At wits end
 

Dual 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5
10.4.10
3.5 GB DDR SDRAM
300 GB Striped Array (2 - 150 GB drives)

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I have been using SD for about 2 years now with barely a problem. On occasion, if I trash a large amount of stuff off my G5 I will have to erase my backup FW and start over. Other than that it's been fine.

However ...

A couple of days ago everything went haywire. Two things of note occured before the problems started. I upgraded to OS 10.4.10 and I also trashed about 40GB of data off my G5. Not only would the backup not complete, but it would completely lockup my G5 with the pinwheel spinning.

I have tried:

- Erasing and reformatting my external FW
- Tried a brand new WD "My Book" 500GB FW drive
- I have pluggd it directly into the FW port (no hubs)
- Run Disk First Aid on my G5 from the OSX bootup disk (no problems)
- Repaired permissions (many times)
- Run DiskWarrior on my G5 (hardware test ok & rebuilt directory)
- Each time I have tried to backup using SD I have erased my external FW
- SD logs don't show anything during the crash time (I think they're not even being saved)
- Trashed an additional 60GB of stuff off my G5 in case it's a problem file. Nada. As the logs don't show anything I'd have no idea if it's even a problem file.

Any suggestions to try something else? I've about run out of ideas.

TIA

Try starting in "Safe Boot" (Shift down during startup) to see if that helps. I'd also try attaching to USB rather than FireWire.

Tried Safe Boot. No go.

I'll try the USB next. Thx.

Long shot, but did you try to download and use a fresh copy of SD?

Yeah, trashed SD app and downloaded again. No go.

I think at this point I'm looking at an archive and install of Tiger. I'll only do a full HD drive erase when I upgrade to Leopard.

Have you tried opening Console and switching to the system.log, then running the copy to see if there's any diagnostic from the kernel?

Yes, tried that as per tech support request. Results were inconclusive.

I did an archive and install of Tiger last night but only brought it up to 10.4.7. Backup still failed (blank screen/pinwheel/screaming fan). I think this had something to do with trashing those large files (they were 'working' files - nothing system specific). SD has never liked when I do that. Typically the Smart Update would fail and I'd resort to erasing my external FW and starting from scratch. Problem this time is the backup won't even work when I scrub my FW drive.

I'll try Drive Genius tonight. If that doesn't work I'll just bite the bullet and erase the HD and install Leopard.

We really don't care what files you do or don't delete; we have no "memory" of what was there, and are an equal-opportunity copier... :)

That may very well be, but I report 'em as i see 'em.

SD has only failed on me when I remove large files off my HD.