Memory Problem...

[bloodanguts]

Yesterday, I had a popup message that read something like "not enough memory available" said it was stopping new application proceces, and had the forcequit menu in it...
I restarted...  About 10 minutes after, same message...  I have never seen this message before...  I have 768 MB Ram, and was only running Bit Torrent, Safari, and AIM.  When I checked Activity Moniter it said I only had 10 free MB RAM, with 400-500 Inactive, 100 'wired', and about 200 active... 
I think it may be a virtual memory problem, since in the message it alaso said "not enough hard drive space, free up space", which is BS, since every partition has at least 3 free GB's.

The second part of the problem (or worse, a whole other problem) came about when I started up Tech Tools.  I decided to try optimizing the drives.  Most partitions went along fine, but when I did my System Partition, it started up got stuck on the firsst step (Acquiring Volume HEader Data) for maybe 20 seconds... then said Optimization Complete.... 
Any help with this would be great...

[BFG]

Hey blood hope we can help but First up we're going to need some specs - what OS, what mac, etc etc. Everything and anything!

[bloodanguts]

iMac G4, 800 Mhz, 768 SDRAM, OS 10.3.9

[bloodanguts]

Update: Trying to test the volume, but it says "Unable to Unmount Drive"...  I think that implys some damage....

[Civrock]

that's normal for the startvolume. start from the system install disk and try the disk utility there, or even better, use Diskwarrior or another good tool if available.

[bloodanguts]

I was running off the the Tech Tools partition I made, my system volume wasn't the startup volume at that point, so there shouldn't of been a problem...

[BFG]

in that case - stop and back everything important up, actually just back everything up before you do anything else!!

Is your tech tools partition on the same HD or on a completely different drive?

[bloodanguts]

I only have one HD, with 4 partitions.  Hasn't caused any problems before, as I've done optimizations fine before.

[Civrock]

so it's basically still the same startvolume... as i said, duh. you gotta start from a bootable cd, or from a different HD, with the necessary software on it, to try to repair it. unless you want to reinstall it all.

[bloodanguts]

as far as the computer is concerned though, it is a different HD.  I've used it before to run repairs and such that one would normaly use a boot cd for.

[Civrock]

it's still the same HD tho... repairs from other systems (as you did before) from the same HD only work for system related repairs. if something is wrong with the HD itself tho, it has to be unmounted... and that doesnt work because you're trying to repair from it, logically. as said, you need a bootable cd, or a different system on another HD, with the necessary software on it, to try to repair it. unless you want to reinstall it all.

[bloodanguts]

While I understand what your saying I think, thats not the problem.  Its not a problem with the HD itself, just the individual partition.  The other partitions unmounted fine, and I was also able to run tests of the Disk without a hitch (and everything passed the tests).

[Civrock]

i'd suggest to get Diskwarrior from somewhere and let it repair that partition. TechTools is too specific and never really helped me so far.

[bloodanguts]

I have disk warrior lying around somewhere.  Thanks for the help... hope it works...

[BFG]

yeah like civic said blood you need to be running from a completely different HD - i know what you are saying re the partitions but in this case boot from a CD, or even better a external HD with some decent Tools on it. - If you haven't got anything like this gimme a shout i can hook u up with a cd .img with everything u need.

[bloodanguts]

Finally found my disk warrior CD, so am gonna run from that now.

While I was looking for it, I ran Drive 10 off of my eDrive (The tech tools partition).  It unmounted and checked my System Partition.  Something about an "Error -90", and 2000 missing 'Nodes'.  When I tried to repair, it wouldn't let me.  Trying disk warrior now however.... wish me luck

-Update-

Disk Warrior seems to of fixed it .  Thanks for the help.

I think the problem was just massive fragmentation.  70,000 files - 30% almost - were out of place.  Even with 2.8 Free GB's, there wasn't even 80 mb's of contiguous space anywhere...

Combined double posts. -Lone

[c| Lone-Wolf]

In the future, please don't double post, one after another, Blood.  If you've not used it before (it's cool, everybody's got to learn sometime), click the Modify button, (There is one at the top of every post of yours), and put in an update/addendum/whatever into the original.  Makes for better houskeeping, and keeps the moderators happy.

Thanks
-Lone

[bloodanguts]

ya... after I posted the second one, I realized I probably should of... I'm to lazy though to of gone back and edited it