Partition crisis

[Grant]

I have no idea how this happened, but here goes.
The one MBP is running snow leopard with a boot camp partition containing Win7.

I used an ext drive containing maverick's to boot the MPB - never an issue in the past !
I figure while it is running of the ext drive i will run disk utility & check the MBP's internal drive, permissions etc are all good.
So i select the drive itself and click "verify disk".
An error message pops up within seconds stating the EFI partition is too small / not big enough (something to that effect) and the disk needs to be repaired.
I click "repair disk"
Another error message pops up - "target volume not found" (or something similar) - the mac partition is suddenly not mounted, although the windows partition remained mounted.

I figure i will try reboot into snow leopard with the ext drives disconnected.
The dreaded flashing folder appears instead of the machine booting
I figure i will try reset pram - no change !

I then boot the machine using a different ext drive containing snow leopard.
I go back to disk utility to try repair the drive - but alas, no go!


I then notice that the mac partition is listed as fat:


Anyway, i have been through something similar before. In that instance i booted into windows7 & from within windows used paragon drive manager to revert a mac partition back from fat to guid (i think it was).
The process was painless & the machine has been perfect ever since.
So i figure, do the same again.
However, although the windows partition appears to be mounted, i am unable to boot into it.

Start up again using the ext drive using snow leopard.
Run a quick data recovery program to see if the content of the drive is visible.
I am mortified to see the drive which was pretty full, now appears empty - only 40MB used:


I then do a quick scan - every thing appears to still be there:


So the question is - how to fix this.
or
Would attempting to install mavericks require the drive to be formatted - would the mavericks see what is already there & simply upgrade (i have no concern for the windows partition).

All ideas are welcome.
In the meantime, best i go change my wet nappy !

**the mac partition mounts in ubuntu:

 

[vinodh]

What happens if you boot using one of the external OS X drives, go to System Preferences>Startup Disk and choose the messed up Mavericks drive as the startup disk and restart? If that doesn't work, install Mavericks on an external and try to use Migration Assistant to transfer all you files and settings to the new installation. Once that's done, you could just wipe the messed installation of Mavericks and restore the external drive to the MacBook using an external Disk Utility and you should be fine.

 

[Grant]

What happens if you boot using one of the external OS X drives, go to System Preferences>Startup Disk and choose the messed up Mavericks drive as the startup disk and restart? If that doesn't work, install Mavericks on an external and try to use Migration Assistant to transfer all you files and settings to the new installation. Once that's done, you could just wipe the messed installation of Mavericks and restore the external drive to the MacBook using an external Disk Utility and you should be fine.

Snow leopard is on the mbp's internal drive.
Then there are 2 external drives, one has maverick's & the other is snow leopard.

The internal messed up drive (snow leopard) does not appear in: system preferences>startup disk.

At this point i am looking at a clean install.
Data recovery is sailing along very quickly without a hitch - no corrupt files / folders.

However, i am not entirely sure i want mavericks tho.
There is a very savvy kid along the road who kinda unofficially takes care of things electronic at my place. Think i'll offer him around 1000 to recover all the data, fresh os install, install all programs, import all the files back & have the machine like it was before.
Fortunately he used it quite a bit and is very familiar with how it was.
Would R1k be fair ? - i was seeing 4 tasks @ R200ea - will consume at the very least, 4hrs.

 

[vinodh]

R1000 sounds more than fair. I normally do things like that for my friends for free.

Any specific reason you don't want to use Mavericks?

 

[GreGorGy]

Why you have disk drill Enterprise? Bit pricey when pro will do.

 

[Grant]

R1000 sounds more than fair. I normally do things like that for my friends for free.

Any specific reason you don't want to use Mavericks?

i have an old MBP (around 2009) and one that is a year old
the newer one is a mush higher spec machine running mavericks, the older one runs snow leopard.

the old one is as quick as the newer machine - both have the same programs etc (one is virtually a clone of the other, save the os).

there are also a few compatibility issues with software

 

[Grant]

Why you have disk drill Enterprise? Bit pricey when pro will do.

was a mistake (i think) - to be honest

these mishaps tend to happen late at night - sometimes early in the morning.

the other day i was at home foraging around in the storeroom - the place where all those things that seemed like a fantastic idea at the time, are relegated to.
i was looking at a 2 million candle power torch (still in its ****) & wondering wtf?
was i drunk or high when i bought the thing, and for what - search the moonless skies for helmut in his messerschmitt ?

 

[weelzSA]

Snow leopard is on the mbp's internal drive.
Then there are 2 external drives, one has maverick's & the other is snow leopard.

The internal messed up drive (snow leopard) does not appear in: system preferences>startup disk.

At this point i am looking at a clean install.
Data recovery is sailing along very quickly without a hitch - no corrupt files / folders.

However, i am not entirely sure i want mavericks tho.
There is a very savvy kid along the road who kinda unofficially takes care of things electronic at my place. Think i'll offer him around 1000 to recover all the data, fresh os install, install all programs, import all the files back & have the machine like it was before.
Fortunately he used it quite a bit and is very familiar with how it was.
Would R1k be fair ? - i was seeing 4 tasks @ R200ea - will consume at the very least, 4hrs.

Why don't you connect you Snow Leopard drive to an external drive and do a full Time Machine Backup of the drive on the newer mac. Once that is done, format drive to remove all partitions ect and do a fresh Snow Leopard or Mavericks install on the drive in the older machine.

Once the install is done, you then have the option to restore all programs and files to the mac as it was before from the Time machine backup. I had an issue a few months ago and did this for my customer and got it all working. Granted the problem was a little different to yours - my problem was the HDD seemed dead and no files were accessible or able to boot.