Mac OS X wont Load

Hi,

I have a 24inch-iMac.

My problem.
- I'm running Snow Leopard on my I-mac along with XP-Home edition.
- Last week after a restart the Mac OS X failed to start.
- Under the Apple Logo and spiral loading bar, it shows a new horizontal grey loading bar.
- The horizontal grey loading bar starts filling up and stops at 10% and the computer shuts down.
- Now I cannot access my Mac OS X partition and the files under it.

I have my OS X 10.6.3 Retail CD along with me.
1. Can I use that and do a standard installation on the present Mac partition.
2. If I do a standard installation will it erase all my files and do a clean installation on the Mac Partition.
3. Or will it just upgrade and my files in Mac partition will be safe?

Thanks
Ash.

It sounds more like your hard drive has failed. Boot from your install disc. Once you select your language, go to the menu and run Disk Utility. Then check the SMART status of the drive. Also Verify/Repair Disk (not Disk Permissions… not yet anyway).

Have you tried resetting the Pram......

Have you tried booting up with the System disk and then just running the disk utility, may just be a glitch on your Hard disk.......

When you boot from the CD you do have the option of how to install....such as a clean install or you can install over your previous system, leaving everything else in place.....

Do not begin install when booted from your disc. Go into Utilities in the Menu bar, select Disk Utility and Repair Disk from there. It will advise if hard drive can in fact be repaired or if you are up for a new drive.

Thanks all for the replies.
- I inserted the OS X disk and used the Disk utility.
First while verifying the disk i got this error.
-Invalid node structure, can't verify this disk.
Then it ask med to repair disk it said the following error
- Invalid node structure, can't complete repairing the disk.

Is my Hard-disk broken?
If so what will be the HDD options for my 24inch imac and any idea on the cost?

ash4640 said:

Thanks all for the replies.
- I inserted the OS X disk and used the Disk utility.
First while verifying the disk i got this error.
-Invalid node structure, can't verify this disk.
Then it ask med to repair disk it said the following error
- Invalid node structure, can't complete repairing the disk.

Is my Hard-disk broken?
If so what will be the HDD options for my 24inch imac and any idea on the cost?

Click to expand...

Actually this may be good news. I had to do a little digging to be sure, but basically this problem "can" be repaired, but you need an advanced disk repair tool to do it. DiskWarrior can do the job. It can be run from a bootable CD that they will mail to you, but obviously you will have to wait for it.

If you have another Mac, and both your Macs have firewire ports, you could always boot your "bad" one in Target Disk Mode and connect it to the other, then run DiskWarrior off that to repair the drive. Or if you have an external drive, install OS X to that and do the job from there. You can also install OS X to a 16 GB or larger flash drive, though it is slow. But all these options will allow for you to buy, download, and run DiskWarrior rather than wait on the mail.

It should also be said that if this problem continues to occur even if/after DiskWarrior fixes it, then the drive indeed may be going.

As much as personally support DiskWarrior and use it regularly, at the cost of $99.00 it is easier and simpler to replace the hard drive. And as pointed out, after expending the $99 you may still be up for a new drive.

Suggest putting the money towards a new SSD.

ash4640 said:

Thanks all for the replies.
- I inserted the OS X disk and used the Disk utility.
First while verifying the disk i got this error.
-Invalid node structure, can't verify this disk.
Then it ask med to repair disk it said the following error
- Invalid node structure, can't complete repairing the disk.

Is my Hard-disk broken?
If so what will be the HDD options for my 24inch imac and any idea on the cost?

Click to expand...

Pleased that your thread managed to garner some decent replies-unlike my similar thread !!

"pedropete" srry for not replying earlier.... yeah I got the replies that was required and important.
Thanks "lifeisabeach" I will check on the "DiskWarrior" Solution.... I have a Macbook so I will try on that fire-wire method, but I'm not aware of it so will google and chk it out....

harryb2448 even I would like to have a New HDD but for now I need to get back some files from the old HDD

ash4640 said:

"pedropete" srry for not replying earlier.... yeah I got the replies that was required and important.
Thanks "lifeisabeach" I will check on the "DiskWarrior" Solution.... I have a Macbook so I will try on that fire-wire method, but I'm not aware of it so will google and chk it out....

harryb2448 even I would like to have a New HDD but for now I need to get back some files from the old HDD

Click to expand...

What year is the MacBook? The ones that were loaded with Snow Leopard do not have FireWire.

Hi all,
Luckily I got a bootable Diskwarrior Cd from a friend of mine and ran it....
- I used the Rebuild option from the Diskwarrior menu.
- It had a lot of errors and it recovered few files and directories, but it did not allow me to replace the original directory since it said the Disk is damaged.
- Now I just did a preview and compared the dir's what i needed and they were intact.
- But how I take the backup, or copy on to a external HDD from this menu....

- Also once the directory structure was rebuilt, I restarted the system but the same error "apple logo with a horizontale loading bar" appeared and restarted again.
- I read somewhere that, the horizontal bar is a stuck firmware update?

Should I try rebuilding again? Im not able to perform the other two options from the Diskwarrior menu Files, Hardware as it shows some error

My Mac 2.4ghz i5 has a firewire which is 800 mb/s

ash4640 said:

Hi all,
Luckily I got a bootable Diskwarrior Cd from a friend of mine and ran it....
- I used the Rebuild option from the Diskwarrior menu.
- It had a lot of errors and it recovered few files and directories, but it did not allow me to replace the original directory since it said the Disk is damaged.
- Now I just did a preview and compared the dir's what i needed and they were intact.
- But how I take the backup, or copy on to a external HDD from this menu....

- Also once the directory structure was rebuilt, I restarted the system but the same error "apple logo with a horizontale loading bar" appeared and restarted again.
- I read somewhere that, the horizontal bar is a stuck firmware update?

Should I try rebuilding again? Im not able to perform the other two options from the Diskwarrior menu Files, Hardware as it shows some error

Click to expand...

DiskWarrior said the disk is damaged, so it sounds like you need a new drive. I would manually backup what you NEED to back up while you can; replace the drive; then reinstall OS X from scratch. Or you can replace the drive, reinstall OS X, then work on manually recovering what you need with the old drive in an external case. I would not try to make a full backup/clone of your existing system on a damaged disk because some of the critical system files may be damaged. You are much better off making a fresh start on a new drive.