Hard Disk Drive
Troubleshooting
The troubleshooting of hard disk drive
problems could probably fill an entire book. When it gets down to
the bottom line, however, there are three basic kinds of problems you
might have with a hard disk drive. Each requires very different
troubleshooting actions and different levels of risk.
The script below combines the functions of several others on this
site into one “optimization” script. It cleans up the
various caches, updates prebindings to improve system performance,
repairs permissions on the startup disk, and reboots the
computer.
It must be run with administrator privileges in order to
work properly.
As with all my scripts, this one is offered
“as is” without warranty or support. If you choose to
use it, you accept all liability and responsibility for whatever might
happen to your system (good or bad).
This script, which can be executed from a command line or via cron,
will attempt to repair permissions on all the drives attached to the
system. If, for any reason, permissions can’t be repaired on a
given volume (e.g., permissions are turned off on that volume), it will
generate an error and move on to the next volume.
This script has
been tested on OS X 10.3.x. It may work on earlier or later OS X
versions, but I don’t warrant that. By choosing to use this
script, you assume all responsibility for the outcome (good or
bad). I do not support this script but will except bug fixes if
you make any, or improvements.
In December, we moved to a new home. This home was Last night I was I unplugged the damaged cord so that I That caused me to think about ground fault I went back in and reset every single circuit This caused me to mentally establish the If
built in 1994, so while it may not be state-of-the-art, it is much newer
than any other home I’ve ever lived in. It’s also probably a great deal
newer than any apartment I lived in before that. So every once in a
while something goes wrong and I find that it’s a “learning
experience” to figure out how to fix it because the new house is so
different from anything I’ve known before.
trimming the boxwood hedges around the back of the house. It was
something I’d never done before, so I was nervous about it, but I seemed
to be doing a pretty darned good job (if I say so myself). As I was
trimming the hedges around the ornamental fish pond out back, I lost my
balance a bit and the trimmers caught the power cord for the pond’s
water pump. Naturally, this shorted out the wiring and (I thought)
tripped a circuit breaker.
could stop the short circuit and went inside to the breaker box in the
basement. After looking very carefully at all the breakers, none
appeared to be tripped. Nevertheless, I reset every one of them that I
thought could possibly be the problem. No good. Still no power to any
outlet outside.
interruptors (GFIs). These devices look like a standard electrical
outlet, but with an extra button or two on them. The purpose of the
device is to prevent electric shock in the event (for instance) I had
fallen into the ornamental pond carrying the electric hedge trimmers. I
figured the short-circuit caused by cutting the pond pump wire probably
tripped one of these rather than a circuit breaker in the breaker box.
After walking all around the house, I saw that none of the outside
outlets had a GFI on it. I figured I must have just missed the breaker
in the basement.
breaker. No good. Still no power outside. Totally lost at this point to
explain the lack of power outside, I spoke with a family friend (who
built his own house, so he knows quite a bit about how houses work). He
told me that it is possible the GFI for the outside outlets isn’t
outside at all. It could be an outlet in the kitchen, a bathroom, a
bedroom, etc. I didn’t know it could work that way. I went around to all
the GFIs in the house and, sure enough, a GFI in the downstairs bathroom
had been tripped. After resetting that GFI, power was restored to the
outside outlets.
following “electrical troubleshooting” procedure when a device
quits working:
unplugged.
house.
worn outlet can lose contact.
in another outlet that you know has power.
electric outlet isn’t connected to a switch that has been flipped
off.
to the power outage, remembering that the GFI might be in a different
room or on a different floor of the house.
breaker that might have been tripped by your activity.
all the above fails, it’s either time to call an electrician or a more
knowledgeable friend.