Re-install applications from your media or re-download them. This is why you
keep a list of serial numbers in a safe place...
--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group
Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs
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