Advanced HELP! Disk Utility doesn’t start, no destination install volumes shown

(also Toast Titanium 7 & Synthetic Studio Artist 3.5 quits on launch)

Hi there, I desperately need some help with this:

I wanted to install an application and when I got to the “select a destination volume” bit there was nothing there! It is blank….the drive icons don’t display?

So I went to start Disk Utility – when you click on the icon, the Disk Utility Toolbar appears on top but the application itself doesn’t start!? When you click the “window” option on the toolbar, only “show log” is highlighted and the other options are grayed out.

Coincidentally I clicked on Toast Titanium 7 – it launches and crashes (quits) as soon as the application window shows up. Same with Synthetic Studio Artist 3.5 !!

I’m sure all of these issues are somehow related. I’ve done some research and have seen it suggested to try and repair stuff by using the original Restore discs – unfortunately this is on a DVD and my old superdrive is very selective about which DVD’s it reads and it doesn’t read this one!!

I have tried the following fsck tricks:

“Installer destination window does not show drives” (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306861)
It says to:
1. Open Terminal from the Utilities menu.
2. Execute this command:

ps auxc | grep fsck
After I hit enter, nothing happens for a long time – when you try and close the terminal, a message comes up saying that the command is still running……(but obviously not doing anything)
I’ve also tried this one:
“Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck” (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214)

It lets you start up in single-user mode then type /sbin/fsck -fy - at the end the readout I get says that the “volume appears to be OK”

Furthermore I’ve tried the following:

I installed a demo of Cocktail 4.0.2 (Tiger Edition) - when you click on Disks, it says “gathering information” and it basically hangs – nothing happens. When you run the disk repair it gets to a certain point on the progress bar and doesn’t go any further

I’ve tried Diskwarrior 4 – Also checking and repairing Mac HD drive gets to about ¾ on the progress bar and then gets stuck – nothing happens. When you run a file and folder check only , it gives a report with about 4 errors on it – the errors it finds are:

Files that are damaged and cannot be repaired :

Localized.rsrc
com.cvsconsulting.supermax.plist
com.Premiumduty.Pennyweight.plist
com.finetech.prosit.plist


PLEASE, any help in resolving this would be VERY much appreciated!!

Thanks!

Ant
I’m on a PPC G5 OSX 10.4.2

Try deleting the corrupted .plists (preferences files)

Localized.rsrc files hold resources (like language settings for example) that applications may need during booting. (may need to reinstall apps.)

Also, try Repairing permissions.
Permissions can be repaired via the shell (Terminal) by using the command

sudo diskutil repairPermissions /

Could also try to delete cache files with Disk Warrior or Cocktail.

However, it sounds as if there is a problem with the HDD itself.

When you run the disk repair it gets to a certain point on the progress bar and doesn’t go any further

I’ve tried Diskwarrior 4 – Also checking and repairing Mac HD drive gets to about ¾ on the progress bar and then gets stuck – nothing happens.

Click to expand...

Agree with Soulwar. Try booting from the TYiger install DVD and running Repair Disk from Disk Utility there. In particular note what SMART verified has to say? Keep us posted.

Thanks guys,

I've deleted the plist files and even the component that contained the Localized.rsrc

"sudo diskutil repairPermissions /" does not work - it spits out the following:

diskutil[215] *** Nstimer discarding exception '*** -[NS CFDictionary setObject:forkey:] attemp to instert nil value' that raised during firing of timer with target 303340 and selector 'run:'


Whatever that means?!!

I've managed to run the Harware test DVD - it took over an hour and the results didn't pick up anything - so hardware is ok - it must be software?

I've tried the install DVD - doesn't work and I don;t have access to another Mac. Diskwarior does verify the SMART status of the disk though.

What do you guys think? Re-install OSX?