Need Mac computer help!

Well, for three years my PowerMac G4 with OS X 10.3 has been performing flawlessly. Never even locked up once.

But then the other night, I did a software update, which comprised an iTunes update of about 50 MB, a Quicktime update of about 50 MB, and a Security update 2007-2008 v.1 of about 50 MB.

Normally I disable the software firewall on the OS when I do this, but I didn't do that this time--don't think that would matter, but there it is for the record.

And, normally, I click RESTART at the end of the process, but this time I clicked SHUTDOWN, because I wanted to power down my Linksys WRT-54GL router (running DD-WRT with the SPI firewall enabled, and "no annonymous WAN requests" radial button selected, along with all the others in that section. -- Router SPI firewall was ENABLED during this whole thing).

So, anyway, the computer shutdown, and I powered down the router, waited 10 seconds, powered it back up, waited 10 seconds, then started my computer. It never got to the familar OS X loading screen. Instead the monitor went completely black and stayed that way. After a couple minutes I hit the hardware restart button below the larger turn on button, and it restarted just like normal.

I was a bit concerned about the strange behavoir, but didn't think too much of it.

However, a couple hours later, I went to my OS X mail program and clicked it on the dock, and it immediately crashed. And it always crashes whenever it is loaded. And, I have another administrator account on this computer that is untouched, and MAIL crashes on it in just the same way, so it's not a P-list thing.

This is the crash report:

Date/Time: 2007-12-08 12:13:51 -0500
OS Version: 10.3.9 (Build 7W98)
Report Version: 2

Command: Mail
Path: /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail
Version: 1.3.11 (622)
PID: 729
Thread: 0

Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x66656374

Thread 0 Crashed:
0 libobjc.A.dylib 0x908611f4 objc_msgSend + 0x14
1 com.apple.MessageFramework 0x86954d54 +[MailAccount createAccountWithDictionary:] + 0x5c
2 com.apple.MessageFramework 0x8694f684 +[Account readAccountsUsingDefaultsKey:] + 0x1ec
3 com.apple.MessageFramework 0x868c6bcc +[MailAccount mailAccounts] + 0x58
4 com.apple.MessageFramework 0x868ed84c +[MailAccount activeAccounts] + 0x24
5 com.apple.mail 0x0000f648 0x1000 + 0xe648
6 com.apple.mail 0x00092da0 0x1000 + 0x91da0
7 com.apple.AppKit 0x92ea1cfc -[NSIBObjectData nibInstantiateWithOwner:topLevelObjects:] + 0x398
8 com.apple.AppKit 0x92f3606c old_loadNib + 0xf4
9 com.apple.AppKit 0x92eeaa04 +[NSBundle(NSNibLoading) _loadNibFile:nameTable:withZonewnerBundle:] + 0x35c
10 com.apple.AppKit 0x92f698a0 +[NSBundle(NSNibLoading) loadNibFile:externalNameTable:withZone:] + 0x9c
11 com.apple.AppKit 0x92f7b0a0 +[NSBundle(NSNibLoading) loadNibNamedwner:] + 0x174
12 com.apple.AppKit 0x92f69708 NSApplicationMain + 0x174
13 com.apple.mail 0x0000ed3c 0x1000 + 0xdd3c
14 com.apple.mail 0x0003dc34 0x1000 + 0x3cc34

PPC Thread State:
srr0: 0x908611f4 srr1: 0x0200f030 vrsave: 0x00000000
cr: 0x44000422 xer: 0x00000002 lr: 0x86954d54 ctr: 0x908611e0
r0: 0x86954d54 r1: 0xbffff900 r2: 0x00000187 r3: 0x869cf190
r4: 0x869aee18 r5: 0x00000054 r6: 0x00000073 r7: 0x00000005
r8: 0xffba31b8 r9: 0x000000cd r10: 0x908621ac r11: 0x869c0954
r12: 0x66656374 r13: 0x00000000 r14: 0x00000000 r15: 0x00000000
r16: 0x00000000 r17: 0x0043a480 r18: 0xa2e9a6a8 r19: 0xa2eaa6a8
r20: 0xa2eaa6a8 r21: 0x0041e420 r22: 0x00459160 r23: 0x0041e480
r24: 0x00000002 r25: 0x00000000 r26: 0x0041c910 r27: 0x869d2318
r28: 0x0045ce40 r29: 0x0041e450 r30: 0x869cf190 r31: 0x86954cf8

Binary Images Description:
. . . (this part didn't seem useful) . . .

Click to expand...

What should I do? Should I do an archive and install, or should I wipe the hard drive and do a clean install or is there an easier way to deal with this.

My computer is acting a bit "off" in general now, actually. More strange pauses, and slower response times, and Safari also crashes repeatedly when trying to load certain webpages. Firefox will load them just fine, though.

I also verified and repaired the permissions on my hard drive. (As well as backed up everything important!)

Please help!

Sounds like an archive and install is in order.

Before you even think of an archive and install, run Disk Warrior ( NOT the built in disk utility ) over the hard drive ( henceforth referred to as 'HD' ) and correct the errors it finds within the catalog structure of your disk. Running a reputable 3rd-party disk repair utility ( despite what Apple claims to the contrary ) is a very important maintenance function for Macs. This catalog structure routinely gets damaged by SW updates, most notably by the security updates or the OS version updates, crashes, panics, etc, despite Apple's somewhat laughable implementation of Journalling compared to that of true disk journalling done on AIX and other flavors of UNIX. Over time 'orphaned extents nodes', 'volume free block counts' and 'overlapped extent allocations' errors build and cause issues with your disk being able to locate the information it needs. Despite the fact that these are classified as 'minor errors', I've repeatedly seen them cause major malfunctions, up to and including systems which aren't even able to load their own Kernels upon reboot. When these errors occur on the same disk space which a program's code is stored on ( or within a database that program uses ), errors, crashes and other maladies tend to occur. In this case, Mail appears to be having trouble reading part of its program code ( either because its unable to access it on the HD or because its been lost due to corruption ). Once you've run DiskWarrior, run a permissions repair within Apple's built in Disk Utility ( by the way, permission repair is VERY useful, and IMO the only useful 'repair' function within disk utility ).

If worse errors are present, like 'Invalid Key Lengths', and 'Invalid Node structure' errors, an archive and install will only end up installing a new system onto a bad partition and directory structure, relegating you to the same issues which prompted your re-install, in very short order afterwards. If these errors are found to be unfixable ( as they tend to be much of the time ), you'll need to do a Reformat and install in order to correct the errors in the drive's logical structure before putting any new system or personal data onto the machine. Otherwise, it's like building a brand new house on a crumbling foundation - it's just a matter of time before it comes down again in short order.

Feel free to email me ( I almost never check PM's ) once you've run DiskWarrior or another reputable 3rd party repair utility over the drive, run permissions repair, then tried to launch mail again. If it fails after that, ( depending on the crash post-repair crash symptoms ) you may very well be in store for an archive and install, as there is no supported way of just re-installing the Mail app ( although, I'd bet it's possible to extract it's package installer from the OS install DVD's somehow...I've just never taken the time to try that maneuver ).

Aside from that, I'm sure you've been making regular backups of your data....right ? ( wink, wink ). Be sure to do this now, if you haven't already gotten in the habit of doing so. And to add a sobering note, I just pulled 30gigs of production data off of a friend's laptop who brought it to me because they were 'having a little trouble'. While working on it, I discovered that the trouble they were having was that their drive was failing and they had never made a backup. Don't be them, make a backup now even though your symptoms don't sound like anything physically wrong with the drive. Catalog corruption will kill data just as fast as hardware failures !

Mednanu,

js said:

. . . I also verified and repaired the permissions on my hard drive. (As well as backed up everything important!) . . .

Click to expand...

Yes. I am well aware that "there are two kinds of people: those who have had a hard drive crash, and those who are going to!"

I make regular backups of all my data. And I verify/repair permissions everytime I do a SW update.

As for installing JUST Mail, yes, this can be done. There is freeware that will pull individual programs and install them from the installer CD's. I remembered last night about reading that in the Missing Manual for OS X.

But, if Mail got hosed, what else went wrong? And why is Safari now "acting up"?

Thanks for the Disk Warrior suggestion. I'll look into it, although I have seen the warnings about third-party disk utility programs being used with Panther. Those are bunk, are they? Interesting.

As for emailing you . . . well, I can't do that until I can run Mail, or until I go back to work on Tuesday.

js said:

... I am well aware that "there are two kinds of people: those who have had a hard drive crash, and those who are going to!"...I make regular backups of all my data.

Click to expand...

Awesome, awesome, awesome - somebody finally got the message. This must be what it feels like to the dentist after they tell us to floss regularly, and someone actually does ! (LoL)

js said:

As for installing JUST Mail, yes, this can be done. There is freeware that will pull individual programs and install them from the installer CD's.

Click to expand...

I believe it's called 'Pacifist', but I have never taken the time to dig around the OS installer to see if there is an individual Mail.app package installer or whether it is bundled into some 'CoreOS' type conglomerate package installer or something. I'll bet there is one for just Mail, I've just never taken the time to go fishing for it yet.

js said:

But, if Mail got hosed, what else went wrong? And why is Safari now "acting up"?

Click to expand...

Exactly. That's why it's best to take a stepwise process of elimination, starting with the easiest methods first, then escalating onto the more time consuming measures last. When the malfunctions are not limited to just a single app, and the crashes aren't readily attributed to an interaction between the two, then it's often issues with HD catalog corruption and possibly data corruption ( in this case in some of the program code ), likely due to the former issue.

js said:

...although I have seen the warnings about third-party disk utility programs being used with Panther. Those are bunk, are they?

Click to expand...

Not sure which warnings you've read, so it wouldn't be prudent for me to comment directly without hearing the specifics. And while there are caveats to using any tool properly, Disk Warrior is tops in the industry, has a proven track record, and repeatedly pulls usable data off of disks that Disk Utility can't even touch. Not to mention, I've experienced Disk Utility reporting "No Problems Found" ( possibly hundreds of times by this point ) on disks that range from heavily damaged to outright un-bootable. It's good for permissions repair, making images and doing minor utilitarian operations from within the GUI but is almost completely incompetent ( or at least highly inconsistent ) in repairing serious errors on one's disk.

js said:

As for emailing you . . . well, I can't do that until I can run Mail, or until I go back to work on Tuesday.

Click to expand...

Haha - I figured you might be using a WebMail front-end on your email account in the meantime, but freemail from work, works too !

Very interesting.. so the differences in OSX Extended Filesystem are significant.

IMO Apple should just have stuck with UFS/Softupdates.

(my data.. and my company's data live and die by FreeBSD UFS. It's my job to make sure 'die' doesn't happen )

Trivia: OSX is a FreeBSD descendant with very significant changes in certain areas.

KevinL said:

Very interesting.. so the differences in OSX Extended Filesystem are significant.

Click to expand...

Quite a bit in fact. I've even done some 'corruption & repair' testing to the various formats using Disk Utility. Disk Util will repair UFS issues quite consistently ( as it is a basic BSD filesystem format ) but fails miserably on repairing major errors within HFS/HFS+ formats ( which is Apple proprietary ). Now that doesn't mean I don't like the HFS formats, along with the benefits & conveniences they afford. I just don't trust Disk Util to repair them ( aside from permissions repair ), as Disk Util is just a GUI front end for fsck, which is meant for UNIX FS'es, not Apple proprietary FS'es. Using even Apple's modified implementation of 'fsck' to repair HFS+ is a bit like using a Golf club as a hammer. Sure you can do it with some success, but one generally makes a mess of both the club and the target when a hammer would have done the job much better. A reputable 3rd party repair utility like DW is simply one of the best hammers to use IMO.


Also, the HFS+ journal is stored on the same logical partition as the HFS+ data, leaving the journal vulnerable to the same FS corruption as the live data. In my book ( and every other Sys Admin's book I know of ), that's a big no, no. I understand Apple did it for simplicity's sake ( so as not to confuse its customer base when they need to perform disk formatting duties ), but I would have at least liked to have seen an option on OSX Server to locate the disk journal on another physical volume or at least on another logical partition of the disk to help minimize the likelihood of journal corruption ( something I believe may have actually been included within OSX.5 Server but which I haven't had opportunity to verify as of yet ). As it is, there are between 9 - 10 invisible partitions on the disk for various low-level data - might as well have the option for capable users to add a few more for journal data too !

Now to balance this whole rant out, I still want to say that there is quite a bit about Apple, it's OS and it's very intuitive implementation of that OS that I absolutely love. But because we're currently dealing with flaws that contributed to JS's issues, it may seem a bit skewed while we focus on fixing such flaws. I still think it's one of the best, most versatile operating environments available - able to boot any number of Linux, Windows, OSX and pure UNIX systems natively, all while being able to seamlessly, quickly, and quite easily boot between each of them on a whim. And even to be installed on other manufacturer's hardware ( with a wee bit of coaxing/modification to the installer ). I know of no other OS or platform capable of such versatility, usefulness, or consumer friendliness. But that's just my own enamored view of it as a consumer based OS.

DW isn't a bad idea so I'm just offering another option -- What about applying the updates again? That's been successful with others (such as users on MacFixit), and it does appear that something has gone wrong with the currently-applied ones. Plus, you were very careful to note which they were.

I don't see what's so terrible about an Archive & Install, though. It does depend on the amount of custom apps you might have, and it's some registration codes to re-enter, some printers to reconfig, but not much. Good to do DW before though, so you're not going to toast everything by installing a bunch of new stuff in a messed up file tree.

[edit] OOPS. Hold on. I have a very fast Internet connection so I sometimes forget about what a pain it is for most people to re-load the 300 MB of updates on their download speeds. If you don't have fast access that's certainly something to consider about the Archive & Install. If you do have speedy access then... well... I don't think of it as a big deal but that's only my $0.02

binky,

I just recently finally got a broadband connection, so reloading the updates wouldn't be a problem. But that can't be done, as they're already installed! Right now, when I do a SW update check, it simply tells me I'm up to date. No joy.

Mednanu,

Thanks again. I'll start the process with DW, then. But, I suspect that's not going to fix Mail, given the error codes, or don't you think so?

Mednanu said:

Quite a bit in fact. I've even done some 'corruption & repair' testing to the various formats using Disk Utility. Disk Util will repair UFS issues quite consistently ( as it is a basic BSD filesystem format ) but fails miserably on repairing major errors within HFS/HFS+ formats ( which is Apple proprietary ). Now that doesn't mean I don't like the HFS formats, along with the benefits & conveniences they afford. I just don't trust Disk Util to repair them ( aside from permissions repair ), as Disk Util is just a GUI front end for fsck, which is meant for UNIX FS'es, not Apple proprietary FS'es. Using even Apple's modified implementation of 'fsck' to repair HFS+ is a bit like using a Golf club as a hammer. Sure you can do it with some success, but one generally makes a mess of both the club and the target when a hammer would have done the job much better. A reputable 3rd party repair utility like DW is simply one of the best hammers to use IMO.


Also, the HFS+ journal is stored on the same logical partition as the HFS+ data, leaving the journal vulnerable to the same FS corruption as the live data. In my book ( and every other Sys Admin's book I know of ), that's a big no, no. I understand Apple did it for simplicity's sake ( so as not to confuse its customer base when they need to perform disk formatting duties ), but I would have at least liked to have seen an option on OSX Server to locate the disk journal on another physical volume or at least on another logical partition of the disk to help minimize the likelihood of journal corruption ( something I believe may have actually been included within OSX.5 Server but which I haven't had opportunity to verify as of yet ). As it is, there are between 9 - 10 invisible partitions on the disk for various low-level data - might as well have the option for capable users to add a few more for journal data too !

Now to balance this whole rant out, I still want to say that there is quite a bit about Apple, it's OS and it's very intuitive implementation of that OS that I absolutely love. But because we're currently dealing with flaws that contributed to JS's issues, it may seem a bit skewed while we focus on fixing such flaws. I still think it's one of the best, most versatile operating environments available - able to boot any number of Linux, Windows, OSX and pure UNIX systems natively, all while being able to seamlessly, quickly, and quite easily boot between each of them on a whim. And even to be installed on other manufacturer's hardware ( with a wee bit of coaxing/modification to the installer ). I know of no other OS or platform capable of such versatility, usefulness, or consumer friendliness. But that's just my own enamored view of it as a consumer based OS.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the insights I long suspected DiskUtil was simply fsck in a nice GUI format, of course, fsck customized for Apple's implementation. I did wonder why fsck (which was the be-all-end-all in BSD) didn't work so hot in OSX and your explanation goes a long way to enlightening me. Now I understand why we need third party utils. Almost a bit like the old DOS days.. PC Tools and the like

I agree with your sentiments as well. I feel OSX is a very good OS, but of course, is not perfect. One gets to know its blemishes and limitations not to bash, but rather to work around and find ways to live with them. I'm currently unifying my desktop around OSX, because it gives me the power of BSD under the hood (I use terminal a lot), VMWare Fusion lets me boot everything else I need including XP to run Windows-specific software, of which I do work with some. So no compromises here. And when explorer.exe crashes or locks up on me (YES, it happens!! It's annoying!! ) I start to like OSX even more

As I used to say, I drink the Apple Kool-Aid, just not ALL of it.

js said:

Right now, when I do a SW update check, it simply tells me I'm up to date. No joy.

Click to expand...

Gotcha. Here's one methodical way to do it.

First delete all the packages out of the /Library/Packages folder if there are any, because the ones you got might have been corrupted. (You'll be asked to auth as an admin.)
Then drag the receipts for the following out of /Library/Receipts.
- iTunes <anything>
- QuickTime <anything>
- SecUpd2007-008Pan.pkg
Then get Cache Cleaner. Start the app & select Demo mode for now. Check boxes for "Run Maintenance Scripts" and you might as well "Clean System Log Archives". You've already done or will shortly do the rest. Run the Cache Cleaning.

Find joy with the following items (prob. want to apply in order):

iTunes
QuickTime
Security Update 2007-008 v.1

(Note that for the iTunes and QuickTime, although they ask for marketing gathering, it's possible to deselect the checkboxes & not fill in your email. The download link will still be accepted.)

You'll be bored by the "Optimizing System Performance" each time, and you'll need to do restarts, but just let each do its thing without taking shortcuts.

js said:

Mednanu,

Thanks again. I'll start the process with DW, then. But, I suspect that's not going to fix Mail, given the error codes, or don't you think so?

Click to expand...

Just can't be sure until we keep narrowing it down to what's causing the problem. See if the symptoms still remain after you've DW'ed the disk. If they are persistent after you've repaired the directory structure and can be sure you're starting with a clean and solid foundation to do installs, feel free to try Binky's advice. On more than one occasion I've heard of such a re-install of the updaters working to correct issues that occurred during a failed update attempt. But chances are, it's the Security update that's hosed some things on your disk's catalog. Whether that's going to clear up after repairing the catalog or require a re-install of certain packages ( or the whole OS ) still remains to be seen at this stage.

One thing to consider for future reference is the thought of imaging your system periodically ( and especially prior to any OS patches, Security, or QT updates ). This way if you encounter undesirable bugs or SW corruption issues after applying an update, you can simply back up your home directory data and re-image back to just before applying the update in about 15 minute's time. If you have an external HD or another HD partition with enough space to store an image, I'd be happy to show you how to do this.

Mednanu said:

. . .

One thing to consider for future reference is the thought of imaging your system periodically ( and especially prior to any OS patches, Security, or QT updates ). This way if you encounter undesirable bugs or SW corruption issues after applying an update, you can simply back up your home directory data and re-image back to just before applying the update in about 15 minute's time. If you have an external HD or another HD partition with enough space to store an image, I'd be happy to show you how to do this.

Click to expand...

I've thought of this MANY times! It just so happens that I have TWO 40 GB hardrives. Right now, the 2nd one is only used for my iTunes library, and I'm using most of it because I was importing all my disks in LINEAR (wave, aif) format instead of MP4 / AAC.

But, I would LOVE to switch all of the linear ones to AAC (i've been doing this a little at a time), move my iTunes library back to my main HD, and then make the HD2 a perfect mirror image of HD1.

However . . .

I experimented with this in Disk Utility back before I had much info on HD2, and I couldn't figure out exactly HOW to do it, despite the clear explanation in the Missing Manual.

I would be so, so, SO greatful if you could give me instructions for how to make my 2nd HD a mirror of my main hardive, and how to copy the contents of HD2 back onto HD1 to "restore" my entire computer back in time when I encounter another of these problems.

I assume I boot from the OS X install CD and use Disk Utility to copy HD2 onto HD1?

But, as I say, PLEASE tell me exactly how to do this!!!! That would be SO awesome.

*****

As for my problems, I am leaning towards using Pacifist to selectively reisntall just the OS X Mail program, as everything else is now acting perfectly normal again. Perhaps this is due to the permissions repairs I did on the main HD? Or perhaps the oddness of Safari wasn't due to the program itself but to the website my wife was on.

So, I'm either leaning towards the simplest, least invasive solution (assuming DW doesn't solve this)

OR

I am leaning towards the most drastic: erase the HD and do a clean reinstall of OS X.

However, as an experiment, I took my 2nd admin account that I'd been keeping pristine for troubleshooting purposes, and pretended that was the only account, and copied all of my backedup data from my backup CD's. I dragged the Documents folder from the CD right into that USER account icon in the finder window, for example, and told it to replace the one with the other.

However, I ran into some PERMISSIONS issues, with those fun little red minus signs. I could use the GET INFO to change the ownership and all, but it bothered me, and got me to wondering:

If I did do a completely clean reinstall and named my account the SAME NAMES, both long and short, would the permissions match from the backup CD or the second HD? In other words, would iTunes be able to use the library folder on the 2nd HD (which I would NOT erase)?

Because, in my experiment with the 2nd admin user account, I could NOT get that iTunes program to recognize the iTunes Library folder on the 2nd hardrive even AFTER I changed the owndership of the folder!

I'm reading up about UNIX permissions and related Terminal command line commands and all, but if there is a simple explanation and/or solution for this sort of thing, I would love to hear it.

I mean, isn't there an EASY and SIMPLY and EFFECTIVE way to backup and then RESTORE all your data? Can this only be accomplished via a 2nd hardrive?

Thanks in advance VERY much for any help on this, mednanu :bow: :bow: :bow:

OK. Disk Warrior is $100!

That's too much. I'm going to assume that the disk verify/repair and permissions verify/repair with Apple's own Disk Utility was fine, and that my drive is indeed fine. I may be wrong, but I'm going to take the chance. I won't do an archive and install in any case, though. If after the reinstall of just the Mail .pkg things are even slightly screwy, I will wipe the hard drive and do a clean install from scratch.

Oh, and I think I'll do the periodic maintenances and update the prebinding. It's been a long time since those things were done.

js said:

But, as I say, PLEASE tell me exactly how to do this!!!! That would be SO awesome.

Click to expand...

No problem. There are a few ways to do this. All of them fairly easy ( provided you don't run into 'buffer overrun' bugs within disk utility ). Aside from that bug which I haven't quite isolated yet, it works quite well.

First off, it's best to be booted to another drive partition for this but is by no means required. I would actually avoid trying to do it while booted to CD due to VM limitations which might end up nix'ing your imaging process and wasting a bunch of time.

While this is possible to do from Disk Util, Terminal is actually easier an succeeds more often than Disk Util's GUI front end, so get out your 'sudo' hat and launch terminal ( don't worry if that last quip didn't make sense, you won't need to understand any of it for this to work ;-).

js said:

As for my problems, I am leaning towards using Pacifist to selectively reisntall just the OS X Mail program...

Click to expand...

If you cannot launch mail on a brand new, blank user account ( w/no mail in it ), then that would be the next step, after running DW. However, if Mail launches and works fine on a blank user account, then there may be corruption within your Mail indexes or database, which a re-install of Mail would unfortunately not address. As for trusting Disk Util to accurately repair your HD, that's never a safe bet ( or even a remotely likely one ), but it's up to you of course.

mednanu,

My 2nd drive is INTERNAL. Is this a problem?

So, for example, could I just type the blue characters "sudo hdiutil create -scrcfolder ", then drag the main hard drive icon after the space, then drag the 2nd hard drive icon after that, then add ".dmg" and hit return?

That would work?

And I could the RESTORE from the 2nd hard drive onto the first?

I mean, I could rewrite the entire hard drive I BOOTED from? Or would I need to partition the boot drive? Or should I install OS X on the 2nd internal hard drive as well so I can boot from that? Or could I restore the disk image from the Disk Utility on the OS X install CD?

As for sudo and terminal, I'm quite comfortable with terminal level stuff and superuser do commands, so no issues there. SUDO HAT ON.

As for Mail program, as I said before, IT DOES NOT LAUNCH ON A BRAND NEW BLANK USER ACCOUNT WITH NO MAIL IN IT.

As for Disk Utility program, it may not be great, but it's what I have, and I can't spend $100 for DW. At this point, I'd rather do a total wipe and reinstall than spend $100 on new software. But I understand that you highly recommend Disk Warrior, and are dubious as to Apples Disk Utility. It's not that I doubt you, it's the cost of DW.

js said:

My 2nd drive is INTERNAL. Is this a problem?

Click to expand...

Not at all. Should work just fine as long as you have enough space. If you ever need to restore that image onto the first partition, you'll need to be able to either boot to that second partition while you erase and restore the image onto the first, or boot from an external drive in order to do it.

js said:

So, for example, could I just type the blue characters "sudo hdiutil create -scrcfolder ", then drag the main hard drive icon after the space, then drag the 2nd hard drive icon after that, then add ".dmg" and hit return?

Click to expand...

Pretty much ( other than the typo of an extra 'c' in the '-srcfolder' flag, which I've now corrected ). Just make sure there are no spaces or forward slashes between the pathname and the '.dmg' at the end of it and then type a name for your restore image immediately after the forward slash in the second drive name you've dropped onto the terminal ( you'll have to backspace one character in order to eliminate an unnecessary space after the last forward slash and just prior to your restore image name ). A working example command with drives named 'drive1' and 'drive2' would be as follows:

js said:

I mean, I could rewrite the entire hard drive I BOOTED from?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately not. Upon restoring, you'd definitely need to be booted to a different partition than the one you were restoring onto. So you'd either need to be booted to a different partition, a different physical drive or have your Mac in Target mode while another computer performed the actual restore procedure.

js said:

As for Mail program, as I said before, IT DOES NOT LAUNCH ON A BRAND NEW BLANK USER ACCOUNT WITH NO MAIL IN IT.

Click to expand...

Sorry about that. I don't know what it is about responding within these narrow quote windows within forum software that always gets me, but invariably, I miss a detail or two like this whenever I respond within these quote windows. Chalk it up to a personal flaw of mine.

I've also corrected some of my syntax from the instructions posted above. I had originally typo'd the flag for '-srcfolder' and had accidentally omitted the part about choosing a name for your restore image. Otherwise, if you don't type in a name for it and just drag & drop the destination disk where you want it stored, the system will just put your image into '/Volumes' instead of somewhere visible. It's hopefully a bit clearer ( and more correct ) to follow now.

js said:

I can't spend $100 for DW...it's the cost of DW.

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Totally understandable. If you cannot allocate the funds for it now, I would encourage you to consider it sometime in the future. IMO DW ( or any other reputable 3rd party repair utility ) is currently a necessity under OSX. I regularly see system and security updates cause catalog corruption issues on OSX ( on drives that were just verified as clean immediately prior to the updates ).

Hopefully those issues will eventually be corrected, but until then, it's the best solution to combat the almost inevitable catalog corruption that occurs.

Thanks, mednanu! I really appreciate it!

I'm also considering Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. Looks as if they would do exactly what I want. And if disaster struck, I could just open my Mac up, swap the drives, and then restart as if nothing happened. Rather cool, I think.

But, putting my Mac in target mode and doing it external would also be doable.

In any case, I still have all my important data backed up, it's just a question of how PAINFUL it would be to get back to normal after a crash.

js said:

...I dragged the Documents folder from the CD right into that USER account icon in the finder window, for example, and told it to replace the one with the other.

However, I ran into some PERMISSIONS issues, with those fun little red minus signs.

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These issues can easily be solved in Terminal as well. It's the same basic concept one uses to go about importing their user data into a different user account ( under a different name ), or changing their short name if they don't like it. Simply run the following in order to change ownership of a folder and all of its contents over to your username:


Depending on how large that folder is, it could take a few seconds to a few minutes to complete ( if it's several gigs in size or has several thousand items within it ).

OK.

So, I reinstalled Mail using Pacifist (really awesome program, BTW) to selectively extract just that pkg from the OS X install discs.

No joy. Still crashed open opening every time.

So, I figured I had to erase the hard drive and reinstall everything.

However, just an hour ago I had a thought: if the security update was what caused the problem, shouldn't I reinstall THAT? (And, yes, binky, I realize that this was your advice from the beginning. Looks like I should have followed it! I was just leary about the idea of a "package cleaner".)

So, I downloaded the update from Apple's website, and used Pacifist to "update" the installation (the more conservative approach vs. "replace"). First, however, I "verified" the previous install, and there were 6 MISSING files, and a lot of files with different checksums (although this might just be because I've been using the computer and those files got modified in completely acceptable ways in the course of operations).

TA-DA! Mail now works.

However, it's left me wondering. WTF happened with the first installation or download? Was the data corrupted due to lost packets over the internet? Or was it corrupted when SoftwareUpdate "optimized" my hard drive? What happened?

Does this mean perchance that my hard drive is bad, or on the verge of going bad?

Is Apples Disk Utility able to at least verify a hard drive to THAT extent? I mean, if DU says it's OK, does this at least mean that the hardware part of the drive is good, even if the file structure on it might be bad?