Home Forums Mac Software Mac Operating Systems DirectoryService borked !?

Hey there,

This is a bottle-at-the-sea type of message. 2 days ago, my mac started going bananas. Couldn't even start Activity Monitor, nor even a "top" in an already opened terminal. I managed to quit most applications, but I think I had to force the shutdown of the machine.

Since then, booting takes forever, and I can't login.

I've tried booting on the install dvd,
* resetting my password
* reinstalling the system
* messing about with dscl
* dropping various cache files

.. all to no avail.
I'd still to avoid having to backup all of my disk (whose content seems intact, except for... see further) format and reinstall. It seems the only issue is with DirectoryService. If I boot in single user mode, I can see in crashes/restarts "permanently" in system.log; I was hoping to find a way to simply rebuild the user database and my account. No google-luck so far.

If anyone here has any tip on how to proceed, I'd be grateful !

Cheers,

Did you check SMART status with Disk Utility or, better still, run a surface scan with TechTool Pro or Drive Genius? It's possible that the hard drive is failing.

Some details about your Mac and the OS it's running would be helpful, but, in the meantime, have you run Disk Utility > Repair Disk while booted from your install DVD or, even better, DiskWarrior, TechTool Pro, or Drive Genius?

directory services is the registry of the macintosh. if your ds database is corrupt and causing ds to crash, you may be in for a very rough time. (unlike windows, it's extremely rare) I don't know of any tools for repairing that, and it can interfere with migrations and archive and installs.

I've ran into a couple instances of netinfo database (old version of ds) getting scrambled on a machine and causing me to have to do a full backup, erase, and restore accounts by hand.