EMERGENCY!

AlexColeman · Mar 8, 2009

My hard-drive a western digital 320 my book (black) is failing to mount on my macbook pro. It is 10.5.6, and it won't mount on the desk top. When I run Disk Utility, it says
Invalid node structure
Volume check failed.
Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.
Any help is appreciated.

table1349 · Mar 8, 2009

Sorry to hear about the problem. Never experience it before so I have no advise other than to perhaps try these two forums.

Apple - Support - Discussions - Forum Home
Mac Forums - Mac News and Rumor Discussion

It seems that there is a lot of that going around. Someone might have a remedy for you situation.

AlexColeman · Mar 8, 2009

I have tried everything, won't mount. I am really aggravated as it won't work, because it has my LR catalog on it.

Garbz · Mar 9, 2009

As a matter of interest bring up a console and type fsck which is a unix package to check file systems. If it comes up then it may be called the same thing in MacOSX in which case this package is a good place to start since it can repair broken Inodes.

But maybe a mac user can give you something better to go on.

Slaphead · Mar 9, 2009

Garbz said:
As a matter of interest bring up a console and type fsck which is a unix package to check file systems. If it comes up then it may be called the same thing in MacOSX in which case this package is a good place to start since it can repair broken Inodes.

But maybe a mac user can give you something better to go on.

Good idea, but unfortunately it won't get you anywhere in this situation - FSCK is run by the disk utility and has already reported that it can't repair the volume (Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.). This message indicates that FSCK doesn't think it can repair the volume (at least in my experience - which is a lot)

The tool that I run to in this event is (actually in any disk problem) is DiskWarrior

I've had amazing success getting back data with this tool - even when drives are on the brink of complete hardware failure.

I SERIOUSLY recommend that you buy another hard disk so that when Diskwarrior has done it's stuff you can preview the repair and copy your data to it. Do NOT attempt to replace the disks directory with the rebuilt directory without copying the data first - if the disk is failing then this can turn a recoverable situation into a total loss.

As ever with data recovery your mileage may vary, and if diskwarrior can't do anything (I've not come across anything yet that's worked when diskwarrior hasn't) then realistically you'll need to send your disk to a professional data recovery outfit.

Hope this helps and good luck.

flea77 · Mar 9, 2009

This kind of stuff is what I do all day, every day, and SlapHead has it right on. Quit messing with it, leave it off until you are ready to do the recovery. Run it as little as possible to get what you need, then replace it.

Allan

AlexColeman · Mar 9, 2009

I have been trying to use DW, however it gives me an error.

Garbz · Mar 9, 2009

Rule 1 when talking about errors is "State the bloody error"

Slaphead · Mar 10, 2009

Yeah, as Garbz said, we need to know what the error is.

AlexColeman · Mar 10, 2009

Error 2158. Thank you.

Garbz · Mar 11, 2009

:banghead:

Slaphead · Mar 11, 2009

OK, try this - Hold the option (alt) key down and click on rebuild. This should now throw up another window. Select "Scavenge" and then click on rebuild. This could take a while.

By the way was there any error description associated with the that error code? I've had "similar" codes (2155) which indicate things are very bad but I've never experienced a 2158.

If the scavenge doesn't work then I think you have to decide if the data is worth sending the drive to a professional data recovery firm.

Slaphead · Mar 11, 2009

Garbz said:
:banghead:

Yeah, I know, but I get this every day, so I'm used to it.

Mike_E · Mar 11, 2009

Alex, is it making any unusual sound? IOW might it be a hardware issue?

Also, forgive me if someone else has mentioned this, have you tried getting a Knoppix Linux CD/DVD

(a free operating system on a disk that you just insert and boot up- saves you from having a dual boot on startup and you can take it with you easily

)

and seeing if you can navigate to it from Knoppix? Sometimes you can blow past the error and get directly to the files.

good luck.

krayon · Mar 11, 2009

The WD My Books are notorious for doing things like this. At my regular job we bought 3 of them and had to replace all of them due to failures. If you search Google you will see a lot of people complaining about the My Books.

I know this doesn't help much in recovering the data, but just as a warning. When you buy are replacement... try a different drive.

It turns out that in most cases it is not a physical hardware problem with the drive, but the OS/Software that runs the drive.