Are problems with electronic devices contagious? I need help!

[GeneL]

I'm posting this because I really need help. I'm terribly exhausted because of my sleep problems, but I will do my best to explain what has happened and what steps I've taken. I've been falling asleep at the keyboard, so I'll have to fill in the details on Saturday.

Briefly, I'll explain that I've given Mavis an Intel Mini and also an external Newer "ministack" for its greater capacity. I have her system booting from the miniStack by firewire.

It seems that my S/O's Intel Mini had started acting up. She came to me saying that she was getting "beach balls" and her computer seemed to be very slow and would I see what was wrong with it.

I began by running DU's "Repair Permissions" and then I booted from my OS install disk and used DU's" Repair Hard drive." After running for a while, DU reported that the repair had failed! and that the problematic files could not be fixed. It listed in red that there were serious problems with multiple files.

As part of my basic troubleshooting I "zapped the PRAM," but it was obvious that the problem would require a lot more effort. At this point the Mini crashed and I got the "crash" screen telling me to shut down Mavis' computer.

I went back to my MacPro to google for some ideas and guess what? The MacPro crashed, too! Thus the topic heading and the poll.

I have no way of knowing how her files became corrupted, but I could see that Mavis had been putting a variety of files away without being aware of the operating system's restrictions, plus she had been using "Trash" as storage.

She had never emptied the trash folder or emptied her "deleted" email folder in Entourage.

I have no idea what else she may have inadvertently done that could have caused the corruption.

Looking over her setup, I found that the power cord for the second miniStack that I installed as a backup drive, had been unplugged. So now there was no up-to-date backup to work with.

To make up for this I physically moved her critical files (Pictures and Documents) over to the second hard drive in order to safeguard them. Then I booted from DW and ran it.

It appeared at first that I had succeeded in fixing the problem, but I soon discovered that there were still major problems.

At this point I decided to reinstall the OS and to upgrade to OS 10.6. Once again I ran into strangeness. The drive options to install on left out the Mini itself and showed only the two miniStacks. Then it wouldn't let me install on the primary drive, so I had to choose the supposed backup drive. Even then, there was no option to "archive and install."

After the Snow Leopard install was done, I couldn't find the Mini's hard drive in the Finder, so I've left it till tomorrow to continue.

I don't know if I've made some sense to you because I'm so tired and I know that I've left details out, but if you can get an idea about what I've done so far, I'd appreciate any tips you may have.

Now it's off to bed! :zzz:

[Speedy]

After your install use Migration Assistant to move all the files from the possibly failing hard drive. Then reformat the bad drive. Next install an OS on that drive and run MA again to move all her files back again and see how it runs.

Ps. it happens to all of us but I don't think your poll choices apply to me.

[Doc]

Try not to do tech support when you're exhausted.

> At this point the Mini crashed and I got the "crash"
> screen telling me to shut down Mavis' computer.

A message telling you to shut down the computer is a kernel panic. That could point either to a hardware problem or to a software problem.

Kernel panics are often caused by bad third party (non-Apple) RAM. Have you upgraded the memory on that Mini?


> She had never emptied the trash folder or emptied her
> "deleted" email folder in Entourage.
> I have no idea what else she may have inadvertently done
> that could have caused the corruption.

That wouldn't cause "corruption." All that means is that you should take care not to empty the trash until you've sorted through it.


> Then I booted from DW and ran it.
> It appeared at first that I had succeeded in fixing the
> problem, but I soon discovered that there were still
> major problems.

What problems? Did DiskWarrior report errors? What specific error messages did it display?


> At this point I decided to reinstall the OS and to upgrade
> to OS 10.6. Once again I ran into strangeness. The drive
> options to install on left out the Mini itself and showed
> only the two miniStacks. Then it wouldn't let me install
> on the primary drive, so I had to choose the supposed
> backup drive. Even then, there was no option to "archive
> and install."

The Mini's boot drive may have the wrong type of partition scheme for Snow Leopard and the Archive and Install option is no longer available in the Snow Leopard installer.

A regular installation of the OS should preserve user accounts and such in similar fashion to an Archive and Install, but without preserving the System folder.

Given your problems, however, a clean install of the OS (erase the hard drive before installing the OS) is probably called for.


> To make up for this I physically moved her critical files
> (Pictures and Documents) over to the second hard drive
> in order to safeguard them.

If she really has been saving files in unusual places on the hard drive then merely backing up her Pictures and Documents folders will probably not be sufficient.

The Mac Pro seems to be working now?

I suggest that you make a clone of the Mini's boot drive. Boot the Mini into Target Mode (hold down the T key after the boot-chime), connect it to the Mac Pro with a FireWire cable and when it mounts, use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone the Mini's boot drive to another hard drive or to a disk image on another hard drive.

Then -- unless DiskWarrior reported hardware problems -- with the Mini still connected to the Mac Pro, run the Disk Utility and use it to Partition the Mini's boot drive into a single "Mac OS X Extended (journaled)" volume, using the Options button to specify a "GUID partition table."

Once the Mini's hard drive has been erased that way, you should be able to install Snow Leopard on it.

Instead of immediately migrating her data to the Mini, I think that you ought to try stress-testing the Mini with a fresh admin account.

For example, you could simultaneously play three high-definition QuickTime movies, looping them for 24 hours. See if it has another kernel panic when it heats up a bit while running from a clean-install of the OS.

OTOH, if DiskWarrior reported hardware errors then you probably need to replace the Mini's boot drive.

[rgG]

I have a couple of questions, does Mavis really need to be booting from the external drive? Has she got so much stuff that the internal drive on the mini is full? I ask because keeping her computer as simple as possible would seem to be the best idea, and eliminating an external drive and just booting from the internal would seem to be simpler.

Just my thoughts.

[cbelt3]

While I've got nothing in terms of tech advice, I'll agree that when you're tired, computer crashes are their nice way of telling you to take a break.

Sleep deprivation for more than 48 hours produces symptoms quite similar to schizophrenia. That's why it's used as an interrogation technique.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

Doc wrote: OTOH, if DiskWarrior reported hardware errors then you probably need to replace the Mini's boot drive.

Mostly good suggestions from Doc, but I will note that DiskWarrior never reports hardware problems. DW does one thing and one thing only, but it does it supremely well: it identifies and fixes problems with the directory file on your HD. It does include S.M.A.R.T. capability, but I long ago lost faith in the accuracy of any implementation of S.M.A.R.T.

Given what you said about Mavis never having emptied her Trash in OS X or Mail, it sounds like she may have run out of HD space - I would check this. The OS can not function properly and will act wonky if it does not have enough free space available on the hard drive during operation.

[Doc]

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
[quote=Doc]OTOH, if DiskWarrior reported hardware errors then you probably need to replace the Mini's boot drive.

Mostly good suggestions from Doc, but I will note that DiskWarrior never reports hardware problems.
http://supportdb.alsoft.com:591/FMPro?-db=alsoftsupport&-lay=main&-max=15&-format=AlsoftSupport-qa.html&-script=counter&-token=173&-Skip=96&-find

[N-OS X-tasy!]

Doc wrote:
[quote=N-OS X-tasy!]
[quote=Doc]OTOH, if DiskWarrior reported hardware errors then you probably need to replace the Mini's boot drive.

Mostly good suggestions from Doc, but I will note that DiskWarrior never reports hardware problems.
http://supportdb.alsoft.com:591/FMPro?-db=alsoftsupport&-lay=main&-max=15&-format=AlsoftSupport-qa.html&-script=counter&-token=173&-Skip=96&-find

From your link (bold emphasis added by me):

The message "speed reduced by disk malfunction" means there is a problem reading data from the disk due to a disk malfunction.

As long as the mouse cursor still moves during step 5, then the computer did not hang or freeze. DiskWarrior is still working on reading the directory of the disk.

Such slowdowns are usually the result of having bad blocks on the media. DiskWarrior is having trouble reading data from the locations on disk where the directory structures are stored.

That entry describes a scenario in which DW is experiencing difficulty reading directory structures from a disk and posits that the problem could be due to "bad blocks on the media." This does not even come close to a concrete diagnosis of faulty hardware. The only thing definitely stated is that DW is having difficulty reading directory structures. I stand by my original statement.

[Doc]

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
From your link (bold emphasis added by me)...

Hmm...

The message "speed reduced by disk malfunction" means there is a problem reading data from the disk due to a disk malfunction...

Since the "speed reduced by disk malfunction" message indicates hardware-related issues, you will need to backup your files from the DiskWarrior Preview window (accessed from the DiskWarrior Report window) to another hard drive. Once you have a backup of your files, you will need to install a new hard drive to replace the damaged hard drive..

You're right.

There's absolutely nothing in that to indicate hardware errors.

Nothing at all.

:nuts:

[GeneL]

Thanks everyone for responding. I've felt too lousy all day today to do anything more with the info right now.

Glancing over the suggestions, I can see that there's things that I'll have to do, but I just can't deal with it until I get some sleep.

Staying up for 48 hours at a time seems impossible, but I've been doing it for months now. I don't know how I manage to do it or why.

I want to ask some specifics about the ideas that you've given me. Maybe by tomorrow I'll feel a bit better.

At least it was a beautiful day, here in Dana Point.

gl