Tag Archives: troubleshooting

I’m Back…and So Is this Site

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I return from a week-long road trip to Napa Valley and get the server up and running again.

I left last Wednesday morning with Mike for a week-long road trip to California. We’d gotten a free 4-day weekend at the Napa Valley Lodge (long story) and decided to drive on up rather than fly. The trip gave me lots to blog about and, since I didn’t bring my laptop with me, I have a lot of catching up to do. Look for entries about our experiences — including the drive up the California coast, our mud baths, and crossing the Sierras during a thunderstorm — in the days to come.

Of course, the server went down while we were away. I think it crashed sometime on Monday, because the last backup I got via e-mail was dated early Monday morning. I discovered it was down when I got home last night, but wasn’t willing to drive the 5 miles to my office to check it. Worries — and the dog’s panting, for some reason — kept me up half the night, imagining a fire had swept through the building, consuming my equipment.

But this morning the building was still standing. When I turned the server’s monitor on, I saw a message telling me that the computer needed to be restarted. (Duh.) I restarted it and everything is now working fine.

Now I need to get back to work. I have a deadline ahead that is going to ruin my July 4th weekend — but I can’t really complain, since I just got back from vacation. I do want to finish the book on time, though, so my editor can get some sleep.

Hard Disk Project Done

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And problems gone (knock wood).

If you’ve been following this topic, you know that I was having hard disk problems and decided to resolve them by reformatting my hard disk and reinstalling all my software from scratch.

After some problems getting Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger to install properly — I think there were scratches or dust on the disc — I was finally able to start installing software on my hard disk. iLife ’06 went first because I needed to work with iWeb for a project and I wanted to get my iPhoto library back online. One by one I pulled out the original program discs for my big software products: Microsoft Office, Photoshop, and InDesign. And then I pulled out the archives I use to save the original installers for downloaded software like Fetch, Nicecast, Audacity, and others. It took me most of the day last Wednesday to get the job 75% done. I’ll do the rest as I need to.

One thing that disappointed me was that I couldn’t find my original Auto F/X Photographic Edges disc. I use that product to add interesting edges to photos on wickenburg-az.com. But I poked around on the Web and found an old article (and here’s another one) that explained how to add interesting edge effects with various built-in Photoshop filters. I created an effect I liked, turned it into a Photoshop action, and can now apply it without the overhead of the Auto F/X package.

It took quite a while to get all my music and photos from the backup hard disk to my nice, clean hard disk. But everything transfered over without problems and I can access everything just like I could before the reformat.

The result of all this work and worry? My computer is running great, with no unexplained pauses, unexpectedly quitting applications, or lockups. Was it worth it? Of course it was!

Off to a Slow Start

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After a tense few hours or so, I finally get Mac OS X Tiger reinstalled on my hard disk.

I started my disk reformatting project this morning as soon as I got to the office.

The first step was to archive all the stuff I didn’t need on my hard disk but didn’t want to throw away. Fortunately, all this stuff — primarily software and updaters I’ve downloaded over the past few months — was already in its own folder and would fit on a CD. I made the CD and deleted the originals.

Then came the final backup. I quit all open applications and plugged in the portable FireWire hard disk I bought a few months ago. Then I dragged my Home folder onto the hard disk icon. And waited.

It took close to an hour to count up all the files — 25 GB worth — and copy them onto the disk. While my main computer did that, I made a list of all the applications I’d want to reinstall. Then I plugged in my laptop and wrote a letter.

Next step was to restart the computer from the Tiger Install DVD. But before I started the install process, I used Disk Utility to erase the hard disk, writing over the entire surface with 0s. This is designed for security, but I used the feature to ensure that there were no phantom files on the disk and to force the computer to create brand new directories.

It took about an hour for the computer to finish this task and, when it was finished, it wouldn’t finish. I mean, it said it was creating the partition, but it kept saying that for another 30 minutes or so. There’s no way it should take so long to finish the job. So I quit Disk Utility, ignoring the warning that the disk might not be usable.

That was probably a mistake.

I then went back into Disk Utility and formatted the hard disk without the 0s. It finished up quickly and I was ready to install Tiger.

I set options so I wouldn’t have all those language files and weird fonts installed. I don’t need them and they just take up space on my computer. And clutter up my font menus. I also told the Installer to format the hard disk — why not? — and set the installer to work.

While the installer worked, I finished my letter. But when I tried to print it, I couldn’t. Both printers are “shared” through my production machine and its hard disk had been wiped clean. I could either mess around with the printer cables or wait. I decided to wait.

It would be a long wait. After a while, the Installer told me there was an error in the installation and that I should try again.

I did. Four times. I got an error message each time.

I tried working with Disk Utility again. It started giving me error messages. It couldn’t format the disk because it couldn’t unmount it. Then I shut down and tried to restart from the Disk Warrior CD. No way. TechTools didn’t work, either. It was the Tiger DVD or nothing.

When I had the Tiger CD out of the drive, I checked it over carefully. It looked scratched. I wondered whether it had gotten the scratches in my office or on the worktable at the Apple Store. I wiped it before sticking it back in. Then I started the installer for the fifth time. While it worked, I started surfing the ‘Net from my laptop, looking for a replacement hard drive.

I was ready to start making phone calls when I looked over and saw that the installer had finished without any errors. I restarted the computer and was very happy to see the computer start from the hard disk.

Whew!

By now it was after noon and I had to meet someone at 3 PM. So I started installing software and copying documents from the portable hard disk. At the same time.

Did you know that iLife ’06 takes close to an hour to install on a Dual G5?

I used the .Mac sync feature to get my address book and calendar from my .Mac account. I copied the contents of my Mail folder (in my Library folder) to the same place on the new hard disk and my mail was all restored. I copied my iTunes music library over — all 3,000+ songs. iTunes works great. When I left, the computer was working on the 11,000+ pictures in my Pictures folder. With luck, iPhoto will work great when I get to the office tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I’ll finish installing the software and documents. And then I’ll get back to work.