Hi, Normally, if there's something physically wrong with the drive, it will either take forever attempting the re-format or just fail entirely. Sometimes, I've tricked a drive and made it last longer by partitioning it with more than one partition, and formatting it MSDOS with the Master Boot Record partition scheme. Then I put it swiftly back to rights with one partition, as a MacOS Extended Journaled format and the GUID partition scheme. This total re-wipe/format seems to do the trick in some situations. The caveat here is that this must be done when starting up from an external source such as an external drive, network startup, or thumb drive.
Later... Tim Kilburn Fort McMurray, AB Canada On Jun 5, 2014, at 1:00 PM, Alex Hall <mehg...@icloud.com> wrote: > Thanks guys. I have a TM backup from January with all my music and movies, > and I copied essential files this morning before I ran the fatal repair. > Aside from a few non-important audio projects, I should be okay, data-wise. > > The thing is, I did a reformat/install in April, and had no problems then. > How will erasing again reveal hardware issues? Is there any other sort of > check I should run before going through the bother of a re-install, or should > I just get a new drive? Fortunately this is a Mini, so I can drop in a fresh > hard drive if it comes to that. > On Jun 5, 2014, at 2:49 PM, Matt Dierckens <matt.dierck...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Hey alex, I had that same issue many times. >> In short, you're screwed. Unless you have an external HD and a way of >> hardwiring it up and accessing your data, you're going to have to go from >> scratch. >> >> Matt Dierckens >> Macintosh Trainer >> Blind Access Training >> www.blindaccesstraining.com >> 1-877-774-7670 ext. 4 >> >> >> >> >> On Jun 5, 2014, at 2:03 PM, Alex Hall <mehg...@icloud.com> wrote: >> >>> Thanks Tim, but things got worse. :) I ran the repair from the Recovery HD, >>> and it said the disk could not be repaired. It now tells me to reformat and >>> reinstall the OS, but as I said, I did just that a couple months back. >>> Worse still, my Mac no longer boots! I have a Macbook for my business which >>> I'm using now, and I have a backup of my important files, but still, my >>> Mini is my main computer. Any other suggestions you or anyone else has >>> would be great. >>> On Jun 5, 2014, at 12:35 AM, Tim Kilburn <kilbu...@me.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi, >>>> >>>> Answers below in your text. >>>> >>>> Later... >>>> >>>> Tim Kilburn >>>> Fort McMurray, AB Canada >>>> >>>> On Jun 4, 2014, at 8:00 PM, Alex Hall <mehg...@icloud.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Hi all, >>>>> I just ran a disk verification. An article I found said to highlight both >>>>> my main drive and the boot partition, so I did. After a little while, I >>>>> got this error: >>>>> Error: This disk needs to be repaired using the Recovery HD. Restart your >>>>> computer, holding down the Command key and the R key until you see the >>>>> Apple logo. When the OS X Utilities window appears, choose Disk Utility. >>>>> >>>>> First, do i need to worry about this? >>>> >>>> * Yes. If you leave it too long, you may lose data. >>>> >>>>> Second, if I do, will the recovery process it wants me to run erase any >>>>> data? >>>> >>>> * No, it shouldn't. What you need to run in Disk Utility on is the Repair >>>> Disk option. This needs to be done from the Recovery Partition because >>>> this operation can't be performed on a running system. Normally, if you >>>> still have "normal" operation, Disk Utility will be able to fix the >>>> problem easily. If your drive was not starting up, then Disk Utility >>>> sometimes is unable to make the necessary repairs. >>>> >>>>> Third, is this indicative of serious problems, given that I ran a clean >>>>> install on this machine only a couple months ago? >>>> >>>> * It's telling you that something in the directory structure or other >>>> allocations is corrupt. Not uncommon but if it persists, then there could >>>> be physical problems with the drive. >>>> >>>> HTH. >>>> >>>> >>>>> Thanks. >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Have a great day, >>>>> Alex Hall >>>>> mehg...@icloud.com >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>>>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>>>> email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>>>> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. >>>>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>>> email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>>> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. >>>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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