Serious Disk Utility Error

[photographxgrl]

My system:
iBook G3 running OS 10.3.9

The problem:
An error message when attempting to either verify or repair permissions with Disk Utility from the CD.

The error:
"Disk Utility Internal Error: Disk Utitility has lost it's connection with the Disk Management tool and cannot continue. Please Quit & Relaunch Disk Utility"

BUT when I do quit, then I also get this error message: "Disk Utility has some operations in progress. Quitting can leave some hard disks unoperational. Do you want to quit?"

What the heck??

I had no choice but to quit & cross my fingers or else stay in this cycle of errors. As soon as the iBook restarted (and it restarted fine), I made backups of everything! , went through and cleaned both my internal and external hard drives of any unneccessary files for good measure, indexed the HD, then ran Disk Utility from the hard drive. It ran fine and looked like it was fixing a bunch of stuff, but I'm unsure how much can reliably be repaired on a hard drive by itself, so I inserted my original Panther disk, restarted and attempted again to run Disk Utility from the CD. The same errors occurred.

The day before I had accidently shut down my iBook while a CD of raw photo files was still inside. I usually eject any disks before shutting down, but I forgot. The iBook shut down but I could still hear the CD spinning (or whatever it's doing when it makes all that noise). It wouldn't quit and it wouldn't allow me to restart the machine in order to attempt to eject the CD and try shutting down properly, so finally out of desperation I unhooked the battery. I'm guessing that this was the wrong move and has now messed something up because this is when I first tried restarting the computer (it started fine and I was able to eject the CD) and running Disk Utility the first time and first read the error.

I would SO appreciate any ideas how to fix whatever is wrong to cause this frightening error, and any suggestions on how I could have better handled this odd situation from the start.

Thank you,
Laura

[Mikef]

mmmm pulling the battery is a bit drastic - but I do appreciate in the panic of the moment......
OK What should you have done - if the Mac refuses to shut down then the first action is to hold the Power On Button down for at least 5 - 10 seconds, this should force the Mac to power down. Then when you boot up next hold down the mouse key - this should force the CDR to eject. Your final act of booting from the OS-X Install DVD and running Disk Utilities was correct, an intermediate stage is to boot into Safe mode and run Disk Utilities from the hard disk but going straight to the DVD negates this.
If Disk Utilities cannot resolve the problem then I strongly urge you to get a commercial Disk Utility such as Disk Warrior. This program has saved my skin more than once, the other recommended disk repair utility is Tech Tools

Mike

[legaltocarry]

Hello! Here's the solution concerning the loss of connection to the disk management tool. Tom

http://discussions.apple.com/message...505537#1505537

[photographxgrl]

THANKYOU so much for the info! I did in fact just download that iTunes update a couple of days ago, but never would have thought that that was the problem. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I've copied the instructions and will attempt to fix all tomorrow (must sleep now).

As for ripping out the battery - I know it was extreme, but I had held that darn power button down forever and nothing was happening. Good to know that holding down the trackpad button (same as mouse button, eh?) will eject a stubborn CD should I ever need it, thank you.