(no subject)

[sanpaku_backup]

[Pre-inserted flw comment to the effect of "why do you bother with Macs?" inserted here.]

My iBook has been having problems more or less since I bought it -- slow, crashes, etc. -- but these worsened a considerable amount in December. One day it just wouldn't finish launching from restart -- it would show me the desktop but without any of my files or disks mounting on the screen. So I reloaded OS X onto it. Fine for a few weeks. Then, with no warning, it would only show me the grey screen with the gear at startup, so would never start up. So reloaded OS X onto it again.

This all takes place against the background of a problem with both of my Macs right now. If you look at all of my folders and add up all of the data that's displayed as being there, it adds up to something in the realm of 4 or 5 GB. Yet both hard drives show as being nearly full -- the iMac, with 10 GB, shows as having 9.5 Gig; the iBook, with 20 GB, with 17. There's some huge realm of "dark matter" on these disks taking up space.

In preparation for some sort of overhaul, I bought a CD burner a couple of weeks ago and backed up everything on both machines. But I face a dilemma about what to do. A hard wipe of the whole disk would be tough, especially for the iMac, which would then need to have all kinds of OS versions rebuilt onto it. And I've had problems with the OS 9.0 to 9.1 Updater at apple.com -- it refuses to load properly on either machine. So I'm nervous about that route.

Last week Safari unexpectedly stopped working on the iBook. Everything else seems fine, but even reloading Safari from apple.com won't get it to work right. So this is a warning that yet another fatal problem is in the works. I don't have enough hard disk space to do another OS X reinstall.

When you go through the hardware diagnostic routes mentioned by Apple, it seems that there is some sort of sector overlap problem with the directory structure. From Googling around it would appear that this is not an uncommon problem with OS X. Apparently if you get over 85% capacity on the disk, it begins to have problems with assigning locations to files. So, fragmentation. Everyone seems to recommend DiskWarrior as a defragmenting program that addresses this problem. So I broke down and bought the thing last week. The downloaded software didn't unpack correctly, so I had to wait for the CD to arrive in the mail.



I would very much like it if these machines worked properly. The iBook has never been defragmented; the iMac, a long time ago when it ran on OS 9. So I put the DiskWarrior into the iBook and booted up, and got the readout that the disk was 32% out of order. (I have no idea if that's a lot.) I started the steps to "rebuilding the directory." It went up to step 5, "locating directory data." That was four hours ago. The CD is still spinning and clicking furiously, but nothing seems to have happened since then.

I guess a call to Tech Support is in my near future...

Comments

well, i use windows, so i'm the pot ...

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

Why DO you bother with Macs?

Re: well, i use windows, so i'm the pot ...

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Now you're just doing his malevolent bidding, I know it!

I have had Macs since 1987. I am very used to the interface, I know how stuff works on it, and when it's working, I enjoy it. The iBook I got has been a bit of a lemon. But I also use a Dell for work and that thing crashes all the time, and not doing anything particularly complicated, either. And when something goes wrong on a PC, I have no idea what to do to work through or around the problem, unlike a Mac. And viruses and so forth are not a problem with Macs, and...

Wait; PCs are icky and so is Microsoft. That's what I should have said.

Re: well, i use windows, so i'm the pot ...

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have a Dell, and I hate it. My next computer is SO going to run Linux. I don't care if its unfamiliarity makes me cry at first; in the long run I know it will be worth it!!

two arms two legs

[flw.livejournal.com]

I shall sit back in my chaise and let my minions do my bidding.