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General discussion

"IOATA Controller device blocking bus"

Oct 14, 2007 4:21AM PDT

OK... so my little iBook ran fine part of the morning until I plugged in that darn thumbdrive I was messing with last night, and tried to drag a song to it from iTunes (for my friend) I got the spinning beach ball, and it wouldn't go away. I have rebooted several times using the on/off button and the same thing happens. Using the hardware test disc, everything comes up A-OK. Booted up in safe/single user mode and activated AppleJack disc utility. Starting on the first activity (Disc Repair) it got all the way down to ** Checking Catalog Hierarchy... and now I got a string of messages saying...

"IOATA Controller device blocking bus"

Disk0s3: I/O timeout.
Followed by Missing thread recovery (id=3417491)
Invalid directory item count
(it should be 0 instead of 1)

and then some more... "IOATA Controller device blocking bus"

What is going on?

Thanks for any advice.

grim

1.2 ghz G4 iBook
OS X 10.4.10

Discussion is locked

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Well, upon doing some research...
Oct 14, 2007 5:05AM PDT

... it looks like this message is a foretelling of imminent Hard Drive failure. At least according to this old macosxhints forum thread I dug up The HD had been making strange sounds, on and off, for over a month now. Strange that the apple hardware test didn't show any problems.

I back up fairly regularly to 2 different external HD's so I hopefully won't lose too much. I shall let the iBook cool down and see if I can get any other stuff off it before it totally crashes. Any advice on free or cheap back up utilites out there that I could use to capture the whole HD onto another external drive?

Also, until I crack my iBook to replace the HD... what is the best method for installing the OS to an external HD so I can use my iBook? If it involves using a properly functioning iBook to get started, then that is OK... since I can use my friends iBook to get started.

Thanks for any and all advice

grim

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From memory.
Oct 14, 2007 5:32AM PDT

Any firewire connected hard disk should be a candidate for MacOSX and your laptop.

Bob

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(NT) Thanks Bob
Oct 14, 2007 5:43AM PDT
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As they say in all the best medical movies,
Oct 14, 2007 6:43AM PDT

I concur

P

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LOL
Oct 14, 2007 7:08AM PDT

I thought you were going to say...

"It's dead, Jim"

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No, that quote is:
Oct 14, 2007 7:57AM PDT

It's worse than that,

He's (It's) dead, Jim (Grim)

:-0

Keep smiling, Look on the bright side,
Ok, there is no bright side,
There's a bright light though, but you're gonna want to stay away from that.

P

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OK, back to serious questions.
Oct 14, 2007 8:15AM PDT

Once my HD cooled down, I was again able to access the hard drive and dragged my iPhoto, iTunes, etc. folders over to an external USB HD formated for apple (journaled) yada, yada,yada. I have a Firewire drive I can move this to later, but I need to reformat it first.

Now... where is my folders for Address Book, My saved Mac Mails, and iCal information stored at? How do I back those up?

Anything I'm forgetting?

Thanks for any advice.

Jim.. I mean Grim

Wink

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Places
Oct 14, 2007 9:59AM PDT

The address book stuff is in your home folder/Library/Application Support/Address Book
The Mail stuff is in the Home/Library/Mail.

As far as I can figure, the iCal stuff is in the Home/Library/Preferences. Everything that has iCal in it.

P

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FYI... iCal & Address Book...
Oct 15, 2007 6:42AM PDT

... both offer Back up functions in the file menu. When you back them up using this function the back will be stamped with the date you backed up. You can save it anywhere.

One caveat... If you double click on the back up for Address Book to see what is there, you get a message telling you it will overwrite your current address book listings. Consequently, it would be wise to back up every time you change your address book if you want to use this function. I don't know if you can automate this process but it wouldn't surprise me if you could.


I haven't got farther than this because my HD heats up and freezes. Happy

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HD heating up
Oct 15, 2007 9:50PM PDT

Nice to know information about the iCal and Address Book.

How friendly are you with your local Circle K, 7-11, neighborhood liquor store?
Speak nicely to them and they may let you work in their cooler, at least for long enough to get the data of the drive.

Just a thought. Alternatively, putting the HD into the freezer for 24 hours works too.


P

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OK, I'm frustrated now... but I do have what resembles a mac
Oct 16, 2007 1:04AM PDT

Borrowed a friends iBook and reformatted and installed tiger onto my Western Digital "My Book" fire wire HD. My iBook HD is completely FUBAR now, so I booted up off of the original panther disc that came with my iBook. The external fire wire drive spun up when I booted. I select change start up disc from the drop down menu... select the fire wire drive as the start up disc and got the little rolling wagon wheel for like ten minutes. It finally rebooted and I'm up and running again... minus the former mobility that I enjoyed.

Now, the broken HD in my iBook is buzzing away like a hornet trapped in a paper bag. The computer will go to sleep when I shut the screen of the note book. The only thing I failed to save from my original files was my book marks and my emails (oh, and all my applications have to be reloaded, of course) Happy Sad Happy Sad

So, apple care ran out long ago... I am not intimidated by tearing the little sucker apart and replacing the HD. IFIXIT.com seems to have fairly complete instructions and lots of pictures.

So, time to get an HD and set aside a day to dissect my iBook (I read online that it takes an experienced tech an hour to replace an iBook HD, and involves 50 screws, not to mention prying the case apart).

In the meantime... should I worry about the old HD still buzzing in my iBookand keeping the left hand corner of my iBook nice and warm?

Where should I buy a new HD and what brand and speed of new HD should I get?

Will my computer take ten minutes to boot off of an external HD like it did the first time I did it?

Should I do anything else as part of preventive maintainance to my iBook while I have it open?

What do you all think of the unexpected upsets in this years NCAA foot ball rankings and whop do you think will make it to the national championships?

Will Janet on days of our lives ever find out that Brad's new secretary she is so jelous of... is really her illegitimate daughter she gave up for adoption when she was young?

All these questions and more... I have. Suddenly, talking like Yoda, I am?

cheers

grim "with too little sleep and grumpy because I'm using a PC" graphix

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Well, I restarted my iBook, trying to boot up...
Oct 16, 2007 2:33AM PDT

... off of my external HD (after updating the OS to 10.4.10)... and all I have seen for ten minutes is the spinning wagon wheel (not the beach ball) indicating the computer is trying to boot. Should I be worried about this lengthy period being an indicator there are other problems with my iBook, other than my internal HD?

All I did was click on "restart" after the OS update. Did I need to use the option key to choose the boot drive again or would the computer know to start off the external HD since that was the last disc used?

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My iBook is refusing to boot from my external HD
Oct 16, 2007 3:28AM PDT

It recognizes it, when I restart the computer using the option key... but the spinning wristwatch keeps spinning, stopping me from selecting the hd to start from. The internal HD is buzzing away but won't show up as a choice. I let it run for a good half hour and nothing.

Anyone have a clue as to what is happening?

grim

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Time to remove the internal.
Oct 16, 2007 5:03AM PDT

It's on a connection that could cause some machines to fail to boot.

Bob

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Thanks, I was thinking the same thing...
Oct 16, 2007 5:38AM PDT
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Update re: booting off of external hard drive.
Oct 16, 2007 1:05PM PDT

So, I borrowed my friend's iBook and tried to boot up my firewire drive on his computer so as to double check why it wouldn't boot up on my iBook with the faulty HD (buzzing away).

IT REFUSED TO BOOT !!!

So I archived and reloaded Tiger back to the state where it was this morning... before I updated the OS to 10.4.10. Before... when the external drive did work on my iBook.

IT NOW BOOTS !!!

Evidently, there was some lethal code in the upgrade process which made my fire wire external drive stop functioning as a boot drive. Who would have thunk? Well... actually I thunk. Wink

I don't think I will be upgrading the OS till I get the new internal HD placed back in my old iBook.

Live and learn.

Cheers all

grim