04-09-2009, 06:47 PM
ok. HD erased and reformatted. it even lost its "Macintosh HD" title. ran Disk Repair and its fine.
will reclone now.
will reclone now.
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Oh boy, HD probs - i think.
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04-09-2009, 07:01 PM
there's no reason in the world not to go with the clone, unless you enjoy spending hours needlessly futzing with your mac.
That's not necessarily correct. gl said her mini was "slowing down". There are a few different reasons for that. One of them might be a tired OS. I don't know what version it is, or if or when it's been updated. If it's in good shape, then yes, use the clone. It's shown itself to be faster, but it's on a faster drive. But if it's the original OS and has sustained directory damage and/or is full of cruft that has accrued over the years, a fresh installation would likely speed things up. It also affords the opportunity to weed out apps that are no longer used or needed. Pruning speeds things up. If she's noticed a slowdown and is going to continue to use the slower internal HD as the boot drive then it makes sense to me to make every effort to regain the speed. And reinstalling the OS doesn't seem unreasonable. (You no doubt noted that I stated what *I* would do at certain junctures and not what gl "needs" to do..) "Hours of needless futzing..." is a gross mischaracterization and exaggeration on your part, probably the result of irritable bowel syndrome. If she's happy with the performance of the clone, then it will certainly suffice. It's just that short of defragmenting the HD by reloading the OS and data via a clone, she has yet to really accomplish anything except possibly zero the drive and taste 7200rpm (or 5400rpm? ) goodness. And that's why she posted in the first place. According to you, she should have never bothered.
04-09-2009, 09:02 PM
hmmmm.
recloned. ran Verify on the internal before i booted from it. Checking HFS Plus volume. Checking Extents Overflow file. Checking Catalog file. Invalid sibling link The volume Untitled needs to be repaired. Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit 1 HFS volume checked Volume needs repair so, a fresh install of the OS is in order. is it okay to do an "Erase and Install" or should I erase first? once the new OS is installed, do I have to be booted from it to do the requisite updates? btw, we're talking Tiger, here. and once the new OS is on, what's the best way to move my stuff from the external? does migration assistant work in a case like this? notice i said 'best' not 'optimal.' i'm sure the optimal thing to do is reinstall all the apps but that really would be time consuming. maybe i should just live on the external...
04-09-2009, 09:26 PM
Ok, you do have a lot of apps and it would take a while to start from scratch.
One thing to remember-- recent barefeats.com tests show that an HD slows down as you fill it past the 50% mark. At this point, I'd suspect that the clone of your internal HD is buggy- that maybe during the cloning process something didn't get completed and now the installed clone thinks something is going on. Did you zero the HD? maybe i should just live on the external... Since the external is definitely faster than the internal, that's the way I'd go anyway. DISCLAIMER: That's just me. If you decide to do a fresh Install-- you can Erase and Install, in one step. I don't remember if you have to boot from a drive to update the OS. The Installer would tell you, though. I have no clue to how MA works, but I'm guessing it would do just fine. Remember, *if* there is a problem with a file on your clone, you might be importing it back. It might be worth the time to redo the clone. And just for the heck of it, try this first-- reboot the mini while holding the Shift key for a minute or two. It will take longer than normal to boot, but you'll be in Safe Boot (deja vu?) then immediately restart. See if that makes Disk Utility/First Aid happy.
04-09-2009, 09:37 PM
RAMd®d wrote: 47 used/24 free RAMd®d wrote: the external clone i'm booted from is corrupted or the clone made of the external clone that i put on the internal is corrupted? yes, i zeroed the HD. RAMd®d wrote: is there a downside to that? one i could see is that i'd have no back ups then unless i bought another external in which case maybe i should consider a new internal. i just watched the OWC video on installing a HD. i could do it. (i'd just really rather have a new computer with more RAM but that's not going to happen...) RAMd®d wrote: do you mean erase the HD again and reclone the external i'm booted from? RAMd®d wrote: keeping myself booted from the external? beau coups of thanks to you and black and all for hanging with me on this, btw. 
04-09-2009, 11:15 PM
In your position I would install a fresh OS on the internal at this point, after another reformat.
You do not need to be booted from the new OS install to run updates on it (I assume you have the 10.4.11 combo updater file hanging out somewhere). Once you do you can run from the fresh OS and rule out the hard drive definitively as the problem (hopefully.) Once you feel good about the hard drive, you can give Migration Assistant a shot-- sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. One tip I do want to stress, from painful experience: When you have an opportunity to name your new user, name it something other than your old/main/everyday user that currently lives on the internal. Otherwise you'll have to rename the old user to something different to pull it over, and you'll have worlds of woe from that. If Migration Assistant doesn't cut it (sometimes it just sucks randomly) Rammie or Doc will help you drag the old stuff over manually (Doc is definitely the resident docent on that sort of thing.)
04-10-2009, 04:19 PM
gl, in recommending you redo the clone, I missed an obvious point.
I was suggesting that you reclone your original HD as it seems that there might be an errant problem that shows up when you put it back on your internal HD. But since you've erased the HD and installed the clone, it's not possible to create another "first generation" clone. So... 47 used/24 free So you have roughly 30% free space. If you could lose another 20% you might see a little speed increase. the external clone i'm booted from is corrupted or the clone made of the external clone that i put on the internal is corrupted? At this point, it's the same clone on both HDs. I'm curious- when booted from the internal drive, does Disk Utility show the same error for the external drive? do you mean erase the HD again and reclone the external i'm booted from? Belay my last. At this point the clones are the same. (See my opening babbling.) keeping myself booted from the external? Boot from the internal drive since that's the one that doesn't seem to come up clean. Booting into Safe Boot (holding the Shift key for a minute or so) runs a file check that is supposedly a little more robust than Repair Disk from Disk Utility. If that works, I'd to the same booting from the external. is there a downside to that? one i could see is that i'd have no back ups then unless i bought another external... You're right about making backups. You'd need another drive for safer backups. Also, many externals don't sleep with inactivity and thus get and stay hot. This can kill an HD. So to keep from having to turn the external on and off as needed, you'd want to make sure your drive will sleep when bored. in which case maybe i should consider a new internal. i just watched the OWC video on installing a HD. i could do it.) You rock! I think that's the best way to go, if nothing else works out. You'd want to make sure you get an ATA or IDE HD and not an SATA HD, at 5400rpm. This will give you a noticeable speed boost. I take it you don't have DiskWarrior. This might have fixed your problem straight away, or not. Black's observations about the effectiveness of Migrations Assistant are correct. It works well for some people, for others- not so much. Let us know how it goes.
04-10-2009, 04:37 PM
RAMd®d,
black and i pm'ed on this, and other stuff, late last night. i told him i had verified the external i'm booted from AND the back-up i made of the HD before i started this mess. both come up clean. the CCC log showed an error in the cloning so i thought maybe i had a power hiccup when it was cloning. so i erased the internal and reverified that it was clean. recloned the already verified external. CCC log shows no problems in the cloning. ran DU. internal now needs to be repaired. sigh. i have Disk Warrior but i'm thinking it's an older copy because get info says it's a classic app. i've searched my stacks but i can't find any other copy. i tried booting from it anyway but couldn't; i think it's because i have a third party keyboard. later today i'll snag my son's imac keyboard and see if that will enable me to boot from this DW disk. btw, i did try booting into safe mode. twice. both times the mini shut itself down completely. also, in my rebooting efforts, i did boot into the internal. i only checked a few things but you know, it seemed fine. but, as i told black, i am wary of just blowing this off when my internal may be a ticking time bomb. the frustrating part is i'm really jonesing for a newer computer with more RAM so i'm loathe to put money into the Mini. but a new mac isn't on the horizon and though the mini is slow, aren't we just spoiled big kids wanting new toys... 
04-10-2009, 08:58 PM
well, after dancing around with different start ups and DU telling me in one configuration everything is fine and then NOT, i'm finally booted from the internal and it verified.
i'm going to see if all this work yielded me a peppier internal. if not, i'll erase the partitions on the external so i'll have lots of space, boot from that and use the internal as my back up somehow. thanks for all your patience. i'm going out to buy a lottery ticket now so i can dream of a new mac with lots of RAM, HD space and a 24" monitor... |
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