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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!sri-unix!hplabs!decwrl!labrea!Shasta!mrh
From: mrh@Shasta.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Hard Disk Crash Fix
Message-ID: <1190@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: Fri, 30-Jan-87 14:30:19 EST
Article-I.D.: Shasta.1190
Posted: Fri Jan 30 14:30:19 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Jan-87 08:35:50 EST
References: <618@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU>
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 40
Summary: easier fix than that!!!

In article <618@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU>, geb@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Gordon E. Banks) writes:
> I just recovered from a hard disk crash and I thought that how
> I did it might help someone else in the same fix.  Pardon the
> length and details if this is a trivial problem to some of you.
> 
> I was using Packit II to unpack a file that binhex had reported
> a crc error on (I know, I know, but sometimes it is a small doc
> or source file that is munged and some of the packed files are
> still usable).  Packit complained that the "packed file is bad"
> and then while the finder was restoring the desktop windows a
> system error 02 (unrecoverable restart) occurred.  On reboot, the
> error continued to occur whenever the desktop was beginning to come
> up.  I tried to make a new desktop (holding control & option down
>  ... ( the author goes on to explain a long procedure of saving his disk)

   I ran into this problem some time ago. The problem seems to be that
while PACKIT is restoring the file it finds some problem with the packed
file and leaves a file on disk which has funny resource information. This
caused the finder to barf when it was trying to read the resources necessary
to display the icon. 
   My solution was very simple. Create a system which has a desk accessory
which allows you to delete files. There are tons around in both the
public domain and commercial products (DiskTop from CE software looks pretty
good, Q&D Utilities Vol1 has a nice tool: Q&D Filer). Put this system
on a floppy disk and boot directly into an application which supports
desk accessories using SetStartup. If you boot up with this system disk
then your HD should be mounted fine and you can use the DA delete feature
you installed to delete the offending packit file and the new file which
was created. Quit to the finder and all should be OK. This is much less
time consuming and it seems to me to be safer than the other procedure
proposed. 
   The best thing to do if you find that 'THE PACKED FILE WAS BAD'
is to delete the files from within PACKIT (which has a delete file
menu selection) so you don't end up in this mess in the first place.
David Gelphman                  BITNET address: DAVEG@SLACVM
Bin #88 SLAC                    ARPANET address:  DAVEG@SLACVM.BITNET
Stanford, Calif. 94305          UUCP address: ...psuvax1!daveg%slacvm.bitnet
415-854-3300 x2538
usual disclaimer #432 applies: my employer apologies for the fact
that I have access to this net.