Invalid Node structure on external HD

adsl3g

adsl3g

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I keep on getting this reported when trying to repair my USB bootable drive. Disk Utility won't fix it, neither will AppleJack. Any pointers? - apart from forking out $100 for DiskWarrior which I believe will fix it.

Also don't want to erase the drive. But will if there is not a solution.
 
@Bwana?, PeterCH?, Koffiejunkie?, Landy, Bam-bam?

No ideas?

I have a sneaky suspicion this was caused by Macdrive on my PC.
 
Bite the bullet, pay the money and get DiskWarrior. :o

EDIT - just make sure the contents are worth the money.
 
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adsl3g said:
@Bwana?, PeterCH?, Koffiejunkie?, Landy, Bam-bam?

No ideas?
Click to expand...

From an Mac/OSX perspective I have no idea. Otherwise, for any fixable disc related problems that can't be fixed while the OS is running, I'd just grab my nearest bootable Linux CD. Here's a good one: http://www.sysresccd.org

I'm not sure how good the tools in Linux for working with hfs/hfs+ is but at least the filesystem is mountable read/write so if you need to copy your stuff off it and wipe the disc you have one way of doing it.

I have a sneaky suspicion this was caused by Macdrive on my PC.
Click to expand...

:eek:Why did you do that? That's one thing I'm way too scared to do. My big external disc (the one with all my 'content' on :)) is in ext3 format. There's no way I'm plugging that into my Mac, or into a windows machine for that matter. There are ext2/ext3 drivers for Windows, and for OSX, and I've tried both (on other test discs) and my experience was not good.
 
koffiejunkie said:
:eek:Why did you do that? That's one thing I'm way too scared to do. My big external disc (the one with all my 'content' on :)) is in ext3 format. There's no way I'm plugging that into my Mac, or into a windows machine for that matter. There are ext2/ext3 drivers for Windows, and for OSX, and I've tried both (on other test discs) and my experience was not good.
Click to expand...

I have a LAN drive for backups and used macdrive to access my ext Mac USB to sync with the lan drive on my wired win xp pc - works faster than with the mac connected wirelessly..:o

Have erased the mac USB and copied all relative files over to it again - there was no content on the mac USB that I could not get again so getting diskwarrior was not worth it.

Thanks for the help/advice
 
adsl3g said:
I have a LAN drive for backups and used macdrive to access my ext Mac USB to sync with the lan drive on my wired win xp pc - works faster than with the mac connected wirelessly..:o
Click to expand...

Aaah - I can identify. Had my Mini using wireless for most of the year so far but about two weeks ago I went out and got a long enough network cable to hook it up to the router. The speed just makes it nicer to use.
 
koffiejunkie said:
Aaah - I can identify. Had my Mini using wireless for most of the year so far but about two weeks ago I went out and got a long enough network cable to hook it up to the router. The speed just makes it nicer to use.
Click to expand...
I wouldnt mind updating my mini to 'n' spec. :o
 
#$^%%%$@@ great, I am getting it again on my USB Mac formated external - did an image of my internal HD with Disk Util and now can't do anything on the USB drive due to 'invalid node structure' I might have pulled the USB w/o ejecting :o - could this be the problem?
 
adsl3g said:
#$^%%%$@@ great, I am getting it again on my USB Mac formated external - did an image of my internal HD with Disk Util and now can't do anything on the USB drive due to 'invalid node structure' I might have pulled the USB w/o ejecting :o - could this be the problem?
Click to expand...
It could be if it was writing at the time - was it?

DiskWarrior . . . . . :p
 
This might sound like a wise ass question: Did it not perhaps say "inode"?

inodes are part of UNIX filesystems. If it did then your damage is just filesystem level.
 
adsl3g said:
I keep on getting this reported when trying to repair my USB bootable drive. Disk Utility won't fix it, neither will AppleJack. Any pointers? - apart from forking out $100 for DiskWarrior which I believe will fix it.

Also don't want to erase the drive. But will if there is not a solution.
Click to expand...

Do you have a guarantee that DW will fix it? :)

Copy the data off then erase the drive. Alternatively connect it to
a PC and format it there then reconnect to MAC and convert.
 
koffiejunkie said:
This might sound like a wise ass question: Did it not perhaps say "inode"?

inodes are part of UNIX filesystems. If it did then your damage is just filesystem level.
Click to expand...

I did some research after the first time it happened. It is a filesystem problem - something to do with an invalid directory structure so it is not the HD (Which is about 11 months old now - actually it is the Macbooks old HD which I upgraded and NO its not a Seagate so its not one of those with the disk head crash problem)


PeterCH said:
Do you have a guarantee that DW will fix it? :)

Copy the data off then erase the drive. Alternatively connect it to
a PC and format it there then reconnect to MAC and convert.
Click to expand...

The only guarantee I have is that most reports on the net indicate that DW will fix it - but its not worth it as I use it as an 'overflow/scratch' disk and some backups (music & photos) - I also dump my music & photos to a LAN drive so there is no data on there that is lost.

Bwana said:
It could be if it was writing at the time - was it?
Click to expand...

Oh, and it was not writing at the time, it may have been reading off the drive when I unplugged the USB.
Anyway, I have it at work today - will run Macdrive on it again and see what can be done to fix it.
 
PeterCH said:
Do you have a guarantee that DW will fix it? :)
Click to expand...
Of course not but its a safe bet that it wont be the only time he needs it. Anyway - if the data is worth more than the price of the software wouldnt it make sense to try?

PeterCH said:
Copy the data off then erase the drive. Alternatively connect it to a PC and format it there then reconnect to MAC and convert.
Click to expand...
From the sounds of it he's already done that once . . . . adsl3g, know anyone who has a copy of spinrite?
 
bwana said:
Of course not but its a safe bet that it wont be the only time he needs it. Anyway - if the data is worth more than the price of the software wouldnt it make sense to try?


From the sounds of it he's already done that once . . . . adsl3g, know anyone who has a copy of spinrite?
Click to expand...

I don't even know anyone with a Mac... :D apart from you guys.

Not a problem though - I will erase it again and do a full backup with SuperDuper. Can one load OSX Tiger on a Fat32 partition? Not very efficient but at least I know FAT 32 will not give sh1tty problems like this.
 
adsl3g said:
I don't even know anyone with a Mac... :D apart from you guys.

Not a problem though - I will erase it again and do a full backup with SuperDuper. Can one load OSX Tiger on a Fat32 partition? Not very efficient but at least I know FAT 32 will not give sh1tty problems like this.
Click to expand...
I wouldnt. iirc Superduper might not be able to back up anything over 4gb. If you're making a tiger back up why would you want to use anything other than the mac's own file system? :confused:

Spinrite is a PC program ;)
 
bwana said:
I wouldnt. iirc Superduper might not be able to back up anything over 4gb. If you're making a tiger back up why would you want to use anything other than the mac's own file system? :confused:

Spinrite is a PC program ;)
Click to expand...

Ah - will look around for it.

Interesting though. I discovered the problem last night when I could not copy my photos folder off the Mac onto the USB. Reported that there is something wrong on the USB drive's file structure - I could also not delete anything. I then ran DU and found the 'invalid node structure' being reported.

I also connected it directly to the USB port and not via a USB hub as it is always connected.

This morning I fired up Macdrive again om my work PC and accessed the MacUSB drive - Macdrive reports no problems on the disk and can copy and delete on the Macusb w/o problems.

I also ran DU on the Macbook HD and no problems were reported.

Unfortunately I have not got the Macbook at work so tonight I will load Macdrive on my XP bootcamp installation and see if I can copy the folder over to the Macusb from the Mac's HD.
If that is possible then I am at a loss.
 
bwana said:
I wouldnt. iirc Superduper might not be able to back up anything over 4gb.
Click to expand...

I wish people would get over their fear of typing stuff in a command line. rsync comes with OSX. To make a once-off backup, and refresh it manually from time to time, I cannot think of a better tool (without a 4gb limit).

I have a external drive on a my linux box, shared via NFS, mounted on the Mac on /Volumes/EXT320

Once every couple of days, I do this:

rsync -avz --delete /Users/hansdp/ /Volumes/EXT320/macbackups/

-a preservs permissions
-v gives you nice output
-z compresses the files before sending it (you don't need it if you're doing disc to disc on the same machine)
--delete removes files from the backup that you have removed on your computer.

Easy....:D
 
koffiejunkie said:
I wish people would get over their fear of typing stuff in a command line. rsync comes with OSX. To make a once-off backup, and refresh it manually from time to time, I cannot think of a better tool (without a 4gb limit).
Click to expand...
The 4gb limitation is due to his desire to use a FAT32 drive so you would still have the same constraint.
 
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