Disk Utility, SD, Activity Monitor freeze while enabling journaling
 

Today my backup failed with the following error, which I haven't seen before:

| 03:57:06 PM | Error | SDCopy: Attempt to create hard link on /Volumes/Backup but file system format does not support hard links. Please enable HFS+ Journaling with Disk Utility and try again.\n

I have installed some new software (including ccache, via MacPorts, although as far as I know it only creates symbolic links), so perhaps that's why I'm seeing this now.

So I started up Disk Utility, selected the backup drive, and pressed the "Make Journaled" button, and now Disk Utility, SuperDuper!, and Activity Monitor are all unresponsive, although other apps (Terminal, Firefox, Colloquy, and Finder) work fine.

Perhaps anything that tries to access the backup drive is freezing. The apps have been frozen for the last 15 or so minutes, but my drive is buzzing (although not crackling) and lighting up its single LED as if it is being used.

How long should enabling journaling take, and how dangerous is it to force quit the frozen apps if Disk Utility doesn't thaw?

Enabling journaling should take seconds. Hard to say what to do regarding the frozen apps...

I waited a while, then restarting Firefox froze it, and other apps froze when I started them, too, so I decided to restart, which ended up being a hard restart, as various frozen apps refused to quit.

Upon restart, the external drive wouldn't mount, although it was crackling. Disk Utility suggested verifying it and then trying to mount it again, but "Verify Disk" didn't detect any problems, and it still wouldn't mount.

Unplugging the Firefox cable stopped the crackling, and plugging it back in started it up again but also mounted the drive, whereupon "Enable Journaling" worked in seconds, as you described.

So I'm not sure what happened, but it seems to be resolved.

Sounds like hardware issues... be careful with the drive...

Ok, thanks for the warning, I'll keep an eye on it. Any recommendations for tests/diagnostics I can run at this point? It's a relatively (but not brand) new Maxtor OneTouch III, so it's not at a typical failure point (brand new or very old).

I'd probably preventatively swap cables and ports, especially if it's the only device on the bus.

Ok, I'll try another cable. I can't try another port because although the drive has two Firewire 800 ports, the laptop only has a single Firewire 400 port, so I have to plug it into the single Firewire 400 port on the drive.

I guess I could also try the USB 2.0 port. I'll do that if the cable switch doesn't change things.