John Couture
Forum Replies Created
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Peter,
Thanks so much for the reply and I did see your plug-ins. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to checking them out.
Johnny
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Rafael,
It’s in the very first edition of the Creative Cow Magazine. If you hunt around the web site, you can find it. I believe I downoaded it as a PDF. I’d send it to you, but I printed it out and don’t have the pdf.
Good luck!
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Don,
If you get this message, I thought I’d give you an update on all the craziness I had with my Mac problems we discussed last month. After bringing my Mac in twice and having them replace: the logic board (twice), both processors, the power supply, and the video card — and STILL having it act wiggy — Apple is going to replace my G5 with a new Mac Pro, which is fantastic news because not having my computer was seriously hampering my editing work for my employer.
Their service pros just threw up their hands trying to diagnose these problems. Gotta hand it to Apple though. They always recognized how much I needed my computer and how much this monthlong fiasco was inconveniencing me, so I’m thrilled that they were cool enough to give me a new one.
I DEFINITELY recommend everyone who buys a Mac get an Applecare plan!
Thanks again for all your input.
John Couture
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Don,
OK, I got my computer back yesterday and the Apple Store claims it’s fixed. They basically said that it was a bad video card and that (paraphrasing here) there was an issue with the kernel loading from the optical drive and a problem between the hardware and OS software. They said that explains why it wouldn’t boot from the disc for awhile.
Anyhow, I guess we’ll see over time if it’s truly fixed. Thanks again for all of your help. It was a long haul!
John
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Don and R.J.,
Thanks for all of your comments. My startup drive was getting increasingly wiggy, so I decided to use my Applecare plan and call technical. The phone tech recommended bringing it in, so now my computer is at the local Apple Store for diagnosis.
They’re not sure what’s up yet, but they said looking at the error logs that it could be a bad video card. We’ll know more in 3-4 days after they play with it a bit.
Thanks again for all your help. It’s been very valuable.
Best,
John
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Don,
Yikes! That certainly does sound scary, but I’ll take it one step at a time as you suggesed and eliminate possible culprits.
Many thanks. I’ll give you a report after I’ve gone through all this.
Best,
John
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Don,
I actually tried to run Disk Warrior from the startup drive so I could at least check out my media drive (where I store all my FCP files). The initial report said I had problems with something like 28% of my files, then after it tried to rebuild the files, Disk Warrior unexpectedly crashed. Before it crashed, it said it encountered some problems with the startup disk and recommended rebooting from the Disk Warrior CD (which still isn’t working).
Not sure if this helps at all, but I recently installed an extra 4 gigs of RAM and the drive I’m using to store my media. I wasn’t thinking these were the problem though since the computer said it was an OSX failure before and I figured that had something to do with my startup drive (but that’s just a guess).
I got both the hard drive and RAM from Microcenter and doublechecked with their Mac people to make sure it was OK. The RAM is PS3200U-30330 and the hard drive is a serial ATA drive, 7200 RPM.
Anyhow, this is just a mess now, so I appreciate your advice.
Best,
John
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Don,
I got Disk Warrior and tried to boot it from the CD, but on restart my computer just stalled on the grey apple screen during startup. The computer’s processor would kick in and gradually get louder as the computer rebooted, then as it stalled it basically continued to whirr loudly. The instructions say booting from the Disk Warrior CD can take 5-15 minutes, but I tried it twice and after waiting 45 minutes and 20 minutes with no startup, I figured something is wrong.
Next steps? Should I run Disk Warrior from my normal startup drive, or does that make sense if the problem is with my startup drive? Oh, and regarding your comment about video media: all my video media is on a separate drive than my startup drive with my current setup. I have a separate, internal hard drive where I store all my projects, video files, audio files, etc. (although I know from Hofmann’s article you recommended that I now should store my projects somewhere else). I also will integrate his advice into my system setup after I get this figured out.
Thanks again for your help. I appreciate it.
John Couture
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Don,
Thanks again for you input. I appreciate it. Here’s a quick update:
I’ve installed and ran FCP Rescue and Cocktail, and after trashing preferences, I ran Disk Utility twice (I watched as it ran and it appears that some permissions did need fixing). I have Disk Warrior at my office and I’ll bring that home and try that as well. For now, still no dice and now FCP is really getting buggy on a more consistent basis.
You did mention about projects losing their associations being a possible problem and I’m wondering if that could be the case. I receently switched from editing at work to home and, consequently, I restructured and copied over many of my work files to my home computer (like FCP, Motion, DVD Studio projects and sound effects). Even though these files were unchanged, quite a few of them needed to be re-rendered or relinked when I used elements of the projects on my home computer for the first time. But I did edit work without problems with the new setup for a couple of weeks, so I wasn’t thinking that was an issue. However, do you think the computer became buggy when processing all the offline files?
Finally, if I run Disk Warrior and still encounter issues, do I try other options, move to a FCP reinstall or full OSX re-install?
Best,
John Couture
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Thank you so much for the helpful input. I do some of those housekeeping things, but not all. I will certainly try them out.
Best,
John Couture