[X-Newbies] Re: Help! Total HD Meltdown

[Jamie Kahn Genet]

Charles Martin <chasm at mac.com> wrote:

> > From: deetya at cbn.net.id
> > I returned home from vacation to find that a partition on my HD has
> > disappeared. The diagnosis is "Invalid Key Length"
> >
> > I partitioned my HD into two, a system partition and a data  
> > partition. I
> > just booted up my eMac 700mhz, and the data partition is gone.
> >
> >
> > 1) Can my partition be fixed? Or is it lost forever?
> 
> Depends. Is it worth buying a copy of Diskwarrior to fix it? Because
> that will do the trick.

Well... DW has a good _chance_ of fixing it, but don't expect a 100%
success rate. As good as DW is (and it's damn good!), it can't perform
miracles on really stuffed up disks. Regardless, I'd buy it anyway -
it's extremely useful to have around and often prevents this sort of
thing happing in the first place (only if you install it to the HD, of
course).

> > 2) If the partition is lost, is there any way to at least save the
> > data?
> 
> The one IS the other. No partition = no readable data.
> 
> > 3) What could've caused this? A crash due to a power outage? Somebody
> > (like my sister) messing around?
> 
> Judging from the fact that you apparently can't be bothered to back  
> up your stuff, have no utilities and (thus) haven't done any system  
> maintenance, the fault here lies with you. Rather than attempting to
> blame others, you really should consider reforming your poor  
> computing habits.

Whoa, steady on there Tex. No need to bust this poor soul's chops. Yeah
- it's silly not to backup valuable data, but not exactly uncommon. All
too often even quite experienced computer users treat their HDs as if
they were invulnerable. Very foolhardy, but it sure keeps companies like
Drivesavers in business :-)

Apple even provides their own utility called Backup (how original) as a
download from the .Mac site.

> > My computer is an eMac 700Mhz (1st gen eMac) with system 10.1.5.
> 
> You know, there's a REASON Apple has updated the system many, many  
> times since 10.1.5. You really, REALLY need to understand the notion
> that regular updating and maintenance of your computer is PART of  
> owning a computer. I pity your car if you treat it in a similar manner.
> 
> http://www.alsoft.com

Yup - this user definitely needs to upgrade to Panther (10.3) or Tiger
(10.4). MacOS was only _began_ to come of age in Jaguar (10.2) and
wasn't ready for prime time IMHO till Panther - then we finally had a
MacOS we could leave on 24/7 and it would look after itself, by and
large.


Regards,
 Jamie Kahn Genet
-- 
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.