System Drive corrupt - Can't upgrade to OS X 10.4

[Sound-Influence]

Need some advice here. Have been to busy to upgrade to PT 7 - been living in 10.3.8 land because it was stable and I was too booked to upgrade.

Had some time this weekend to upgrade and found out that my system drive is corrupt. 10.4 won't install and running disk utility from the install disk won't fix the errors (permissions are corrected).

I've not run into this before in previous upgrades and would appreciate some advice. My guess as to what the options might be:


1. Wipe it clean - we have the technology, we can rebuild him.

2. Create a disk image backup of the system drive on an external FW drive. Format the system drive and restore the disk image. Would this screw with the pace or ilok validations? If so, then I might as well go back to #1

3. Try Disk Warrior - haven't needed it so I don't have it. Wouldn't mind spending 80 bucks, but if it's best to just start over, why bother.


Perhaps there is a better way, or something that I am missing. I don't look forward to a total reinstall, but if that is the best way then I'd rather not try a shortcut. I guess 2 years without a reinstall is pretty good considering all the OS and PT upgrades in that time.

Words of experienced wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Aubrey

[jeremyroberts]

Aubrey,

It sounds like you are not afraid to do #1, which is realy the sure thing.

BUT - as a precaution, do a clone of the disk before wiping it, just to have it available.

A wipe will guarantee the OS is fresh and all files will be appropriate for the latest version.

You may or may not blow out disk auths -- depends on which CP is in use. Of course, iLok is a no-brainer/non-issue (just plug it in and make sure you have the latest PACE drivers).

If you have 3 hours, do #1. You will save countless hours downstream.

Make sure you have all the latest installers, etc... DO NOT let apple upgrade you to 10.4.4 - rather, download the "combo updater" and take your rig to 10.4.3. 10.4.3. is required for PT 7.1 (and certified).

It wouldn't hurt to read the Digi compato docs for the hell of it.

If you want the DUC to comment on your plugin compato, please list... you will be very happy with 7.1 - just remember most problems are with plugs not being latest version, or compato.

Have fun.

[TVPostSound]

Spend $79 on the bootable DiskWarrior CD................it will fix it...............PERIOD

[DigiTechSupt]

In addition to the things the others have mentioned here...

Is your CD/DVD drive a stock Apple drive?

If not, OS installs and/or upgrades may not work. I had this problem with a generic CD burner/CD drive I put in a Mac a long time ago, I couldn't do any Mac OS installs with it. Once I got an Apple CD/DVD drive installed, it all worked properly.

Jon Connolly
Digidesign Product Specialist

[Lee Blaske]

I'd be curious why the disk got corrupted. Is it possibly defective? This might also be a good time to run an extended RAM test (in the past I've had situations where disk corruption was caused by bad RAM). Use the current system drive for some other, less critical task (perhaps as a drive for playing back video files that are backed up).

If you're going through the trouble of a complete re-install, this might be a good time to slip in a new system hard drive (especially since they cost less than what we used to pay for one reel of 2" tape back in the old days).

Lee Blaske

[Lee Blaske]

Spend $79 on the bootable DiskWarrior CD................it will fix it...............PERIOD

Unfortunately, the next time you need the version you'd buy today, it'll be obsolete.

Another thing to keep in mind is that sometimes, if you try to use an older version of these types of applications, they'll corrupt a drive formatted with a more recent OS version. Always check out the websites of these products before you make a move.

Lee Blaske

[Sound-Influence]

Thanks for the input guys. A few replies…

Jeremy:

It wouldn't hurt to read the Digi compato docs for the hell of it. If you want the DUC to comment on your plugin compato, please list... you will be very happy with 7.1 - just remember most problems are with plugs not being latest version, or compato.

I’ve read the compato stuff, checked my plugs and have the installers I need. I’ve just about decided to bite the bullet and do it right --- clone first though --- thanks for the tips.

DigiTechSupt:

Is your CD/DVD drive a stock Apple drive?

Plain ol’ superdrive. Thanks anyway Jon.

Lee:

I'd be curious why the disk got corrupted. Is it possibly defective?

Hmmm… been wondering that as well. About 9 months ago the 2nd SATA drive (Western Digital) crashed… wouldn’t mount… made interesting high pitched noises… and died. That was the 2nd bad WD drive so I switched brands. No problems since.
Perhaps unrelated, but is worth some checking.

Diafxmx:

Spend $79 on the bootable DiskWarrior CD................it will fix it...............PERIOD

So you are telling me a piece of software will fix a physically defective drive, if that happens to be the problem? I may buy DW anyway, just to have the utility, but nothing fixes everything…..PERIOD

Regards,

Aubrey

[TVPostSound]

Diafxmx:
Quote:

Spend $79 on the bootable DiskWarrior CD................it will fix it...............PERIOD



So you are telling me a piece of software will fix a physically defective drive, if that happens to be the problem? I may buy DW anyway, just to have the utility, but nothing fixes everything…..PERIO

I upgraded 3 different sytems to Tiger, ALL 3 failed during the disk verification part of the upgrade. Apples disk repair didnt work.
DW fixed ALL 3

My main system (MDD Dual 1 gig) started as OS9/OSX 10.1, and I have upgraded that one for 3 years, and DW has fixed every problem since.

The latest bootable version is Tiger compatible

[Craig F]

if you have plugin presets that you want to keep you might want to copy those out to someplace special (CD-r maybe) before you wipe the HD. just makes them easier to find later.