I really don't know much about Macs or OS X, but I told a friend I'd take a look at his MacBook 4.1 (Core 2 Duo, 4GB, Snow Leopard). Was told it did not boot. Took a look at it and sure enough it did not boot... just got the Flashing circle-slash graphic. Booted in verbose mode and the error is:

code:

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........Read file failed: status 7, buffer size 0x0
Error loading kernel 'mach_kernel' (0x7)

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I booted into the install DVD and tried to verify/repair the drive with Disk Utility, but it was unable to locate any partitions on the hard drive.

I then booted into Ubuntu, mounted the drive and verified that the data was still accessible.

Tried to copy the data from the hard drive to an external drive in order to back everything up so I can just reinstall. Kept getting unable to copy errors even though I was in Nautilus as root.

I did a little reading on the internet and realized there is a repair installation option that saves the user data and just installs to core OS (or so I assume that is what it does). My question is this: If the install disk (or at least Drive Utility) is unable to see the partition will I be able to do a repair install, or is there another way to get the user data off before I reinstall? I don't want to go through the reinstall only to have all the guy's files disappear because it wasn't able to save his home folder.

Any advice/suggestions would be appreciated.

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Error 7 on pretty much any hard drive means get a new one.

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My Foto Site

That's how I saved the files off my iBook before I formatted the drive: Liveboot of Ubuntu. it was able to see the drive and copy over the files no problem. Sounds like the hard drive is dead/dying. If the install disk's disk utility can't see the drive, it's probably fubar'ed.

Last resort is to take the hard drive out of the Mac, hook it up in a PC, install the program Mac Drive, and try to access it that way. I've heard freezing a hard drive for 24 hours can bring it back just long enough to get files off it, but have never tried it.

http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive

Pulled the drive from the laptop and plugged it into my desktop. Installed Mac Drive, and it recognizes and mounts the hard drive, but if I try to access it I just get an access denied error. If I try to run the disk repair utility it just hangs at the checking catalog stage. I'm assuming that the drive is pretty much toast.

Should I tell him to take it to an apple store and see if they can get the data off for him? If they are about as good as what I used to see from best Buy then I'll save him the 3 hour trip to the nearest apple store and just break the bad news to him myself.

Unless it's still under any kind of warranty, I'd say screw it.

I thought Macs didn't have problems?

quote Originally posted by theBDub: I thought Macs didn't have problems?

I think you might be being sarcastic, but no smiley so I'll just say that any hard drive can fail over time and/or abuse. I also have a MacBook Pro 4.1 that was bought in '08. When we say they don't have problems, its mostly the fact that they don't get viruses. I have never bothered to put any kind of Anti-Virus, Malware blocker, or any type of security software on my Mac, and so far the only problem I have had was with a faulty Nvidia video card, and that has only happened 3 or 4 times, all within the last two months. (Which is a documented problem that causes the display to glitch and freeze, and Apple will replace it for no charge if I ever bother to take it in.)

quote Originally posted by 1988holleyformula: I think you might be being sarcastic, but no smiley so I'll just say that any hard drive can fail over time and/or abuse. I also have a MacBook Pro 4.1 that was bought in '08. When we say they don't have problems, its mostly the fact that they don't get viruses. I have never bothered to put any kind of Anti-Virus, Malware blocker, or any type of security software on my Mac, and so far the only problem I have had was with a faulty Nvidia video card, and that has only happened 3 or 4 times, all within the last two months. (Which is a documented problem that causes the display to glitch and freeze, and Apple will replace it for no charge if I ever bother to take it in.)

Yeah I was just playing.

I have nothing against Apple or Mac users... but Apple fanboys tick me off so sometimes I just joke around.

Of course every computer can have problems.

Can you access any data at all?
Try taking a peek at /var/log/system.log and see if there are any IO errors.

Worst case scenario, if the drive is physically ok, you can just chown everything to take ownership and then copy the data.

Are you gui-ing everything? If you boot off of the OS disk with a USB drive attached (That you don't mind wiping) you can do a clone in disk utility.

disk utility>restore>CAREFULLY select source and destination> allow it to clone.

quote Originally posted by FieroSTETZ: I believe I incorrectly assessed your issue. When you boot to the OS install disk, you can click at the top of the screen, utilities, and launch disk utility; see if it can see the disk/partition in there.

I booted into the install DVD and tried to verify/repair the drive with Disk Utility, but it was unable to locate any partitions on the hard drive.

quote Originally posted by FieroSTETZ: You could also try booting your ubuntu machine up and launch terminal, enter "gparted" and try using gparted to clone the OSX partition to another drive. When trying to recover data, work with the original media as infrequently as possible.

I'm not sure that will help, but I'll give it a try when I get home from work. I tried just copying the data from the disk to a USB drive in Ubuntu, but kept failing with I/O errors. I was trying to copy in a root Nautilus window and then in a root terminal, so I'm fairly certain it wasn't a permission issue. I'm assuming based on what I've seen so far that it won't be able to copy the data to a new hard drive either.