HELP!! Mac Pro drives locked up!

[Jax]

I was trying to install PT 8 on my Mac Pro with 10.5.3 when the PT installer brought up a window saying it will only work with 10.5.5. I downloaded the 10.5.5 update and attempted installing it on my system drive when I got another window, saying that the drive did not meet the requirements for installing 10.5.5. None of my 3 other internal drives would take the update for the same reason.

Thinking it was related to disk permissions, I (stupidly?) changed permissions on the system drive to the account with my name on it. I thought it would be fine because the account was at the administrator level. After it completed "applying to enclosed," every drive except the system's had a padlock icon in one corner and upon checking the permissions, they all changed to "custom." No amount of trying to reset any account to allow "read and write" or 'ignore ownership" would change anything! Each drive when opened gave the message "you do not have sufficient access privileges." .... What?!

From there, I went into Disk Utility and tried "repair disk permissions" which yielded the message "the underlying task reported failure on exit."

I'm not sure what to do now, but I found the following on the net. Does this method work? :

You can optimize OS X by running File System Check. This will search for file system errors and make the corrections needed.

To run OS X File System Check:

1. Click on Apple menu - Restart

2. At the chime or right when the screen shuts off, press and hold Command + S to startup in Single User mode.

3. At the command prompt local host:/ root# / type the following:
/sbin/fsck -fy


4. Press the Return key. This executes the File System Check and allows any repairs needed. Notice the display indicating what is being checked (HFS Plus volume, Extents Overflow file, Catalog file, multi-linked files, Catalog hierarchy, volume bit map, volume information).

5. If errors are found, you'll see notices during the check or the message FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED. Run the File System Check command (/sbin/fsck -fy) again until all errors are repaired and you see the message The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK.

6. At the command prompt local host:/ root# / type the following:
reboot


It is good practice to run File System Check once per month and before any system update to help keep your Mac error-free!
Last Updated ( Monday, 03 November 2008

[Jax]

BTW, why did the 10.5.5 update say my system drives did not meet the installation requirements? They had ample space.

[rcb4t2]

Oooh... I had this same problem a while back - identical problem, and I was able to fix it. It took a lot of google hunting to get the answer - I'm going to try to find out what the answer was and check back here. It IS fixable though, but be careful! I think it had something to do with logging in as root... I'll try to find it, there was a post on the apple site w/ the fix... ttyl...

[rcb4t2]

Okay, I think this was it - research this on your own before you proceed, because I'm not going to guarantee that this was what I used!! That said, I'm pretty sure it was this "sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes drive name" command they refer to in this link: I think you had to authenticate as root user in the terminal to execute - read up, tho, before you do anything!

Apple - Support - Discussions - Serious trouble with permissions and ...

Good luck, and don't f*** with your permissions unless you know!

[Jax]

Thanks for the ideas! The thread in that link is a bit convoluted, but I might be able to get something out of it. Believe me, I've been researching all over the web quite a bit and there are a few things I can try. The first thing to do is back up everything I can before using any command lines. The good thing is I already have about 60% on other drives in an older computer. However, I will want to get everything in its current state off the newer computer.

I'm planning on removing drives so there's only one drive in there at a time (apart from the system's), backing up that drive, THEN trying a command line (fsck) on the affected drive. If that command line or others don't fix the problem, I can wipe the drive clean and load the backup onto it.

The only reason I'm hesitant to try some of the methods in the link you gave is that the information is 2-3 years old, and things may have changed since it was posted.

If anyone else can offer some ideas, I'll gladly investigate them!

[rcb4t2]

Fair enough, I'll just say I had this problem w/ 10.5.? about 3-5 months ago. I did not use fsck, I know that, like I said I'm pretty sure it was the sudo chflags command. Your backup will have the same permissions issues....

[Jax]

Hey, I didn't mean to sound ungrateful for your help. Was out of patience at my last message, damn near tearing my scalp off to get this ****in thing fixed...

Since you mentioned using the sudo chflags command within the last handful of months (thanks, btw), I just read through the entire thread - and most of the threads linked within it - from your link above. Although I haven't had a chance to try it yet (the computer in question is at a different location), it looks promising.

Did you have to run the chmod command also, to remove the ACL's? Or did the sudo chflags thing iron everything out? After reading the thread, I hesitate to **** with ACL's at all.

I'm betting Apple will release an update that fixes what seems to be a bug. 10.5.6 might even be it, although reading the detailed description of What's New in 10.5.6 doesn't make it clear.

[Jax]

Btw, in case anyone finds this thread again in the future, the fsck command doesn't seem to change anything in the given situation. It didn't for anyone in the linked thread(s) either.

[rcb4t2]

You didn't sound ungrateful, no worries. When this happened to me I almost f-ing threw the computer out the window, so I understand your frustrations. However, this is not a bug and will not be fixed by an update - sorry, but you f-ed up. You shouldn't change permissions, b/c then only the user, not the root, or system, etc. can use them right. You especially shouldn't change permissions on a whole drive.

That said, and again, I'm not sure which command it was I used (soooo unhelpful, I know), but I only had to do one terminal command and everything was fine. Have you called Apple about this yet, btw?

Okay, I just spent like an hour reading through some apple forums... it looks like a "sudo chflags -R nouchg" command in the terminal will unlock locked files. I'm not sure if this will set the permissions to what they *should* be, but it ought to unlock them. Then maybe a "repair permissions" might work.

Also, here's a link about this that's from real power users, not "help me n00bs" like some of the mac forums have...

Hard Drive Root Locked (Leopard Install)... [Archive] - The macosxhints Forums

I fully think the sudo chflags blah blah command will work for you. (but of course claim no liability lol) Good luck!

[Jax]

The sudo chflags nouchg command worked!! Many, many thanks! thumbsupthumbsup

At first I thought it didn't do anything because the locks remained. However, I followed a hunch and looked at each drive in Disk Utility. Upon double clicking a drive's mount point (in blue 'clickable' text near the bottom left), it opened in the Finder WITHOUT the padlock icon. Then using Get Info, I thought 'well ****, the permissions are unchanged,' but I was able to change them to Read and Write again, which fixed the access problems. I can use my drives as normal again! HELL YES.

I'm looking into Time Machine now in case this ever happens again - which it probably won't because I won't be toying with permissions again. I don't know if Time Machine is the best bet now or something like Carbon Copy or Super Duper, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out. If Time Machine keeps permissions exactly the same then I'll be using it.

[rcb4t2]

Glad it worked! In my experience Time Machine drives work perfectly for restoring drives. Hourly backups browsable by hour all the way back as far as your backup drive can hold - pretty awesome.

edit: the only pain in the arse thing I've encountered w/ time machine is that sometimes it messes with the recording process - when I remember to I turn it off while tracking...