Mac not booting

I have a 15" Unibody Macbook Pro (Late 2008). I run the macbook using two bootable HDDs, one for work and one for personal use. I swap them by simply opening the latch at the back and disconnect one and plug the other.

Work HDD
350GB - Lion

Personal HDD
750GB - Snow Leopard

I was using my Mac on the Snow Leopard HDD and put it aside to sleep with lid closed. By mistake I forgot that the laptop was on Sleep not Shutdown and I opened the back and changed the HDD to the one of work.

When I opened the lid of my mac to turn it on I discovered that I forgot to make a shut down and forced into shutdown by pressing the power button. Since then, the Work HDD won't boot up a "no entry" sign appears while the other personal HDD works fine.

I have connected the Work HDD via a Sata to USB enclosure to try and recover the files but it won't appear on finder. On Disk Utility it shows up.

I know I made a big mistake and I take all the fault for that but I would appreciate your help. I wouldn't mind reinstalling the OS, the most important is to recover the data inside.

Try an SMC Reset:

Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

- Nick

using which HDD should I reset it? does it make a difference which one to use?

Filletti said:

using which HDD should I reset it? does it make a difference which one to use?

Click to expand...

As long as neither of the HD's is/was damaged...it doesn't matter. The SMC Reset process happens before any HD booting is involved.

- Nick

thank you for your help but unfortunately the SMC did not work. the snow leopard HDD works perfectly but the lion HDD won't boot up. it shows the apple logo and the loading 'wheel' then after a lot of time the 'no entry' sign shows up.

Filletti said:

thank you for your help but unfortunately the SMC did not work. the snow leopard HDD works perfectly but the lion HDD won't boot up. it shows the apple logo and the loading 'wheel' then after a lot of time the 'no entry' sign shows up.

Click to expand...

Ok…let's try something else:

- Install the non-working HD (at the moment) into an external HD enclosure.
- Boot the computer from the working HD.
- Once the computer has fully booted…then plug the HD (in the external enclosure) into the computer.

Hopefully the external ("non-working") HD mounts to the desktop. If not (either way)…launch Disk Utility…and try repairing that external HD.

If you are able to repair the external HD…then try rebooting the computer from the external HD.

HTH,

- Nick

I've tried this before but I gave it another go.

The Work HDD did not show up on the desktop. On Disk Utility it shows up but the partition is grayed out and the repair failed saying :
>
Disk Utility stopped repairing the disk.
Disk utility can't repair the disk. Back up as many as your files as possible, reformat the disk and restore your backed up files.
<
I would't mind doing that but how can I access the files inside the HDD if its not showing up on the desktop?

Most of the errors that popped up while repairing were:
Missing thread record (id = XXXXXX)
Invalid directory item count
(It should be 0 instead of 1)

then..

Checking extended attributes file.
Invalid node structure
The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely.
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.

Filletti said:

I would't mind doing that but how can I access the files inside the HDD if its not showing up on the desktop?

Click to expand...

This is why we're all supposed to keep backups.

I hate to say it...but maybe this HD has crashed. If you had a backup...then it would be easy to try to do a reformat of the drive...and a reinstall of the OS.

I also wanted to mention that it is very unusual for someone to be doing what you have been doing (swapping out two different HD's the way you are). One for home & one for work.

I'm not really sure how durable the hardware is for all of this HD swapping (which I would imagine must happen quite frequently). But I could see some sort of premature wear & tear occuring. I'm not saying this is the source of the issue in this case...but you never know.

What I would have done in your situation is. Get the largest capacity HD I could. Install it...then partition it into two partitions. One partition for "Home"...and one partition for "Work". This way all of this HD swapping would have been unecessary.

Then you would just boot into the partition you wanted by holding down the option key...and selecting the partition you want.

If the HD is dead...there may not be a lot of options (other than an expensive data recovery service). Or purchasing a program like "Disk Warrior":

DiskWarrior

- Nick

Or DataRescue 3

I tried the DataWarrior software but I am getting the following error :

"Directory cannot be rebuild due to disk hardware failure (-36, 2747)"

When I move on to Files and Hardware, the work HDD is not in the drop down menu.

Filletti said:

I tried the DataWarrior software...

Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with "DataWarrior". I did a quick internet search…and I couldn't find a hard drive data recovery program called "DataWarrior".

- Nick

If by DataWarrior you mean DiskWarrior, then if you have a specific type of hardware failure DiskWarrior will not rebuild the directory. II see this on many occasions. The next software to consider would be Data Rescue. If Data Rescue is not successful I've often had good success with Boomerang, Boomerang Data Recovery Software for Windows and Mac OS X. It has 3 options for purchase depending up your requirements. At work we renew it's license annually. You can download Boomerang at no cost, then try to see if it would be successful prior to purchase. If that doesn't recover your data then you are only left with the prospect of an expensive clean room recovery. There's no free lunch when it comes to data recovery. Swopping drives as you were doing was a disaster waiting to happen.

Sorry of my mistake, I mean DiskWarrior.

Data Rescue 3 worked fine for me it was able to find files and reconstruct files but most of them are not in their original directory. For example I had some files in a folder on the desktop. Now they are else where in a numbered folder which the software did.

This is already enough for me to know that I recovered most (if not all) of my data, but, do you think it is possible to 'reconstruct' the HDD to its original state?

Filletti said:

...but, do you think it is possible to 'reconstruct' the HDD to its original state?

Click to expand...

Not if you didn't recover 100% of your files. If you recovered 90%…then you can reconstruct your HD to 90% of what it was before.

This is assuming you even want to use the same HD. Since if it's starting to fail…the same thing may happen again. Plus you're going to need another HD to do backups to. So you may need at least two new HD's.

- Nick

No I will not be using the same HDD so don't assume

I have everything sorted out in folders by months example : December 2013, January 2014 etc etc thats why I would like to reconstruct the HDD back to (or similar) state.

How can this be done?

If I might make a suggestion for after this is all cleared up: constantly changing out boot drives was just BEGGING for this mistake to be made. Among several far better and simpler options:

a. simply keep the work and personal ACCOUNTS separate on the same drive using the same OS, or:
b. get a great big huge HD for your machine and partition it into two partitions and run the two OSes with separate accounts, being sure to have a matching (or larger) external drive you can clone the partitions to.

That is what I will be doing from now onwards.

Do you think that I can reconstruct the HDD back to (or similar) state? I have everything sorted out in folders by months example : December 2013, January 2014 etc etc

It most likely cannot be rebuilt to what it was. If the directory of files had been intact, DR3 would have rebuilt the drive, but with the failure, all it could do was to reconstruct the files for you and leave it to you to sort them out. You'll have to open each one, review the material, rename it to what it should be and then save it into the folder where you want it to be. IF, IF, there is any information retained about creation or modification date, you may be able to sort the files that way, but the last time I had to use DR3 none of that was retained and I had to do the open/rename/save trick for each one.

Yes, it is a pain.

It's the price paid for not having a backup. I now have two, on two separate external drives.

Yep I guessed so and I started to sort out the files myself searching them by name one by one. Been working on it for the past 5 hours and I guess I have another few more left.

I learnt my lesson now, will buy a Time Capsule tomorrow and start backing things up.

Today I got my hands on a brand new 2.5" HDD and will configure it as suggested by other members so that I avoid changing the HDD manually.

Thank you to everyone for your help. Much appreciated!

Filletti said:

I learnt my lesson now, will buy a Time Capsule tomorrow and start backing things up.

Click to expand...

If you're talking about the Apple Time Capsule…you really don't need this (very expensive). Any external hard drive will do. Then you can use a number of different methods to backup important files, apps, etc.

A 2 terabyte Apple Time Capsule costs $299 in the US. A good 3.5" external hard drive (2-3 terabyte) can be had for $100-$125 (maybe less if you catch a good deal).

Like with most Apple products…the Apple Time Capsule makes the process of backing up very easy & user friendly. But…other backup methods really aren't that difficult either.

- Nick