Problem Seeks Solution

My Macbook (2008) will not boot up and I have tried:

Disk Repair - Which tells me I have 2 problems: Invalid node structure and Disk full error.

I tried booting from the command screen and it gives me the same errors.

My next and last step is to back up my info and start from scratch. Any help would be muchly appreciated.

Sounds like you have a fried hard drive. You do have everything backed up to an external one trusts?

do a df -h from that prompt, if your disk is too full it won't have enough space to restructure to repair in the first place.

So, how full is your disk?

Dysfunction said:

do a df -h from that prompt, if your disk is too full it won't have enough space to restructure to repair in the first place.

So, how full is your disk?

Click to expand...

I had at least 8GB of space. I know that's not alot of space but I haven't had a problem before yesterday.

I just did the df -h and it is telling me I have a size of 232gi, used 225gi, avail 6.9gi, capacity 98%

carleone2gz said:

I had at least 8GB of space. I know that's not alot of space but I haven't had a problem before yesterday.

I just did the df -h and it is telling me I have a size of 232gi, used 225gi, avail 6.9gi, capacity 98%

Click to expand...

98% (6.9gig available) is way way way too full!

Even if you weren't getting the strange dialog on your screen...freeing up a bunch of hard drive space would be your #1 priority. If your HD gets completely full...the computer will "lock-up" and will not be unable to do anything.

Alternatives would be to:

- delete unnecessary "stuff" from your HD
- purchase & install a larger internal HD
- purchase an external HD, and transfer less used "stuff" from your internal HD...then of course delete that "stuff" from your internal HD

- Nick

Well that stinks, Ok I have one more question that I kind of know the answer to. Is all of my info gone forever or is there a way to get my files onto an external?

So an update on my situation. I have done everything I could to get my laptop running. I have even tried just getting the information of of my hard drive and nothing seems to work.

Get a large external if you could get it to boot, connect and clone the internal using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner. We all need backup drives in these days of large capacity iTunes, iPhoto etc. You need a minimum of 15% free space for the drive to work anywhere near capacity.

Probably best bet would be to buy a larger HD from some place like OWC (they sell kits with external enclosures). Pull your HD and put it in the external case, install your new HD and then boot from your OS disk, format the new drive HFS and install the OS, then you can use Migration Asst to move your stuff from your old drive.

EDIT: Just saw Harry's advice. I agree if you can boot or boot from your OS disk.

EDIT 2: Some hopefully helpful links
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/2.5-Notebook/
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook-Core-2-Duo-Hard-Drive-Replacement/514/1