From: Rob Johnson (robj@uclink.berkeley.edu)
Date: Sun Nov 04 2001 - 18:31:35 PST
(Apologies for cross-posting - since this question is about a Mac
running OS X, I'm sending to Unix-SysAdmin and MAGNet. Unfortunately,
this problem is not related to the iTunes 2.0 bug that was discovered
yesterday ... )
BACKGROUND SUMMARY: I'm looking for suggestions or assistance in
mounting an apparently-corrupted partition of an external FireWire
drive. When booting under OS 9.2.1 or 9.1, the OS offers the choices
of "Initialize" or "Eject" re: the unrecognized partition. OS 9 disk
repair tools (Norton Disk Doctor 6.0.5, TechTool Pro 3.0.5,
DiskWarrior 2.1, and Disk First Aid 8.6.1) cannot mount the drive.
However, when booting into OS X 10.1, while the "missing" partition
does not mount to the desktop, it *is* visible using Apple Disk
Utility 10.1 (ADU), although running the "Repair" under the First Aid
tab of ADU does not seem to result in a complete repair and
subsequent mount of the partition. (The internal ATA boot drive and
the other FireWire partition seem fine. More details below...)
MY PLEA: I would like to boot into single-user mode, run the Unix
fsck utility manually on the afflicted partition, and then use the
mount command (if necessary), along with any other appropriate
commands in order to bring up this volume long enough to retrieve
some files that were never backed up. The plan would be then to
initialize and re-partition using the OS X 10.1 Disk Utility. But,
since I've never been a Unix system admin (and it's been almost 10
years since I was a Unix _user_), I want to see if others think my
plan is reasonable, and to see if anyone has any better suggestions...
MY PLAN: (Please excuse any absurdity or ignorance expressed by these
questions -- I'm guessing at some of this based on my reading, and
not necessarily understanding, about some of the most-likely-useful
Unix commands this weekend [man fsck, man mount, etc.])
(1.) Boot into "single-user" mode by holding down the
<COMMAND-APPLE> and <S> keys during startup. (This works -- I've
already tried it.)
(2.) Do these commands in order to have full read-write access to
the root system (booting to an internal ATA drive with OS X 10.1):
/sbin/mount -uw /
/sbin/autodiskmount -va [ is this second command needed? ]
(3.) Run fsck on the missing partition:
/sbin/fsck /dev/disk1s7
[ do I need a second parameter (a "mountpoint?") like /tmp ? ]
I know the /dev/xxx indentifier that the second (cranky)
partition previously used because if I type "more /dev/disk1s7" I see
the partition name (EmmeYa) in the header. Also, I see this message
in the console output when I select the FireWire Disk in Apple Disk
Utility (in console.log):
"DiskManager: DiskInfo_GetVolumeLabel: Error reading disk
label: disk1s7 = 64512"
(4.) What should I do next?
/sbin/mount -wv /dev/disk1s7 /tmp
[ or ? ]
/sbin/mount -wv /dev/disk1s7 /Volumes/EmmeYa
QUESTIONS: Besides running fsck, what else will I need to do in order
to mount the partition and retrieve / recover files? Do I need to
give the partition a "disk label" before I mount or access it? Do I
need to do anything with the fstab* files? Are there any other Unix
commands that might help diagnosis or repair?
(I know I'm in over my head here, and that this is probably dangerous
stuff to muck around with, but I'm desperate to recover these files.)
I don't know if it is useful, but I'm including below some more
detailed background on the hardware and software configurations and
the sequence of events leading up to the volume's corruption. (I've
been corresponding with our Apple System Engineer, Wyn Davies, about
this...)
Thanks in advance for any and all help, suggestions or web references...
Rob Johnson
_______________________________________________
Robert C. Johnson
Computing Operations & Information Systems
Office of the Vice Chancellor - Budget & Finance
Direct: (510) 643-5577
FAX: (510) 643-2250
<mailto:robj@uclink.berkeley.edu>
_______________________________________________
Disk* items in /dev : (/dev/disk0s5 is the boot internal "SiriusB"
and /dev/disk1s6 is the first partition of the FireWire disk,
"PoToloX")
[localhost:~] rob% ls -la /dev/disk*
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 0 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk0
br--r----- 1 root operator 14, 1 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk0s1
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 2 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk0s2
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 3 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk0s3
br--r----- 1 root operator 14, 4 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk0s4
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 5 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk0s5
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 6 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk1
br--r----- 1 root operator 14, 7 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk1s1
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 8 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk1s2
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 9 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk1s3
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 10 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk1s4
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 11 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk1s5
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 12 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk1s6
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 13 Nov 4 10:22 /dev/disk1s7
[localhost:~] rob%
_______________________________________________
HARDWARE / SOFTWARE INFO:
_______________________________________________
CPU: iMac SE slot-loading CD, 400 MHz
System: Mac OS X 10.1 (5L14) / OS 9.2.1
(OS X 10.1 installed 10/13/01 on the internal IDE)
(OS 9.2.1 updated on the "missing" FireWire volume 10/13/01)
(OS 9.2.1 updated on the internal IDE c. 10/1/01)
RAM: 384 MB
Boot ROM version: 4.19f1
Internal Drive: 13 GB Quantum -- IDE / ATA
External Drive: 80 GB IBM Deskstar in a Granite Digital Oxford 911
FireWire enclosure (FIREVue FireWire 1394 enclosure)
Partitioned into 2 equal volumes 6/2001: CharisMac Anubis Utility 3.5
Granite / Relax firmware updated to version c4_100901 on 10/13/01
(prior to OS X v. 10.1 install)
Volume that mounts: PoToloX (c. 38 GB)
"Missing" Volume: EmmeYa (c. 38 GB)
_______________________________________________
REPAIR NOTES:
The only utility that can see *both* partitions of the disk is the
Apple Disk Utility 10.1 (ADU) when booted under X.1, under the
"Partitions" tab. Unfortunately, running the repair on the "partition
with no name" with ADU results in:
"Missing thread record (ID =2" [in red text]
[... and down at the end of the report : ]
"Repair Completed"
... then selecting the partition in the Partitions tab and using the
Mount menu command does not mount the volume. Just to make sure, I
tried this ADU routine when booted from the 10.1 full install disk
and the results were the same.
Looking at my notes, I see that the first time that I ran ADU on the
missing partition on 10/14, I received this message:
"Keys out of order 4, 825"
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
E-mail exchange with Apple:
(Oldest message at top)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[First message 10/25/01]
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 12:29:30 -0700
To: "Wyn Davies" <wyn@apple.com>
From: Rob Johnson <robj@uclink.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Mounting a missing FireWire partition under OS X 10.1
Status: U
Hi Wyn,
Thanks for your help so far on this. Last night I tried to use <fsck>
per your instructions on the FireWire volume that won't mount during
a normal boot.
+ Single-user mode worked fine -- I was able to boot into the
command-line and access the system.
+ I could not, however, figure out how to obtain the "device
string" (/dev/xxxx) that would enable me to use the <mount> command
to make it available for a <fsck> scan / fix.
+ Using clues in <man mount>, I tried <mount -auwv>, which seemed
to work as advertised, mounting for read/write all of the devices in
the /etc/fstab file(s). The only problem is that the FireWire disks
do not seem to be listed there -- the only device that mounted was
"/dev/dsk0s5" , my internal IDE startup volume ("SiriusB"), which
contains OS X.
+ I could see, in all of the information that appeared on screen
during the single-user boot process, that the FireWire volume that
does mount (in both OS 9.2.1 and X.1) was given the device identifier
"/dev/disk1s6" and was referenced in correctly in the volumes
directly by name as "/Volumes/PoToloX".
* * * So my bottom line question is: How can I find the "device
string / device address?" (I'm not sure what the Unix term is) for
the missing FireWire volume? And if it is not assigned a "/dev/xxxx"
string until it is seen as mountable, how can I construct a Unix
command to "see" it and address it, so that I can use perform a file
system check-and-repair <fsck -y /dev/xxxx"> ?
I continue to believe that this should be possible, since during a
normal GUI boot, the 10.1 Disk Utility correctly sees the missing
partition (as an unnamed volume) on the FireWire external drive.
I've also included the ASP scan that I ran on Sunday (both in text
and ASP format). You'll note the odd corruption in that file that I
mentioned yesterday.
( * Maybe this is a useful clue: among all of the text that scrolled
on-screen during the single-user boot was the line "Found old device
0x0x16dfa00". I also saw several lines that looked like a
communication with or an initialization of the FireWire ports, but
there was no /dev/xxxx reference beyond the two I mention above. It's
possible that this FireWire info that comes on screen during the
single-user boot may have the info I need to directly address the
volumes on the FireWire device with <fsck>.)
Clearly, I need a little more guidance from you at this point (I'm
already reaching beyond the limits of my Unix knowledge). I realize
you will have to share this with some of the Unix and/or FireWire
engineers there at Apple before we get the missing pieces to the
puzzle for me to proceed.
Again, my goal is only to get this disk mounted long enough to
retrieve its recent-and-not-backed up digital photographs -- then I
plan to erase / initialize with Apple Disk Utility 10.1.
For background for those you may forward this to, I'm including a
system summary of the info I gave you on the phone yesterday when I
described the sequence of events.
Thanks again for your assistance with this,
Rob
_______________________________________________
CPU: iMac SE slot-loading CD, 400 MHz
System: Mac OS X 10.1 (5L14) / OS 9.2.1
(OS X 10.1 installed 10/13/01 on the internal IDE)
(OS 9.2.1 updated on the "missing" FireWire volume 10/13/01)
(OS 9.2.1 updated on the internal IDE c. 10/1/01)
RAM: 384 MB
Boot ROM version: 4.19f1
Internal Drive: 13 GB Quantum -- IDE / ATA
External Drive: 80 GB IBM Deskstar in a Granite Digital Oxford 911
FireWire enclosure (FIREVue FireWire 1394 enclosure)
Partitioned into 2 equal volumes 6/2001: CharisMac Anubis Utility 3.5
Granite / Relax firmware updated to version c4_100901 on 10/13/01
(prior to OS X v. 10.1 install)
Volume that mounts: PoToloX (c. 38 GB)
"Missing" Volume: EmmeYa (c. 38 GB)
Granite Digital:
<http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg24_support_bridgeboards.htm>
CharisMac:
<http://www.charismac.com/Support/index.html>
MacInTouch discussion of recent reports of remarkably similar
problems to mine --
(disk corruption, missing volumes or partitions under OS 9.2.1 and 10.1):
<http://www.macintouch.com/mos921part4.html#oct08>
<http://www.macintouch.com/mos921part5.html>
<http://www.macintouch.com/mos921part6.html>
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[Second message 11/1/01]
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 10:20:03 -0800
To: Wyn Davies <wyn@apple.com>
From: Rob Johnson <robj@uclink.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Mounting a missing FireWire partition under OS X 10.1
Wyn Davies writes (10/31/01 at 10:01 PM -0800):
Rob,
I'm sorry if I already asked you this but did you boot into OS 9 and try to
mount and recover the drive? I wasn't sure if you tried to run disk
utilities in Classic mode or if you actually tried to boot into 9.
.wyn
Hi Wyn,
Yes -- the short answer is that, under OS 9.2.1, Norton 6.0.5,
TechTool Pro 3.0.5, DiskWarrior 2.1, and Disk First Aid 8.6.1 can no
longer "see" or mount the volume / partition, although they can see
and work with the OK partition on the same disk.
Now, when booting into 9.2.1 (either from CD or the internal hard
disk) I am presented with the "This disk is not recognized..." dialog
with the usual choices of "Eject" and "Initialize". (I've been
choosing "Eject". OS X does not present this dialog, but it does not
mount the partition.)
(When the problem first surfaced on Sunday 10/14, and OS X, Classic
and OS 9.2.1 began to have troubles with this partition, under 9.2.1,
Norton was initially able to mount the partition using the "Show
Missing Disks" command, but was unable to complete a repair. After a
reboot, the partition became invisible to all the OS 9.x utilities,
which is the current situation.)
The only utility that can see *both* partitions of the disk is the
Apple Disk Utility 10.1 (ADU) when booted under X.1, under the
"Partitions" tab. Unfortunately, running the repair on the "partition
with no name" with ADU results in:
"Missing thread record (ID =2" [in red text]
[... and down at the end of the report : ]
"Repair Completed"
... then selecting the partition in the Partitions tab and using the
Mount menu command does not mount the volume. Just to make sure, I
tried this ADU routine when booted from the 10.1 full install disk
and the results were the same.
Looking at my notes, I see that the first time that I ran ADU on the
missing partition on 10/14, I received this message:
"Keys out of order 4, 825"
During subsequent runs, however, this message has not returned --
only the "Missing thread record" message above.
So it seems that I'm closest to recovering the disk when in OS X;
particularly when considering your own successful fsck experience.
What I'm really looking for is some Unix guidance so that I can work
in Single User Mode to directly mount and fsck-scan-repair the
partition. As I explain below, I don't know how to address / access
the second FireWire partition "/dev/???" in order to proceed. ADU can
see it so my hope is that single-user-Unix can see it, too -- and
then mount it and scan-repair it with fsck.
* * * The above paragraph is the crux of my question (more details below...)
I am hoping that either an OS X FireWire engineer or someone with
"device-level" Unix expertise there at Apple can answer this.
(I believe there might be a "Plan B", more-dangerous option [if the
Unix approach fails] -- I've heard of a technique referred to as a
"hostile takeover attempt" at the disk driver level -- where one
inserts another driver on to a volume that already contains a
different or corrupted driver. Since ADU can see this partition, this
may be possible -- I just don't know how you might do that within ADU
and what the success probabilities are. I prefer to try the Unix
approach first...)
Again, thank you very much for your continued assistance with this.
Please feel free to contact me by phone to follow up (or to refer
another engineer to directly phone me) at any of the numbers below.
Rob
Office (c. 9a-6p): (510) 643-5577
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[Third message 11/2/01]
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 15:40:57 -0800
Subject: Re: Mounting a missing FireWire partition under OS X 10.1
From: Wyn Davies <wyn@apple.com>
To: Rob Johnson <robj@uclink.berkeley.edu>
X-Priority: 2
Rob,
Here is what I got back from our escalation support people. I don't know if
you tried the following commands to try to mount the disk.
.wyn
Thank you for your question. At this point using fsck from single user mode
is not going to achieve better results. Disk Utility uses fsck to perform
tests. Basically, it is a UI interface for fsck. If the customer would like
to attempt using fsck anyway, he can mount the drive and get the device
information by doing the following.
1) boot into single usermode
2) mount -uw /
3) autodiskmount -va
4) df
The output should look similar to this:
Filesystem 512-blocks Used Avail Capacity
Mounted on
/dev/disk1s9 4441176 4010392 430784 90% /
devfs 78 78 0 100% /dev
fdesc 2 2 0 100% /dev
<volfs> 1024 1024 0 100% /.vol
/dev/disk0s9 10031360 551200 9480160 5%
/Volumes/Clean 9.1
/dev/disk0s10 10031360 17024 10014336 0%
/Volumes/extra
/dev/disk1s5 4458600 3959840 498760 88%
/Volumes/Macintosh HD
automount -fstab [281] 0 0 0 100%
/Network/Servers
automount -static [281] 0 0 0 100%
/automount
afp_0TSyg90SK9JT0YpRia00sZ0p-1 11307472 2994232 8313240 26%
/Volumes/Cooper
/dev/disk1s7 16375 613 15762 3%
/Volumes/MOSX_Booter
/dev/disk1s6 4458600 74984 4383616 1%
/Volumes/backup
As far as using "Unix" commands to attempt recovering data the customer will
need to pursue this on his own. If the data that is on the corrupted
partition is important, I would recommend that the customer seek
professional assistants (for example: Drive Savers).
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following was automatically added to this message by the list server:
For information about MAGNet, its meetings and events, and its
mailing list, including information on subscribing and unsubscribing,
see the MAGNet Web site at <http://mac.berkeley.edu/help/magnet/>.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Nov 04 2001 - 18:32:51 PST