Repair Disk

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Booting up from your OS install disc will let you perform a "Repair Disk". This may fix various issues, including directory problems. It’s a must before moving on to more involved trouble-shooting.

The instructions are a bit different based on the particular flavor of OS X that you are using.

1. Insert your OS X install CD in the computer.

2. Double-click the option in the CD for Install Mac OS X.

3. The computer will prompt you for a restart. Click restart.

4. Once the computer boots from the CD, you will see a welcome/start screen. Click forward to the next screen.

On the next screen, although the main window is prompting you to install OS X, this is not what we're going to do. You should notice that there is now a menu bar at the top of the screen, with Installer as one of the menu headings.

5. Go to the Utilities menu > choose Disk Utility.

6. In Disk Utility, in the main window, select your main hard drive from the list on the left.

7. Then choose the button Repair Disk.

8. After the checks and repairs are completed, quit Disk Utility. This will put you back in the Installer program.

9. From the Utilities menu from the top of the screen, choose Startup Disk.

10. Choose your main boot drive from the options and restart the computer.