Re: How do I run an ??????????????????

In article <47966f1a$0$90270$14726298@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
AV3 <arvimide@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In the interest of full disclosure, I am doing this because my hard
disk, which contains three OS's (OSX, Vista, and Ubuntu), displayed
"Invalid node structure" after I tried to repair the disk with Disk
Utility; DiskWarrior also failed to repair it but without a specified
reason.

Presumably this means your HD has at least 3 partitions with only the
Mac partition set up in HFS+ journaled. I don't run other OSes on my
Macs so I don't know whether such a setup as yours is asking for trouble
or not. However, I'd be suspicious that it might be fragile, meaning
prone to file structure corruption,

I took the computer to a nearby Apple store and the "genius"
recommended replacing the hard disk as it had already proved
unrepairable by Disk Utility and DiskWarrior.

If Disk Warrior can't repair it (and by 'it' I mean the Mac OS
partition; see paragraph above), then at least the partition is hosed.
The only solution is to backup what you can an reformat at least the Mac
partition. Don't know about damage to the other partitions file system
structures. However, the remaining question is why. From what you
describe (and admitting I don't know how the foreign file systems might
affect this), It could be that the hard drive is dying or just that the
HFS+ system is irreparable.

When I took it back backed
up and ready for a week's absence, a second "genius" suggested a clean
install (erasing the entire disk and reinstalling each OS clean), having
noted that there was some indication of a healthy disk without the
non-Apple OS's. He said a preliminary run of "fsck -y" (sic!) might
repair the disk.

The f in the fsck is optional. From the man pages it means 'Force fsck
to check `clean' filesystems when preening.' It was originally not
mentioned by Apple with OS 10, but came into prominence in the last
couple years. Evidently there is a bit in the OS which classifies the
system as okay, aka 'clean', but the OS may be corrupted anyway. Adding
the f arguments sidesteps this ambiguity.

That done, followed by the above googling and further
file checks, I arrive at this point.

How old is your hard drive. If â?¤3yrs, try reinstalling the system and
see if it holds, as in doesn't get corrupted again. If it does, then the
HD is probably headed for retirement.

Is it possible that the damaged
"node structure" is preventing the various "fsck"'s from running?

Yes. If the file system is sufficiently corrupted, no utility can fix
it. You should try to determine the cause, fix that, and reinstall the
system. You didn't mention if there was any reporting by DiskWarrior in
it's unsuccessful attempt. Such info might help use narrow the causal
suspects.

In that case, will applejack help?

No. It's just a frontend, though a very useful one, for utilities which
already exist in the system.

...
I am grasping at straws trying to avoid the inconvenient hours and hours
clean installs will cost me.

You may very likely have to bite the bullet.

Also, my computer runs smoothly in all three OS's, so I feel no urgency.

If the system is so corrupt that DiskWarrior can't fix it, it's a
ticking time bomb. At the very least keep multiple, current backups.

--Fred
.