File Permissions Reset for the whole HDD - Mac 10.6.8

[tech_guy]

Not having a good day.

 

An enterprising member of staff has attempted to reset the perms on the HDD in their iMAC which is running 10.6.8. Don't ask me why.

 

The machine had a hissy fit apparently, they restarted it, and now it doesn't boot. Wonderful.

 

I've used Single User Mode and run fsck -fy which states that the file system was modified and a subsequent repeat says all is good, but the machine will still not boot. In verbose mode it just sits at Waiting for DSMOS...

 

Given what it went through I guess I need to reset all the permissions? A quick Google turns up some helpful stuff but our web filter classifies all the sites as web chat so I cant see them.

 

And I left my smartphone at home today.

 

Help much appreciated!

[3s-gtech]

Can you run Disk Utility from within Single User Mode? That can go through and repair them, or at least try. Worth a shot.

[mac_shinobi]

Boot off a snow leopard installer disc and run disk utility and repair disk perms that way or make a bootable snow leopard drive and do it that way ( again not re installing the os but just to use disk utility to repair disk permissions )

 

If it still wont boot then backup data as required and re install OS X completely from fresh

[3s-gtech]

Of course - SL doesn't have the advanced startup options of the later versions built in.

[Arthur]

Boot off a snow leopard installer disc and run disk utility and repair disk perms

How effective would that be though?

 

http://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201560

 

Does Disk Utility check permissions on all files?

Files that aren't installed as part of an Apple-originated installer package are not listed in a receipt and therefore are not checked.

[mac_shinobi]

How effective would that be though?

 

http://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201560

 

Backup important data and do a fresh install then [emoji12][emoji13][emoji14][emoji13][emoji12]

 

Unless they have a time machine backup - maybe restore it ?

[davidacland]

You could try single user mode and:

 

mount -uw /

# To make the boot drive writable

 

diskutil repairPermissions /

# To repair the permissions

[DMcCoy]

I doubt the repair permissions will work, it's only checking against the bom details for installed applications, it's probably not going to go anywhere near / and /Users.

 

Edit: you can probably make it boot with sufficiently loose permissions and get the files off it, but really a reinstall is the only way to get things back to how they should be

Edited February 5, 2015 by DMcCoy

[mac_shinobi]

I doubt the repair permissions will work, it's only checking against the bom details for installed applications, it's probably not going to go anywhere near / and /Users.

 

Edit: you can probably make it boot with sufficiently loose permissions and get the files off it, but really a reinstall is the only way to get things back to how they should be

 

Can you install over the top of itself ( repair install )

 

Backup vital data etc and then format and do a clean install

[tech_guy]

Can you install over the top of itself ( repair install )

 

Yes, thanks, I did just that and everything seems fine now.