Strange Terminal Results for Unmountable Internal Hard Drive

janess · 02-01-2013, 04:05 PM

I have spent hours reviewing the forums, but seem to have a problem that is producing preliminary Terminal results different from others I've read. So, in advance, thank you to anyone who might offer a possible diagnosis/solution.

My internal drive will not mount via Disk Utility. The internal drive shows up in DU as a grey generic icon with the following info:
Name : Mac HD 10.5
Type : Volume
Disk Identifier : disk2s3
Mount Point : Not mounted
File System : Mac OS Extended
Connection Bus : ATA
Partition Type : Apple_HFS
Device Tree : pci2/ata-6@D/@0:3
Writable : Yes
Capacity : 111.7 GB (119,899,865,088 Bytes)
Owners Enabled : No
Can Turn Owners Off : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : No
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Verified
Disk Number : 2
Partition Number : 3

I am working on a PowerBook G4 (PPC) and am currently booted via an external drive connected by FW400 running Mac OS 10.4.8 (Macintosh HD). Also connected by FW 800 is an external backup drive (My Passport Studio). The Macintosh HD and My Passport Studio seem to be working just fine. The unmounted internal drive (Mac HD 10.5) has Leopard which is another problem entirely. Most immediately, I need to get the internal drive mounted so it can be repaired. Disk Warrior is able to rebuild the directory on the internal drive, but will not replace the rebuilt directory (or give me the option to repair permissions). DW Hardware Test indicates the internal drive is functioning properly.

I'm guessing the internal Mac HD 10.5 has a permissions problem that is preventing mounting and, after going through the forums, I opened Terminal and entered:
ls -alo /Volumes
id
echo "done"

The results were (IP replaced with x's below for privacy):

Last login: Thu Jan 31 06:48:12 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
c-xx-xxx-x-xxx:~ Janessdba$ ls -alo /Volumes
total 32
drwxrwxrwt 6 root admin - 204 Jan 29 13:57 .
drwxrwxr-t 44 root admin - 1598 Jan 29 13:57 ..
-rw-rw-rw- 1 Janessdb admin - 6148 Jan 29 13:57 .DS_Store
-rwxrwxrwx 1 Janessdb Janessdb - 82 Dec 27 2005 ._ANDY SASAS'
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin - 1 Jan 29 07:31 Macintosh HD -> /
drwxr-xr-x 16 Janessdb Janessdb - 646 Jan 29 15:26 My Passport Studio
c-xx-xxx-x-xxx:~ Janessdba$ id
uid=501(Janessdba) gid=501(Janessdba) groups=501(Janessdba), 81(appserveradm), 79(appserverusr), 80(admin)
c-xx-xxx-x-xxx:~ Janessdba$ echo "done"

I am, by no means, experienced with Terminal, but I do notice several odd things in my Volumes query compared to what I've seen in the forums:
1. My problematic, unmounted "Mac HD 10.5" does not show up at all with that name in the Terminal results above.
2. The name "Janessdba" is missing the last letter in several areas and appears as "Janessdb".
3. I have no idea why .DS_Store or ._ANDY SASAS' are showing up at all and have no clue about what that means.
4. No one with the name _ANDY SASAS' has had or should have access to or privileges on my computer and it's unclear what volume that name is attached to.

I really need help and hope someone (either a person who is really knowledgeable about Terminal and/or a Mac magician) will see this post and kindly respond. Again, THANK YOU in advance for any help!!! I'm really stuck and baffled.

hayne · 02-02-2013, 01:10 AM

1) I think only the first 8 characters of usernames are shown, so that's the reason for the "Janessdb"

2) Only mounted disks appear (as folders) under /Volumes. An unmounted disk will not appear there - as you have seen. Note that folders are indicated with a 'd' (for "directory") at the beginning of the permissions line you showed.

3) I think the extra files (starting with a dot) are leftovers from having used the Finder to look at the /Volumes folder and having had a network volume mounted at some time in the past. In any case, I don't think those files are related to your problem.

4) I don't think the problems that DiskWarrior is having are related to permissions. Permissions apply to a mounted drive and the drive in question is not mounted.

5) It is quite likely that the fundamental problem is a hardware problem with the drive. How old is this drive? The original hard drive in a PowerBook G4 would be well past its expected useful lifetime.

janess · 02-02-2013, 03:33 PM

Hi hayne,

Thank you very much for responding and any further input that might possibly resolve my problem is much appreciated. Related to the information you provided, including a few questions that I've underlined so they will be easier to see:

<<1) I think only the first 8 characters of usernames are shown, so that's the reason for the "Janessdb">>

What confused me was that, in the case where the username is followed by "$" and in the uid listing, all 9 characters appear. But it sounds like nothing to worry about. The .DS_Store and ._ANDY SASAS' looked strange to me and I also don't understand why 81(appserveradm) and 79(appserverusr) appear since I don't use an Apple Server.

<<2) Only mounted disks appear (as folders) under /Volumes. An unmounted disk will not appear there - as you have seen. Note that folders are indicated with a 'd' (for "directory") at the beginning of the permissions line you showed.>>

Got it.

<<3) I think the extra files (starting with a dot) are leftovers from having used the Finder to look at the /Volumes folder and having had a network volume mounted at some time in the past. In any case, I don't think those files are related to your problem.>>

I don't believe I have ever had a network volume mounted (unless a network volume had something to do with the Leopard OS installation as detailed below under #5). I did recently do a "go to folder" search to inspect /Volumes contents and, yes, Macintosh HD and My Passport Studio were the only items visible there. Can or should the "extra files" (with the names .DS_Store and ._ANDY SASAS') be removed and, if so, how would that be done?

<<4) I don't think the problems that DiskWarrior is having are related to permissions. Permissions apply to a mounted drive and the drive in question is not mounted.>>

I understand. My reference to DiskWarrior was to convey that the unmountable Mac HD 10.5 is still able to have the entire directory rebuilt perfectly by Disk Warrior. The rebuilt preview drive is an exact replica of the internal drive which was mounted up until a recent computer freeze, except that the DW preview drive also included a ton of Recovered Files folders. However, after the internal drive become unmountable, DW indicated the rebuilt directory could not be replaced. I realize that DW does its work on unmounted drives, but my point was that the contents of the rebuilt DW drive would seem to indicate that the contents of the internal drive is, at least, still intact. I thought, perhaps, this information might be useful in helping to figure out what to do about the mounting problem. If DW is not able to replace a rebuilt directory within the DW application, is it possible to install the rebuilt directory via the Restore function in DU where the DW drive would be the source and a mounted internal drive would be the destination? I thought it would be acceptable to ask this question here (rather than creating a separate post) since DW is being referenced.

Related to permissions and mountable status, when I restarted the PowerBook after the last freeze, the internal drive was no longer visible on the desktop. It seems to me that when I restarted the computer from the Tiger system disk using the "C" key, the internal drive was showing as a mounted disk in DU. Then when I restarted with the external Macintosh HD as the startup disk, the internal drive was unmounted and wouldn't mount.

I do think something happened with the permissions on the internal drive after the computer freeze. When I click the info button for all three hard drives in DU, the internal drive is the only one that has "No" after Owners Enabled. When I click the mount button for the grey generic internal drive icon in DU, nothing happens. I also tried the mounting application "Mount Me" which gives the option to mount the internal drive and then indicates "Mount attempt succeeded", but nothing happens with the drive.

If Owners Enabled is followed by a "No", would or could that prevent the drive from mounting? Is there a basic Terminal command that would fix the permission(s) for the internal drive and change Owners Enabled to a "Yes" without affecting the other two external drives)?

<<5) It is quite likely that the fundamental problem is a hardware problem with the drive. How old is this drive? The original hard drive in a PowerBook G4 would be well past its expected useful lifetime.>>

The hardware tests I've run on the internal drive indicate no hardware problem and that drive is not making any unusual noises. I'm not certain of the age of the internal drive, but I can't imagine it could be an original drive because the PowerBook's original drives were only 80 GB and the unmounted drive is 120 GB. My original 80 GB PowerBook drive is the external drive I'm using now (Macintosh HD) and it's working fine. My original PowerBook suffered a motherboard failure and I replaced it with a used PowerBook purchased from a retail computer store and that is the computer I am using now. The store indicated they had wiped the contents of the internal 120 GB drive on the used PowerBook, tested all components including the drive, and then installed Leopard 10.5.8 from the store's server (which may explain the appserveradm and appserverusr uid listings in the Terminal results I got). The store's server-installed Leopard system always seemed "wonky" compared to Tiger (lots of spinning beach balls, freezes, and slowness), but I'm trying to avoid a system reinstall for a number of reasons and would like to see if I can get the internal drive mounted and repaired first.

DeltaMac · 02-02-2013, 05:08 PM

You should try a reinstall of Leopard.
A good reason to do that, is that the installer will first run integrity checks on the hard drive, and you should end up with a drive that will boot your system (and therefore be mounted, with the User Enabled then as a Yes. You would install Leopard, using the Option to Archive & Install, which will retain your files and settings.
Of course, if your PowerBook is an older one (with a G4 running less than 867 MHz), then you can't do that directly from the installer.
Which PowerBook G4 do you have (processor speed would be good to know)? AND how much RAM memory is installed?

janess · 02-05-2013, 05:29 PM

Hello DeltaMac,

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my thread and offer your suggestion about reinstalling Leopard on my PowerBook G4's unmounted, internal drive (and I apologize for the delay in responding). To answer your question about my processor and RAM, the processor is a 1.67 GHz and there is 1 GB of RAM installed with 2 DDR2 SCRAM chips.

I'm still interested in learning if there are Terminal commands that might repair and clean permissions/mount my drive, but since you brought up a system reinstall and no one has yet passed along any possible, specific Terminal command fixes (I'm still hopeful), I'll provide info about why I've not yet done a reinstall. Yes, an Archive and Install of Leopard on the internal drive would be the next logical step if permissions can't be repaired and/or the hard drive can't somehow be remounted and then repaired if necessary. In the last sentence of my previous post, I wrote "...I'm trying to avoid a system reinstall for a number of reasons and would like to see if I can get the internal drive mounted and repaired first" and I had also mentioned that Leopard had been problematic.

Of course, a reinstall of any type is always a pain in the neck, particularly with the risk of losing settings, preferences, and more. I had actually thought of doing a reinstall a couple of days before I first posted here, but that became an unlikely option because my Leopard install disk (PPC version) kept getting ejected from the PB's drive just as it had finished "spinning up". All other disks that I've run are fine, so I think it's a problem with the Leopard system install disk and not the computer's drive. That's why I indicated earlier that I used my Tiger system disk to restart my PB after the fatal freeze and I've been running Tiger on the PB via my external HD ever since (which has been running flawlessly...fast, smooth, and cool).

Over the course of many hours and many days, I finally got someone at Apple Tech Support to talk to me about this last week. Apple is willing to send a new set of PPC Leopard system disks, but because that is no longer a high priority item or something carried by the Apple Store online or in the retail Apple Stores, I was told it could take up to 3-4 weeks to receive the disks. The Mac Tech Support person also told me that, given how slow and wonky Leopard was running from the start, I should have applied Apple's Leopard Combo Updater to the 10.5.8 system that had been installed from the computer store's server when I purchased the PB, but I can't do that now because the internal disk won't mount.

My only other alternative for fairly immediate system reinstallation, I think, would be to go back to the retail computer store where I purchased the replacement PB (more than a 2 hour drive each way) and have the store reinstall Leopard. I think I could also try something via Target Disk Mode, but the problem there is that the only computer options available to host that operation are Intel MacBooks and I don't think that would work for a reinstall. I do have the contents of my internal drive backed up on my Passport external drive, but that is not a bootable drive and I don't know how to make that drive bootable so I could reinstall Leopard. That is why I'm trying to get some advice here about how I might possibly repair permissions and remount my internal hard drive via some cut and paste Terminal commands from a knowledgeable and trustworthy source.

I'm certainly interested in any further suggestions, in addition to getting answers to my questions in my 2nd post above related to permissions and Terminal commands.

DeltaMac · 02-05-2013, 06:05 PM

I've had good luck with "restoring" a Leopard installer DVD to a dedicated partition on an external hard drive.
You might find that even through the Leopard DVD doesn't seem to work, that restoring the DVD to a hard drive will boot. Of course, if the DVD is scratched/smudged, and surface scratches are too bad, then that technique may not be successful - but you could try that.
All you need for that is an 8GB partition on your external.
Finally, booting a PowerBook requires that the external drive is connected through a Firewire interface. USB won't work without a struggle on PPC Macs.

janess · 02-05-2013, 07:27 PM

Hi DeltaMac,

Thank you for your good suggestions. I really appreciate your input. I still think I need to correct a permissions issue on my internal drive in order to get the drive mounted. I hope someone will maybe have some suggestions for possible Terminal commands that might do the trick. In the meantime...

<<I've had good luck with "restoring" a Leopard installer DVD to a dedicated partition on an external hard drive. >>

Do you mean "restore", as in the Restore function in Disk Utility? Also, if an installer DVD is put onto an external drive's dedicated partition, does the external drive become an installer, as well as a bootable drive? I think the answer would be yes, but I'm not sure.

<<You might find that even through the Leopard DVD doesn't seem to work, that restoring the DVD to a hard drive will boot.>>

How would your suggestion work if the PB keeps spitting the Leopard system disk out of the drive slot after about 15 seconds? Also, even if my external drive could become bootable with Leopard, how would I get Leopard onto my internal drive if that drive won't mount? That's the whole point...to get my internal drive working again with Leopard so I can access my 10.5 apps and not have 1-2 external drives dangling from my PB. I'm guessing you mean that the Leopard installer could be run from the external drive partition, right? I obviously need to learn more about partitions, so excuse the basic level of my questions.

<<Of course, if the DVD is scratched/smudged, and surface scratches are too bad, then that technique may not be successful - but you could try that.>>

The surface of the DVD looks clean, but as I've looked closely under a good light with a magnifying glass, there appears to be some small lines (cracks) under the surface. That may be the problem.

<<All you need for that is an 8GB partition on your external.>>

I've never partitioned a drive before. I'm sure it's easy to do, but at this point, I don't want to make a bad situation worse. My external backup drive (a 500 GB My Passport Studio) has a cloned copy of my unmounted internal drive and I'm not sure I should monkey around with partitioning that external drive until my internal drive is back up and running.

<<Finally, booting a PowerBook requires that the external drive is connected through a Firewire interface. USB won't work without a struggle on PPC Macs. >>

Both of my external drives are currently connected by FireWire. The external backup drive is connected by FW800, so the connection wouldn't be a problem if that drive became bootable.

DeltaMac · 02-05-2013, 08:05 PM

Yes, I mean that you can use the restore function in Disk Utility to "restore" that DVD to a hard drive partition.
Bootable basically means that a drive partition has a bootable system installed. The bootable partition could be an installed bootable system on a partition, and an installer has a bootable system. That's how you install OS X, by booting to disk or partition that has the installer. I have a single hard drive sitting here that has separate partitions for every OS X installer from 10.4 to 10.8, and also separate partitions with installed systems for each version of OS x from Tiger to Mountain Lion.
So, yes, a hard drive can have both a bootable system (which means a desktop, and a finder), and an OS X installer (which by its nature, is bootable, eh?). Or, could have a bunch of bootable partitions, each with different systems....

You can "split" a partition in Disk utility, then resize it to what you need, before you apply the changes to the drive. Open Disk Utility, and look at the help files for, well, help with creating new partitions on a disk.

janess · 02-05-2013, 09:13 PM

Thank you, DeltaMac! Your setup for backup installers and bootables for all of your systems sounds like a genius plan .

I will certainly study up on partitions...I never had to bother with them before. I think I'm still pretty much stuck without having an intact Leopard install DVD right now. The only other solution I can think of is if there's a way to migrate all of the Leopard files, folders, and apps from my Passport backup drive to my currently unmounted internal drive. I still think the Owners Enabled "No" permission likely relates to the mounting problem and can be corrected via Terminal. There does seem to be some strange things going on with my internal drive that need to be cleaned up and if Terminal commands could do it, that would help a lot.

Btw, I just found the following which details a similar problem to the one I'm having with Owners Enabled. Logic would tell me that, if I replaced TMServer" from the example below with my "Mac HD 10.5" internal drive, my permissions problem related to Owners Enabled would be resolved. However, in reality and without having someone confirm what exactly I would need to cut and paste into Terminal, I'd probably end of blowing up my computer. The bottom line is that I think the permissions are easily fixable via Terminal...I just need some help. Take a look...

Source: awkward.org/tag/owners-enabled/
"The only odd thing was that my Time Machine ‘server’ volume reported that “Owners Enabled” was “No” (at the bottom of the Disk Utility window). Disk utility doesn't have a way to change/set this, but there is a command line utility you can run from Terminal that does :
vsdbutil -c /Volumes/TMServer
No entry found for '/Volumes/TMServer'.

If you run vsdbutil with the -a switch it will activate ownership on the specified volume :
bash-3.2# vsdbutil -a /Volumes/TMServer
bash-3.2# vsdbutil -c /Volumes/TMServer
Permissions on '/Volumes/TMServer' are enabled.

Once I re-enabled the Volume as a Shared Folder a Time Machine backup from the MacBook started almost immediately ! Success – Backups Restored !"

02-01-2013, 04:05 PM	#1
janess Prospect Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 44	Strange Terminal Results for Unmountable Internal Hard Drive I have spent hours reviewing the forums, but seem to have a problem that is producing preliminary Terminal results different from others I've read. So, in advance, thank you to anyone who might offer a possible diagnosis/solution. My internal drive will not mount via Disk Utility. The internal drive shows up in DU as a grey generic icon with the following info: Name : Mac HD 10.5 Type : Volume Disk Identifier : disk2s3 Mount Point : Not mounted File System : Mac OS Extended Connection Bus : ATA Partition Type : Apple_HFS Device Tree : pci2/ata-6@D/@0:3 Writable : Yes Capacity : 111.7 GB (119,899,865,088 Bytes) Owners Enabled : No Can Turn Owners Off : Yes Can Be Formatted : Yes Bootable : Yes Supports Journaling : Yes Journaled : No S.M.A.R.T. Status : Verified Disk Number : 2 Partition Number : 3 I am working on a PowerBook G4 (PPC) and am currently booted via an external drive connected by FW400 running Mac OS 10.4.8 (Macintosh HD). Also connected by FW 800 is an external backup drive (My Passport Studio). The Macintosh HD and My Passport Studio seem to be working just fine. The unmounted internal drive (Mac HD 10.5) has Leopard which is another problem entirely. Most immediately, I need to get the internal drive mounted so it can be repaired. Disk Warrior is able to rebuild the directory on the internal drive, but will not replace the rebuilt directory (or give me the option to repair permissions). DW Hardware Test indicates the internal drive is functioning properly. I'm guessing the internal Mac HD 10.5 has a permissions problem that is preventing mounting and, after going through the forums, I opened Terminal and entered: ls -alo /Volumes id echo "done" The results were (IP replaced with x's below for privacy): Last login: Thu Jan 31 06:48:12 on ttyp1 Welcome to Darwin! c-xx-xxx-x-xxx:~ Janessdba$ ls -alo /Volumes total 32 drwxrwxrwt 6 root admin - 204 Jan 29 13:57 . drwxrwxr-t 44 root admin - 1598 Jan 29 13:57 .. -rw-rw-rw- 1 Janessdb admin - 6148 Jan 29 13:57 .DS_Store -rwxrwxrwx 1 Janessdb Janessdb - 82 Dec 27 2005 ._ANDY SASAS' lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin - 1 Jan 29 07:31 Macintosh HD -> / drwxr-xr-x 16 Janessdb Janessdb - 646 Jan 29 15:26 My Passport Studio c-xx-xxx-x-xxx:~ Janessdba$ id uid=501(Janessdba) gid=501(Janessdba) groups=501(Janessdba), 81(appserveradm), 79(appserverusr), 80(admin) c-xx-xxx-x-xxx:~ Janessdba$ echo "done" I am, by no means, experienced with Terminal, but I do notice several odd things in my Volumes query compared to what I've seen in the forums: 1. My problematic, unmounted "Mac HD 10.5" does not show up at all with that name in the Terminal results above. 2. The name "Janessdba" is missing the last letter in several areas and appears as "Janessdb". 3. I have no idea why .DS_Store or ._ANDY SASAS' are showing up at all and have no clue about what that means. 4. No one with the name _ANDY SASAS' has had or should have access to or privileges on my computer and it's unclear what volume that name is attached to. I really need help and hope someone (either a person who is really knowledgeable about Terminal and/or a Mac magician) will see this post and kindly respond. Again, THANK YOU in advance for any help!!! I'm really stuck and baffled.

02-02-2013, 01:10 AM	#2
hayne Site Admin Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Montreal Posts: 31,941	1) I think only the first 8 characters of usernames are shown, so that's the reason for the "Janessdb" 2) Only mounted disks appear (as folders) under /Volumes. An unmounted disk will not appear there - as you have seen. Note that folders are indicated with a 'd' (for "directory") at the beginning of the permissions line you showed. 3) I think the extra files (starting with a dot) are leftovers from having used the Finder to look at the /Volumes folder and having had a network volume mounted at some time in the past. In any case, I don't think those files are related to your problem. 4) I don't think the problems that DiskWarrior is having are related to permissions. Permissions apply to a mounted drive and the drive in question is not mounted. 5) It is quite likely that the fundamental problem is a hardware problem with the drive. How old is this drive? The original hard drive in a PowerBook G4 would be well past its expected useful lifetime. __________________ hayne.net/macosx.html

02-02-2013, 03:33 PM	#3
janess Prospect Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 44	Hi hayne, Thank you very much for responding and any further input that might possibly resolve my problem is much appreciated. Related to the information you provided, including a few questions that I've underlined so they will be easier to see: <<1) I think only the first 8 characters of usernames are shown, so that's the reason for the "Janessdb">> What confused me was that, in the case where the username is followed by "$" and in the uid listing, all 9 characters appear. But it sounds like nothing to worry about. The .DS_Store and ._ANDY SASAS' looked strange to me and I also don't understand why 81(appserveradm) and 79(appserverusr) appear since I don't use an Apple Server. <<2) Only mounted disks appear (as folders) under /Volumes. An unmounted disk will not appear there - as you have seen. Note that folders are indicated with a 'd' (for "directory") at the beginning of the permissions line you showed.>> Got it. <<3) I think the extra files (starting with a dot) are leftovers from having used the Finder to look at the /Volumes folder and having had a network volume mounted at some time in the past. In any case, I don't think those files are related to your problem.>> I don't believe I have ever had a network volume mounted (unless a network volume had something to do with the Leopard OS installation as detailed below under #5). I did recently do a "go to folder" search to inspect /Volumes contents and, yes, Macintosh HD and My Passport Studio were the only items visible there. Can or should the "extra files" (with the names .DS_Store and ._ANDY SASAS') be removed and, if so, how would that be done? <<4) I don't think the problems that DiskWarrior is having are related to permissions. Permissions apply to a mounted drive and the drive in question is not mounted.>> I understand. My reference to DiskWarrior was to convey that the unmountable Mac HD 10.5 is still able to have the entire directory rebuilt perfectly by Disk Warrior. The rebuilt preview drive is an exact replica of the internal drive which was mounted up until a recent computer freeze, except that the DW preview drive also included a ton of Recovered Files folders. However, after the internal drive become unmountable, DW indicated the rebuilt directory could not be replaced. I realize that DW does its work on unmounted drives, but my point was that the contents of the rebuilt DW drive would seem to indicate that the contents of the internal drive is, at least, still intact. I thought, perhaps, this information might be useful in helping to figure out what to do about the mounting problem. If DW is not able to replace a rebuilt directory within the DW application, is it possible to install the rebuilt directory via the Restore function in DU where the DW drive would be the source and a mounted internal drive would be the destination? I thought it would be acceptable to ask this question here (rather than creating a separate post) since DW is being referenced. Related to permissions and mountable status, when I restarted the PowerBook after the last freeze, the internal drive was no longer visible on the desktop. It seems to me that when I restarted the computer from the Tiger system disk using the "C" key, the internal drive was showing as a mounted disk in DU. Then when I restarted with the external Macintosh HD as the startup disk, the internal drive was unmounted and wouldn't mount. I do think something happened with the permissions on the internal drive after the computer freeze. When I click the info button for all three hard drives in DU, the internal drive is the only one that has "No" after Owners Enabled. When I click the mount button for the grey generic internal drive icon in DU, nothing happens. I also tried the mounting application "Mount Me" which gives the option to mount the internal drive and then indicates "Mount attempt succeeded", but nothing happens with the drive. If Owners Enabled is followed by a "No", would or could that prevent the drive from mounting? Is there a basic Terminal command that would fix the permission(s) for the internal drive and change Owners Enabled to a "Yes" without affecting the other two external drives)? <<5) It is quite likely that the fundamental problem is a hardware problem with the drive. How old is this drive? The original hard drive in a PowerBook G4 would be well past its expected useful lifetime.>> The hardware tests I've run on the internal drive indicate no hardware problem and that drive is not making any unusual noises. I'm not certain of the age of the internal drive, but I can't imagine it could be an original drive because the PowerBook's original drives were only 80 GB and the unmounted drive is 120 GB. My original 80 GB PowerBook drive is the external drive I'm using now (Macintosh HD) and it's working fine. My original PowerBook suffered a motherboard failure and I replaced it with a used PowerBook purchased from a retail computer store and that is the computer I am using now. The store indicated they had wiped the contents of the internal 120 GB drive on the used PowerBook, tested all components including the drive, and then installed Leopard 10.5.8 from the store's server (which may explain the appserveradm and appserverusr uid listings in the Terminal results I got). The store's server-installed Leopard system always seemed "wonky" compared to Tiger (lots of spinning beach balls, freezes, and slowness), but I'm trying to avoid a system reinstall for a number of reasons and would like to see if I can get the internal drive mounted and repaired first. Last edited by janess; 02-02-2013 at 03:39 PM.

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02-02-2013, 05:08 PM	#4
DeltaMac League Commissioner Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 7,962	You should try a reinstall of Leopard. A good reason to do that, is that the installer will first run integrity checks on the hard drive, and you should end up with a drive that will boot your system (and therefore be mounted, with the User Enabled then as a Yes. You would install Leopard, using the Option to Archive & Install, which will retain your files and settings. Of course, if your PowerBook is an older one (with a G4 running less than 867 MHz), then you can't do that directly from the installer. Which PowerBook G4 do you have (processor speed would be good to know)? AND how much RAM memory is installed?

02-05-2013, 05:29 PM	#5
janess Prospect Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 44	Hello DeltaMac, Thank you very much for taking the time to read my thread and offer your suggestion about reinstalling Leopard on my PowerBook G4's unmounted, internal drive (and I apologize for the delay in responding). To answer your question about my processor and RAM, the processor is a 1.67 GHz and there is 1 GB of RAM installed with 2 DDR2 SCRAM chips. I'm still interested in learning if there are Terminal commands that might repair and clean permissions/mount my drive, but since you brought up a system reinstall and no one has yet passed along any possible, specific Terminal command fixes (I'm still hopeful), I'll provide info about why I've not yet done a reinstall. Yes, an Archive and Install of Leopard on the internal drive would be the next logical step if permissions can't be repaired and/or the hard drive can't somehow be remounted and then repaired if necessary. In the last sentence of my previous post, I wrote "...I'm trying to avoid a system reinstall for a number of reasons and would like to see if I can get the internal drive mounted and repaired first" and I had also mentioned that Leopard had been problematic. Of course, a reinstall of any type is always a pain in the neck, particularly with the risk of losing settings, preferences, and more. I had actually thought of doing a reinstall a couple of days before I first posted here, but that became an unlikely option because my Leopard install disk (PPC version) kept getting ejected from the PB's drive just as it had finished "spinning up". All other disks that I've run are fine, so I think it's a problem with the Leopard system install disk and not the computer's drive. That's why I indicated earlier that I used my Tiger system disk to restart my PB after the fatal freeze and I've been running Tiger on the PB via my external HD ever since (which has been running flawlessly...fast, smooth, and cool). Over the course of many hours and many days, I finally got someone at Apple Tech Support to talk to me about this last week. Apple is willing to send a new set of PPC Leopard system disks, but because that is no longer a high priority item or something carried by the Apple Store online or in the retail Apple Stores, I was told it could take up to 3-4 weeks to receive the disks. The Mac Tech Support person also told me that, given how slow and wonky Leopard was running from the start, I should have applied Apple's Leopard Combo Updater to the 10.5.8 system that had been installed from the computer store's server when I purchased the PB, but I can't do that now because the internal disk won't mount. My only other alternative for fairly immediate system reinstallation, I think, would be to go back to the retail computer store where I purchased the replacement PB (more than a 2 hour drive each way) and have the store reinstall Leopard. I think I could also try something via Target Disk Mode, but the problem there is that the only computer options available to host that operation are Intel MacBooks and I don't think that would work for a reinstall. I do have the contents of my internal drive backed up on my Passport external drive, but that is not a bootable drive and I don't know how to make that drive bootable so I could reinstall Leopard. That is why I'm trying to get some advice here about how I might possibly repair permissions and remount my internal hard drive via some cut and paste Terminal commands from a knowledgeable and trustworthy source. I'm certainly interested in any further suggestions, in addition to getting answers to my questions in my 2nd post above related to permissions and Terminal commands.

02-05-2013, 06:05 PM	#6
DeltaMac League Commissioner Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 7,962	I've had good luck with "restoring" a Leopard installer DVD to a dedicated partition on an external hard drive. You might find that even through the Leopard DVD doesn't seem to work, that restoring the DVD to a hard drive will boot. Of course, if the DVD is scratched/smudged, and surface scratches are too bad, then that technique may not be successful - but you could try that. All you need for that is an 8GB partition on your external. Finally, booting a PowerBook requires that the external drive is connected through a Firewire interface. USB won't work without a struggle on PPC Macs.

02-05-2013, 07:27 PM	#7
janess Prospect Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 44	Hi DeltaMac, Thank you for your good suggestions. I really appreciate your input. I still think I need to correct a permissions issue on my internal drive in order to get the drive mounted. I hope someone will maybe have some suggestions for possible Terminal commands that might do the trick. In the meantime... <<I've had good luck with "restoring" a Leopard installer DVD to a dedicated partition on an external hard drive. >> Do you mean "restore", as in the Restore function in Disk Utility? Also, if an installer DVD is put onto an external drive's dedicated partition, does the external drive become an installer, as well as a bootable drive? I think the answer would be yes, but I'm not sure. <<You might find that even through the Leopard DVD doesn't seem to work, that restoring the DVD to a hard drive will boot.>> How would your suggestion work if the PB keeps spitting the Leopard system disk out of the drive slot after about 15 seconds? Also, even if my external drive could become bootable with Leopard, how would I get Leopard onto my internal drive if that drive won't mount? That's the whole point...to get my internal drive working again with Leopard so I can access my 10.5 apps and not have 1-2 external drives dangling from my PB. I'm guessing you mean that the Leopard installer could be run from the external drive partition, right? I obviously need to learn more about partitions, so excuse the basic level of my questions. <<Of course, if the DVD is scratched/smudged, and surface scratches are too bad, then that technique may not be successful - but you could try that.>> The surface of the DVD looks clean, but as I've looked closely under a good light with a magnifying glass, there appears to be some small lines (cracks) under the surface. That may be the problem. <<All you need for that is an 8GB partition on your external.>> I've never partitioned a drive before. I'm sure it's easy to do, but at this point, I don't want to make a bad situation worse. My external backup drive (a 500 GB My Passport Studio) has a cloned copy of my unmounted internal drive and I'm not sure I should monkey around with partitioning that external drive until my internal drive is back up and running. <<Finally, booting a PowerBook requires that the external drive is connected through a Firewire interface. USB won't work without a struggle on PPC Macs. >> Both of my external drives are currently connected by FireWire. The external backup drive is connected by FW800, so the connection wouldn't be a problem if that drive became bootable.

02-05-2013, 08:05 PM	#8
DeltaMac League Commissioner Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 7,962	Yes, I mean that you can use the restore function in Disk Utility to "restore" that DVD to a hard drive partition. Bootable basically means that a drive partition has a bootable system installed. The bootable partition could be an installed bootable system on a partition, and an installer has a bootable system. That's how you install OS X, by booting to disk or partition that has the installer. I have a single hard drive sitting here that has separate partitions for every OS X installer from 10.4 to 10.8, and also separate partitions with installed systems for each version of OS x from Tiger to Mountain Lion. So, yes, a hard drive can have both a bootable system (which means a desktop, and a finder), and an OS X installer (which by its nature, is bootable, eh?). Or, could have a bunch of bootable partitions, each with different systems.... You can "split" a partition in Disk utility, then resize it to what you need, before you apply the changes to the drive. Open Disk Utility, and look at the help files for, well, help with creating new partitions on a disk.

02-05-2013, 09:13 PM	#9
janess Prospect Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 44	Thank you, DeltaMac! Your setup for backup installers and bootables for all of your systems sounds like a genius plan . I will certainly study up on partitions...I never had to bother with them before. I think I'm still pretty much stuck without having an intact Leopard install DVD right now. The only other solution I can think of is if there's a way to migrate all of the Leopard files, folders, and apps from my Passport backup drive to my currently unmounted internal drive. I still think the Owners Enabled "No" permission likely relates to the mounting problem and can be corrected via Terminal. There does seem to be some strange things going on with my internal drive that need to be cleaned up and if Terminal commands could do it, that would help a lot. Btw, I just found the following which details a similar problem to the one I'm having with Owners Enabled. Logic would tell me that, if I replaced TMServer" from the example below with my "Mac HD 10.5" internal drive, my permissions problem related to Owners Enabled would be resolved. However, in reality and without having someone confirm what exactly I would need to cut and paste into Terminal, I'd probably end of blowing up my computer. The bottom line is that I think the permissions are easily fixable via Terminal...I just need some help. Take a look... Source: awkward.org/tag/owners-enabled/ "The only odd thing was that my Time Machine ‘server’ volume reported that “Owners Enabled” was “No” (at the bottom of the Disk Utility window). Disk utility doesn't have a way to change/set this, but there is a command line utility you can run from Terminal that does : vsdbutil -c /Volumes/TMServer No entry found for '/Volumes/TMServer'. If you run vsdbutil with the -a switch it will activate ownership on the specified volume : bash-3.2# vsdbutil -a /Volumes/TMServer bash-3.2# vsdbutil -c /Volumes/TMServer Permissions on '/Volumes/TMServer' are enabled. Once I re-enabled the Volume as a Shared Folder a Time Machine backup from the MacBook started almost immediately ! Success – Backups Restored !"