corrupted harddisk
Speaking of backups... Yesterday my Mac mini suddenly showed an empty background and didn't react to any keyboard commands. Once rebooting it always hang after the command
kernel[0]: IOBluetoothHCIController::start Idle Timer
So now I'll give a chronical of how I tried to fix it.
- Boot from Tiger (10.4) install disk, Disk Utility, Verify Disk
Volume needs repair
Repair Disk
Repairing disk failed. Underlying task reported failure
still not booting - Boot from Leopard (10.5) install disk, Disk Utility, Verify Disk
The volume appears to be OK
still not ... - Boot from Panther (10.3.7) install disk, Disk Utility, Repair Disk
Repairing disk failed. Underlying task reported failure
still ... - Boot from DiskWarrior (3.0.2) emergency Disk
computer hangs during boot from CD - Boot into FireWire Target mode, host is running Tiger (10.4.11), Disk Utility, Repair Disk
Verify/repair finished on volume
... - Boot from Tiger (10.4) install disk, Disk Utility, Verify Disk
The volume appears to be OK
Apparantly the file system is okay now, but the files have been corrupted. So I re-install the system, choosing the option "Archive & install", which is actually not the best option. I should have chosen the standard "Upgrade" which would have kept my user settings the way they were. Like this I had to do some fiddeling with the old user account until it was ready to use.
