#repair (2)
UPDATE on yesterday’s post. The compiled notes:
- …not sure how it started but: published a poster-size thumbnail set to PDF - - and iPhoto went “pinwheel” - - and then when I tried to Cmd+Option+Esc my way out of it, Finder pinwheeled as well; Malkovich went totally unresponsive so I did a hard reboot w/ the power switch
- Malkovich wouldn’t come back up (hung on the grey Apple screen)
- tried to Cmd+S into Single-User Mode but it wouldn’t go (hung on grey Apple screen)
- unplugged all the peripherals (stripped it down to the white factory keyboard and mouse)
- still wouldn’t boot (hung on grey Apple screen)
- Cmd+S’d into SU mode but the keyboard went unresponsive (couldn’t enter text)
- dropped the install X.4 install DVD into the drive and rebooted+C off the DVD
- ran Disk Utility > Repair Permissions; got stick w/ the progress bar approx. 75% of the way through
- reboot+C off the DVD
- ran Disk Utility > Repair Disk; failed (said something about “the underlying task failed” after three tries)
- ran Disk Utility > Repair Disk; failed (said something about “the underlying task failed”)
- ran Disk Utility > Repair Disk; claimed success
- told it to reboot off the HD volume but it hung (again) on the grey Apple screen
- reboot+C off the DVD
- Disk Utility > Verify Disk; claimed to all look OK
- reboot off the HD into Single User mode
- # fsck -fy (said everything came out OK)
- reboot off the HD volume (hung on the grey Apple screen for about an hour)
- re-installed w/ Archive & Install option
- OS X reinstall worked (but shouldn’t have had to resort to that!)
FALLOUT
- minor: lost User Account login pictures
- major: lost MySQL install & all DBs
- moderate: lost Tomcat install
- minor: PHP had to be re-enabled
- major: iTunes Library got corrupt? lost?
- the Library file was still there and the music was all still in Shared
- …but iTunes didn’t see any of it…
- …copied the Library file over from another user account but lost some playcounts etc.
- moderate: had to reinstall Xcode tools
- minor: had to reinstall iTunes Applescripts
- moderate: had to reinstall iTunes visualizer plug-ins
SIGHS OF RELIEF…
- all user account data were still intact
- did NOT need to re-install all my apps
- did NOT need to re-install fink


I do believe that you, officially, have the worst luck with computers. You really must emit a magnetic field.
August 15th, 2005 at 12:04 pm-m
the most annoying thing was that it wasn’t like I was doing something all that novel or demanding… it just lamed out
August 15th, 2005 at 9:14 pm[...] Return from vacation to find that Malkovich decides to tank again. So soon. [...]
November 16th, 2005 at 12:31 pm