OSX crash and now my machine wont start

hey there,

had an issue when i tried to update mac to 10.4.5 from 10.4.4...at the end of the install got the message saying that an error had occurred and that i should try reinstalling the software.

I restarted my machine and now it get's stuck on the "starting up mac osx" screen it gets to the end of the blue bar and then hangs for eternity.

what are my choices here?

I've tried safe booting with no luck, booted from the instal disks and installed osx on my second internal drive. this allows me to see my corrupted drive and i can copy all the files over from that drive. obviously that's one way i could solve the issue, copy everything over and erase the problem drive.

is there anything else i could try before that last ditch scenario?

this is such a bummer as i downloaded the standalone installer rather than use software update - which i thought was supposed to be the safer option.

thanks for any suggestions

G5 DP 2.0
4.0G RAM
OS 10.4.4
QT 7.0.4
FCP 5.0.4
BMD Decklink Extreme 5.4.2
PAL Land

<<< erase the problem drive.>>>

"Erase" as in remove the drive and put a healthy one in.

<<<which i thought was supposed to be the safer option.>>>

I strongly suspect the update had nothing to do with your hardware failure. If you booted from your System CDs, ran Disk Utilities, and the drive still didn't come up, you don't have a hard drive any more. You have a non-functioning movie prop.

It's possible just the System Tracks are damaged on the spinning platters which is why the System Upgrade made the drive fail, but if that's the case, the inside of the drive may now have little flakes and pieces of hard drive floating around and it's only a matter of time before something else fails. This is the "predict the future" moment.

There is one last check and that is to shut the machine down, carefully remove the drive data cable and the power cable and carefully put them back on and restart the machine.

If that didn't work, shop for a new drive. We like Seagates.

Koz

sorry i didnt mean the drive had failed - just that the OSX update caused it to become unbootable.

when i boot from my other drive the original boot drive shows up and all the files are intact.

im in the process of reinstalling everything on my secondary drive and then reformatting the original drive.

just confused as to what i should keep from my original drive before i erase it. obviously my documents but im thinking about favourites, safari bookmarks, plugins etc

Why don't you try running the update again, on top of what you already tried to update. Maybe it will work better this time. You said you got a message to do that but didn't say if you had done it. Can't hurt, and is a whole lot easier than all the other solutions. Be sure all peripherals are disconnected during the update. FW drives can suffer during an OS upgrade.

When you are booted to that second drive, what does Disk First Aid tell you about the original one? Have you tried to "repair" it? Tried Disk Warrior on it?

Scott

<<<sorry i didnt mean the drive had failed>>>

I understand. I did mean that.

That should have been a relatively painless upgrade. The fact that it failed means you may have a bad spot on the platters. The fact that the spot clearly wasn't there before might indicate a degenerating platter. Run the Disk Utilities from either the System CDs or your new install on the other drive and see what they have to say.

I don't like it when the System Files become damaged and you didn't do anything wrong. You have an unstable system with a potential of it getting even worse.


You know you can make the System do an Image of the bad drive and save everything all at once? It's under Disk Utilities. Of course, you need a "foreign" drive with enough room to handle the whole thing, but that can be a way to go back later and recover stuff you forgot.

I'm doing the same thing. I'm migrating between PowerBooks and discovering things that don't necessarily transfer when you save the /home folder.

Koz