my first imac repair

[Galdorf]

Guy dropped off imac don't see many around here city is like 99.8% pc anyways when it boots it gets to a blank screen white that is it.
Ran diagnostics found nothing my guess is there is a file tables problem Invalid node structure error.
tried /sbin/fsck –fy
Invalid node structure error.

not sure how to fix this any ideas?

 

[Markverhyden]

Model?
What do you see when you power up with the option key held down?
Does data need to be recovered?
Can you boot into recovery mode, command + R when powered up?
RAM reseated?
Flash PRAM - command + option + p + r when powered up?
How did you run the diags - single user mode?

 

[trevm999]

What diagnostics did you run? If he wants his data back the first thing you need to do is check out the hard drive. Macs will boot to a Parted Magic disc, I suggest checking out the smart data and run tests using gsmartcontrol.

 

[altrenda]

The above are all good questions. Need more information.

When does it hang? If it's the White screen only, without a spinning gear or an Apple, it's often a hardware problem, before the hard drive comes into play. Does it play the chime sound?
Unplug everything, including the keyboard and mouse and give it a try. Then try the pram reset.

PS I bet there are a lot more Macs around than you think, you just don't see them because someone else is fixing them. Macs have almost as much market share in Canada as they do in the US, especially with younger people. But if you are where i think you are, you're a long way from an Apple Store.

 

[AtYourService]

must be something in the air, i got first 20" imac desktop in with the same issue.
wouldnt respond with any of the normal stuff that markverhyden suggested, Im assuming it's a bad hard drive, had to wait to get some suction cups from my hackerspace to pull the screen off tomorrow.

the only indication i get on the screen is the folder with the question mark after a long period of just a blank white screen.

i might try to pull the drive and hook it up to a sata to usb to an old macbook i have laying around the shop. hopefully i can do a file recovery of sorts, any suggestions on free recovery software if the data structure is fubar'd?

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Haven't done this as much on Mac, more of a pc guy, however used to have my Mac certs a few years ago. But last one I worked on would boot to posted magic Linux cd. Easiest way to pull data would be boot from that and pull data to an external drive. Then run gsmart on the drive that way you know if the drive is going out. If so clonezilla may be able to image the drive, or you may be able to use dd. Have not tried these on a Mac but hardware is close to pc anymore so theoretically it should work.

 

[trevm999]

i might try to pull the drive and hook it up to a sata to usb to an old macbook i have laying around the shop. hopefully i can do a file recovery of sorts, any suggestions on free recovery software if the data structure is fubar'd?

The best thing to do is use gddrescue to clone to another drive. Then run diskwarrior and disk utility on the clone. If it doesn't mount with data after that, Data Rescue 3 is the best program to use, but I would rather send it for data recovery at tat point.

 

[Galdorf]

Model?
What do you see when you power up with the option key held down?
Does data need to be recovered?
Can you boot into recovery mode, command + R when powered up?
RAM reseated?
Flash PRAM - command + option + p + r when powered up?
How did you run the diags - single user mode?

Imac 8,1
option key :nothing
data needs to be recovered
Flashed the PRAM
Ran in single user mode /sbin/fsck –fy got Invalid node structure error
Ran the diagnostics the on hard drive smart showed no problems.

 

[Markverhyden]

Imac 8,1
option key :nothing
data needs to be recovered
Flashed the PRAM
Ran in single user mode /sbin/fsck –fy got Invalid node structure error
Ran the diagnostics the on hard drive smart showed no problems.

Bummer, sounds like the HD is bad. If they are willing to spend some cash then just pull it and send it out. 300DDR and Recovery Force are on here as I am sure you know.

If not then give it a whack yourself. You could try booting into Target Disk mode, command + t, and see if you can get to it that way. If they are going to repair it might as well crack the case, pull the drive and slave it. R-Studio's R-Tools has been mentioned many times, I've used it for years. I also have Data Rescue 3, OS X only app, and like it. I don't think that is one of those that had a logic board issue.

If you are not familiar with it, Tim's site has a ton of Apple manuals, including those for yours.

http://www.tim.id.au/blog/tims-laptop-service-manuals/#toc-apple

 

[Galdorf]

Funny smart says there is no problems, pulled the hard drive slaved it to test bench ran a surface scan loads of bad sectors.
Looks like the hard drive is bad i never trust smart any more.

Bummer, sounds like the HD is bad. If they are willing to spend some cash then just pull it and send it out. 300DDR and Recovery Force are on here as I am sure you know.

If not then give it a whack yourself. You could try booting into Target Disk mode, command + t, and see if you can get to it that way. If they are going to repair it might as well crack the case, pull the drive and slave it. R-Studio's R-Tools has been mentioned many times, I've used it for years. I also have Data Rescue 3, OS X only app, and like it. I don't think that is one of those that had a logic board issue.

If you are not familiar with it, Tim's site has a ton of Apple manuals, including those for yours.

http://www.tim.id.au/blog/tims-laptop-service-manuals/#toc-apple

 

[AtYourService]

pulled the drive and put it in my sata2usb, it showed up for a bit then dissappeared saying it was improperly ejected, tried throwing it in the freezer for a bit and it was able to read it , copied about 11gb of data fom the user folder , it crapped out on the iphoto folder and wouldnt let me fix permissions before crapping out. gonna try again tomorrow , have a friend who works for ESPN that is a mac fan who has a copy of diskwarrior, will try that

(coincidentally i turned him on to 300DDR when one of his backup drives crapped out and now everyone @ his work uses them, wish i got a referral program )


also the owner of the MAC 20" doesnt want to repair the computer (install new hdd and reinstall OS) so i might just trade him the recovery work for his MAC and slap a hdd in it and use for a spare to play around with

 

[Galdorf]

I was lucky it was a 2008 model later models have heat sensor plug i would have had to track down and exact replacement if it was much newer.
Installed a WD 500 gig reinstalled OSX it is now up and running.
I found lots of useful videos on youtube on how to dis-assemble it was a little different it had screws holding the screen to frame and the cable was held by 2 screws.
I guess ill have to buy some suction cups if i continue to fix macs i had to borrow some.
Customer said data was not critical he had backups on external hard drive it not very often you see customers backing up anything.

 

[trevm999]

pulled the drive and put it in my sata2usb, it showed up for a bit then dissappeared saying it was improperly ejected, tried throwing it in the freezer for a bit and it was able to read it , copied about 11gb of data fom the user folder , it crapped out on the iphoto folder and wouldnt let me fix permissions before crapping out. gonna try again tomorrow , have a friend who works for ESPN that is a mac fan who has a copy of diskwarrior, will try that

This is exactly what not to do. #1 rule of data recovery is to get a clone of the drive first. I recommend gddrescue, but clonezilla might work. Never use disk warrior on a failing hard drive. Using it on the clone is a great idea. Honestly, it might be too far gone now and require a professional.

 

[trevm999]

I was lucky it was a 2008 model later models have heat sensor plug i would have had to track down and exact replacement if it was much newer.
Installed a WD 500 gig reinstalled OSX it is now up and running.
I found lots of useful videos on youtube on how to dis-assemble it was a little different it had screws holding the screen to frame and the cable was held by 2 screws.
I guess ill have to buy some suction cups if i continue to fix macs i had to borrow some.
Customer said data was not critical he had backups on external hard drive it not very often you see customers backing up anything.

You just need to replace the HDD sensor with an optical drive sensor. For 2011 imacs you need an Apple hard drive or install hddfancontrol.

The YouTube videos must have been for newer models.

 

[AtYourService]

This is exactly what not to do. #1 rule of data recovery is to get a clone of the drive first. I recommend gddrescue, but clonezilla might work. Never use disk warrior on a failing hard drive. Using it on the clone is a great idea. Honestly, it might be too far gone now and require a professional.

why wouldnt i grab the files needed instead of making a copy of the whole drive?

its like trying to grab all your furniture and belongings in a burning house when you really just need to grab the irreplaceable pictures and memories.

i was able to grab 11gb of data from the drive before it crapped out and another trip to the freezer was enough to get it recognized again
so im going to use that time to get the permissions fixed to grab the iphoto folder instead of wasting time trying to dd a whole 320gb drive

 

[altrenda]

Don't spend too much on suction cups, I use kitchen ones like this you can get in the grocery store
http://www.amazon.com/ABC-Products-...&qid=1395805497&sr=1-10&keywords=suction+cups

Some people use something like hddfancontrol in place of the heat sensor, but I prefer to use the sensor.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

why wouldnt i grab the files needed instead of making a copy of the whole drive?

its like trying to grab all your furniture and belongings in a burning house when you really just need to grab the irreplaceable pictures and memories.

i was able to grab 11gb of data from the drive before it crapped out and another trip to the freezer was enough to get it recognized again
so im going to use that time to get the permissions fixed to grab the iphoto folder instead of wasting time trying to dd a whole 320gb drive

Believe me. You'll waste a whole lot more time trying to drag/drop copy iphoto library than you would just doing a block level clone. That's probably where a lot of the bad sectors are in the first place. I don't want to sit here and type an essay on the multitude of reasons why you should build a clone over drag and drop. But if you want to waste a day constantly getting i/o errors trying to copy over the pictures and when is all said and done have the customer question why their data is corrupted or why half their pictures of Aunt Ida's 90th birthday party aren't there, then be my guest.

Actually, if there data is vitally important and it puzzles you why you just can't drag and drop, do the customer a favor and get them to a professional.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Ouch.

 

[trevm999]

why wouldnt i grab the files needed instead of making a copy of the whole drive?

its like trying to grab all your furniture and belongings in a burning house when you really just need to grab the irreplaceable pictures and memories.

i was able to grab 11gb of data from the drive before it crapped out and another trip to the freezer was enough to get it recognized again
so im going to use that time to get the permissions fixed to grab the iphoto folder instead of wasting time trying to dd a whole 320gb drive

It is more like one of those pictures you grab is on fire and because you grabbed and and carried it through the house it spread the fire and because of that the whole house burned down before the firemen arrived, when if you had not tried to grab the pictures, the house and most things in it would have been saved.

Here is a list of reasons why you shouldn't use that method:

1. Anything you do with a failing hard drive will damage it further
a) To copy files you have to mount the drive
b) If you connect a drive to a Windows/Mac it will run chdsk/fsck. It is a very bad idea to trying and fix logical error on a drive that is failing. It is hard on the drive and might corrupt the file system further
2. When the drive "crapped out" you lost valuable time with the drive where you did not actually recover any data
3. When it it keeps trying to copy something it can't because that's where the bad sectors are, it is heating up the drive (as well as causing damage to nearby sectors). Thus why the freezer trick worked. However, you would have been better off getting a quick clone of the drive using gddrescue and skipping the bad sectors the first time around. Then you do more passes to try to get more data.
4. Less hands on time. You hook it up and let it go. No need to sit there trying to copy and paste stuff, and it not working, so you try to copy less stuff at one time...you could be working on something else in that time and providing a better data recovery service because of it
5. Higher success rate. Because of many of the reasons above, you're success rate is higher.

Just try it. You will never go back. I don't even use file recovery programs any more. I just use gddrescue. Do a quick clone skipping the bad sectors, then go in reverse. Usually I don't even retry the bad sectors. Then run disk warrior and fsck on the cloned drive. The only drives I send away are too far gone to get anything with the clone in the first place.

 

[AtYourService]

Actually, if there data is vitally important and it puzzles you why you just can't drag and drop, do the customer a favor and get them to a professional.

I am the professional, they went to the 'genius bar' and they told them to buy a new computer and drive was unreadable. I got it done my way and the data was recovered. I was not 'puzzled'

also it's *their* data