/Volumes folder problem? Need a boot issue expert!

Joined
Jul 15, 2008
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
CT
Your Mac's Specs
Powermac G5, dual 2.0 Ghz, 5Gb Ram, 1TB Seagate, 250GB Maxtor, 1TB Seagate Firewire external
I have a problem with my /Volumes folder (the hidden one)
A week ago I restarted my computer (I do that sometimes after a long Firefox session) & my startup volume suddenly wouldn't boot anymore.
It looks like a normal startup (progress bar etc) then goes to a plain blue screen & hangs.

Ran TT & DW, Only very minor problems found.
fsck from single user mode found no problems.

Through other discussions I was asked to boot from a remote volume & look in the invisible folder /Volumes on the problem drive to see what it showed.

It shows "folders" (correctly) of my auto-mount volumes on the day the problem began. But!

It also shows, a single alias which should, & does have the name of that startup volume. But the icon is a firewire drive and inspection via a couple of methods show that it actually points to a 4 month old backup of the volume (on a firewire drive), so it's pointing to the wrong place. Elsewhere I was told this /volumes folder tells the system critical info on startup

I can't redirect that alias ("select new original" is grayed out), and I've been told if I delete this item from the /Volumes folder I risk losing the firewire backup volume as well (which is the only volume I can boot from now).

Does it sound like this "misdirected alias", which should represent the mount point of the boot volume, is the reason for the startup hang?
If so, what to do?
If not where else to look?

I can access all the files & folders on the problem volume remotely, so I'm pretty sure it's a startup/boot issue, nothing more.
But I'm stumped.
Thanks in advance
G5 dual 2.0 running 10.4.11
 

chscag

Well-known member
Staff member
Admin
Joined
Jan 23, 2008
Messages
65,248
Reaction score
1,833
Points
113
Location
Keller, Texas
Your Mac's Specs
2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
Can you start up in Safe Boot mode? Or is the external FW drive the only way? If you can start in Safe Boot mode, you may be able to change the pointer. If that doesn't work, you may be looking at saving what data you can and reinstall.
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top