03-02-2008, 01:55 PM

I have a slight problem with my 24" Intel iMac. It's a 2.4 Ghz, 2 gigs ram, bought right before the Leopard release. I originally had Windows XP SP2 installed on a FAT32 partition, but ran out of room, so this morning I backed up my data, removed the partition, and reinstalled windows on a 100GB NTFS partition.

Windows worked perfectly, but I'm typing this now on Leopard. There's no "Macintosh HD" showing. Finder doesn't have the little spotlight under it. It also refuses to open. There's also no menubar on the top of the screen. Only when I have an application running does it show up. I also can't sleep, log out, shut down, or restart. All applications run perfectly, and I can access my documents and media by opening it through the appropriate program.

I booted up through the leopard install disk, verified & repaired the disk and permissions, but it didn't do anything. The only thing I think might be causing this is MacFuse that I installed yesterday to let OS X write to the NTFS partition.

Oh, there's nothing on my desktop either, there's no "Macintosh HD", "Windows" or any of my folders and stuff I had on my desktop. Is there a way to make it work again and save my data that's not there.

Thanks, Ben.

03-02-2008, 02:00 PM

Also, according to this:
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6126_102...sageID=2706693
I should do an archive and install. Will that mess with my Windows partition at all? I wouldn't want to go through all the trouble of having to re-install everything.

03-02-2008, 02:26 PM

Just so we can help you out here, can you boot up in safe mode and see the finder

hold down the shift key on start-up

then run disk utility and repair permissions (assuming safe mode gives you the finder)


have you got
10.5.1 or 10.5.2 installed

03-02-2008, 02:29 PM

It's 10.5.2. Just upgraded a few days ago.

I just rebooted in safe mode, Finder had the spotlight under it, but it wouldn't open. I couldn't access Disk Utility so I just opened Safari to bring the menu bar up, did a spotlight search and opened it. Disk Utility then froze, so I had to force quit it. While I was there, I restarted Finder, but then the spotlight disappeared.

I think I might as well do an archive and install. My iMac has been rather sluggish lately, not sure if it's the amount of stuff I have on there, or something's affecting it. Usually Safari bounces on the dock a few times, but lately it bounced 10 or more times before it opened. Boot up is slower too. All I need to know now is if Windows will be affecting if I do an archive and install.

03-02-2008, 09:11 PM

Just got back from an Archive and Install. It works perfectly! It even runs faster too. This is sweet! I was panicking a bit there. Though I lost all of my data. Great machine...