Mac HDD issues-Found when using Photoshop.

[mattsuzu]

May possibly be softwareware but none the less please help me if you can!

Have a g3 Blue/White tower, clocked at 400mhz, 640mb ram (photoshop set to 80% ram usage) 160gb Western Digital drive, DL DVD Burner, OS 10.4.3

Just recently after a few brush strokes photoshop errors out saying there was an error writing to the scratch disk -36. (which is the same disk as the OS is on)
P.S. what does scratch disk do anyway?

The only way to get over it is to force quit and re-open photoshop, loosing work. Only for it to do it again.

Disk utility tells me my disk needs repair, as:
" Keys out of order
The volume MacHD needs to be repaired.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit"


Booting off install CD to repair disk.

Please help, i've just biult this machine from spares and i really want it to work as i've already pretty well given my mum my old PC that i built for Graphic Design... So i'm up S#@*T creek without a paddle if nobody has any ideas. Thankyou for your time.
Matt Dean

 

[mattsuzu]

Okay, after booting up off my Tiger install dvd heres what i get when trying to repair disk...

Keys out of order
Rebuilding catalogue B-tree
Invalid Key Length
Missing thread record id=92792
Missing thread record id=96967
Invalid extent entry
unable to repair disk.....

Also tried a re-install over th etop, however it errored out. Tried a different install disk aswell, same error. Errors during "Prepare Disk" process.

Looks like its a re-partition/format and install for me... yay

Before i do, what would have caused such an error exactly? The systems only been build a couple of weeks. Since then i did have some RAM caused Kernal panics which caused some nasty lockups, related you think? I've found the bad stick and thrown it long ago and the system has been working great ever since. The only other thing that doesn't work properly is microsoft RDC will not open nomatter how many times i've re-installed it...

So yeah, in short before i've gotta do all this will it fix the problem, what could have caused the problem, and how do i stop it from happening again...

Thanks for your help, i'm really looking forward to a reply!

 

[mattsuzu]

update : photoshop will now not even start - because"the file is missing" it says ... hmmm might re-install it

 

[drlex]

matt,
Sounds like your HDD might be on the way out. You say your system is built from spares - is it old or of unknown history (gift from friend, etc)? Otherwise, had any brown-outs or power-cuts or someone helpfully disconnect the power when booting? HDDs are pretty cheap these days and can save a lot of woe - your old one could always be relegated to backup in a cheap enclosure.

AFAIK, scratch disk is the method by which PS stores history on your HDD rather than in RAM. Some users will designate a partition as a scratch disk to speed up PS and minimise file fragmentation on the rest of the disk.

soi la, soi carré

 

[mattsuzu]

Thanks, infact the hard drive is two weeks old - i bought a new one cause old hard disks S@#T me! Probly a partition i'd say will fix it but was wondering the cause - what are the files its missing do you know?

 

[mattsuzu]

oh yeah, just to fill you in there were some failed boot attempts in which the system had to be turned off when i had teh bad RAM stick... Possibly more than likely the cause i'd say - what do you think?

 

[jmgalvin]

There's a possibility that your hard drive is defective.

You can try this first. Run disk utility from the OS install cd and Repair. After that's done, and it reports that the drive was repaired, run it again to check the drive. If it reports all is well, you can try to work and see how it goes.

A more thorough fix is to boot from the OS install cd-dvd and run Disk Utility to wipe and initilaize the drive. Then install Photoshop and see if it works ok. If not, you most likely have a defective drive. You could try reinstalling teh old drive and see how things work. If that workd ok, you know the newer drive is bad. Also, make sure all the wires are seated well on the drive.

You mentioned a bad RAM module. Is your RAM seated properly? Yes, a bad RAM module can cause all sorts of problems, but bad RAm is very rare. Does About the Computer on teh Apple menu report all the RAM that's installed. If not, you mirght try reseating the RAM.

The scratch disk for photoshop is not all that necessary with newer machines, including a g3 blue and white (I have one too). I used to be used more when computers held little RAM and were constantly hitting the hard drive for virtual memory. Adobe advised that you use another disk to store all your work - the scratch disk - to avoid data loss.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[mattsuzu]

could be a possibility. all ram is seated properly - and as for the bad stick, they all came from upstairs at work (written off machines) so yeah it increases the chance of a bad stick. However the hard drive as i said was purchased new.

Booting off the cd still could not repair the drive using disk util. So i've re-partitioned the drive, but OS is erroring out still on install.

I've whacked the hard drive in my PC and formatting it to ntfs thoroughly, then i'll re-partition the drifve from the mac using os journalled and see how we go. Otherwise its RA time for the hard drive!

I appreciate all your input!