[X-Newbies] Help! Total HD Meltdown

[Alex]

On May 23, 2005, at 06:32, deetya at cbn.net.id wrote:

> My computer is an eMac 700Mhz (1st gen eMac) with system 10.1.5.
>
> [...] a partition on my HD has disappeared. The diagnosis is "Invalid 
> Key Length"

Serious catalogue corruption.

> 1) Can my partition be fixed?

Chances are slight. It's likely it cannot be repaired. Even if it can 
be, it's safest to reformat the drive.

> 2) If the partition is lost, is there any way to at least save the 
> data?

It may be possible, but chances are not good. There are various 
utilities (DiskWizard, TechTool, Data Rescue, etc.) which can be used. 
See

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07451>
<http://www.news.nwapplpkrs.org/f4/jul/techtool.html>

for a comparison of several of them.

But, (i) none are free, (ii) there is no assurance that any of them can 
do anything about this error, (iii) current versions require a more 
recent version of the OS than you have -- for instance, DiskWarrior, 
requires at least Mac OS X v10.2.1. If your data is very important, 
there are specialized data recovery bureaus you can try, but they're 
not cheap.

You should be aware that, regardless of what computer system you are 
using, a good backup is crucial.

> 3) What could've caused this? A crash due to a power outage?

That's possible. There may be other causes. Difficult to say without 
knowing what's been going on with the computer; even then, it may not 
be possible to determine the cause.

> Somebody (like my sister) messing around?

Depends on what "messing around" means. Fooling around with low-level 
disk editors or shutting down the Mac improperly might do it. 
Otherwise, I shouldn't regard it as likely.


<0x0192>