10-08-2008, 05:37 PM

Hi, first post here.

I'm running 10.5.1 and just upgraded from whatever the most recent 10.4 iteration was. My machine was running very slowly, so I did a disk repair and permissions repair using Disk Utility, as well as a disk optimization using Alsoft's DiskWarrior.

BUT, and here's where I think I messed up: I have an external hard drive that I did not upgrade to 10.5. It still has 10.4 on it. Whenever I optimize or repair the disk, I boot from that external drive and run the utilities from there so that it can unmount my main HD to repair it.

When I repaired the permissions, I'm guessing using 10.4 to repair permissions on a 10.5 volume caused this. But I'm not sure.

HERE'S THE PROBLEM: After the permissions repair, ALL of the permissions on my files are wrong. I open a document in Word or PhotoShop or Dreamweaver and it tells me that the file is locked, so that I can look at it but not save any changes. I can create new documents, but the minute I try to save THOSE, it tells me I can't because I don't have sufficient permissions.

When I open the "Get Info" panel for a file, it shows:
System: Read & write
admin: read only
everyone: read only

My user isn't even listed. But I'm obviously an admin, so I'm read only.

I can manually change these permissions on a file to "read & write," and then it's okay.

BUT, am I really going to have to change EVERY SINGLE ONE of my files one at a time? And new files that **I** create don't allow read and write permissions BY ME. So every time I create a new file, am I going to have to close it, go into the finder, and change the permissions?

THANK YOU for any help you can give. This has me pulling my hair out!

10-08-2008, 05:38 PM

Oh, and by the way, I did do a permissions repair using the 10.5 volume just now and it did not fix the problem for existing files or newly created ones.

10-08-2008, 05:40 PM

Oh, one last thing. On some already-in-existence files, the permissions are:

system: read & write
wheel: read only
everyone: read only

No admin permissions are listed at all. For these, I have to add admin permissions as read & write to get anywhere.

10-08-2008, 10:17 PM

Boot from your Leopard install DVD ~ assume you have one as you are using it? Repair Disk and Repair Permissions, in particular, is a different cat altogether under Leopard from Tiger.

10-09-2008, 06:21 AM

Thanks for the reply. I'm a remote employee, so HQ sent me that install disk for the OS, I installed it, and I sent it back at their request. So I'm kind of stuck on that front unless I get them to mail it back. It made me nervous to be without one when I sent it back and I guess I know now why.

10-09-2008, 09:54 AM

you can try to boot into single user mode (hold down cmd+s at start up). this will start up the machine without a gui. It will be a black screen with white writing on it. At the # prompt type fsck -fy and then hit enter. This will fix permissions just like running repair permissions from the install disk. It will take a while to run, and it will fix errors (there will be messages on the screen). When you get back to the # prompt type the word exit and the machine will reboot.

good luck.

10-09-2008, 02:25 PM

Originally Posted by Smackintosh

you can try to boot into single user mode (hold down cmd+s at start up). this will start up the machine without a gui. It will be a black screen with white writing on it. At the # prompt type fsck -fy and then hit enter. This will fix permissions just like running repair permissions from the install disk. It will take a while to run, and it will fix errors (there will be messages on the screen). When you get back to the # prompt type the word exit and the machine will reboot.

good luck.

Thanks for the idea. I did this and it gave me a lot of this:

Incorrect flags for file inode (id = 77040303)
(It should be 0 x 22 instead of 0 x 2)

and took a long time, but it did not solve the problem.

I'm biting the bullet and calling Apple support!

Thanks.

10-09-2008, 05:33 PM

Get your IT manager to burn a DL copy of Leopard. Using Tiger Disk Utility has no doubt made a meal of the files and you may well be up for an erase and install.

10-10-2008, 06:10 AM

Thanks. I called Apple yesterday and that was exactly their assessment as well. What's more, the problem is across all users (tried creating a test user and it had the same problem). So I had HQ FedEx me the OS disk and I should get it this morning.

10-10-2008, 05:00 PM

Good. Boot from the install DVD, choose erase and install and then update and all will be well. Keep us posted?