DiskWarrior ™ Alsoft, Inc. PO Box 927 Spring, TX 77383 Sales: 281-353-4090, Fax: 281-353-9868 E-Mail: Sales.Info@Alsoft.com Support: 281-353-1510 E-Mail: Tech.Support@Alsoft.com World Wide Web: www.Alsoft.
Copyright This manual and the software described in it are copyrighted with all rights reserved. Under the copyright laws, this manual or the software may not be copied, in whole or part, without written consent of Alsoft, Inc., except in the normal use of the software or to make a backup copy. The same proprietary and copyright notices must be affixed to any permitted copies as were affixed to the original. This exception does not allow copies to be made for others, whether or not sold to another person.
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DiskWarrior Credits DiskWarrior written by Manual written by iv Al Dion, Rusty Little, Steve Clarner and Brian Webster Al Dion, Stephanie Jones, Rusty Little and Joe Muscara
Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction Welcome to DiskWarrior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Alsoft, the Utility Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 What Is DiskWarrior? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 What Is the Directory? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Graphing a Disk Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 About DiskWarrior’s Directory Optimization Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 Graphing a Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 Understanding the Graph . . . . . .
Chapter 1 Introduction
Welcome to DiskWarrior Alsoft, the Utility Company At Alsoft, we have been writing software for Mac OS computers since 1984. We are a Macintosh only software company whose expertise is in providing powerful, useful and safe utilities that enhance the user experience while maintaining the ease-of-use Macintosh owners have come to expect. Some of these utilities include DiskExpress®, MasterJuggler®, PlusMaker™, and PlusOptimizer™.
This approach has a significant advantage that other utilities overlook. Other products attempt to repair your directory one step at a time, ignoring the big picture of what is truly wrong with your directory and risking file information that could be saved. Too often, they will incorrectly begin to “repair” your directory, then give up when they realize they have modified the directory to an irreparable state.
detected until long after the damage actually occurred. Also, if any portion of the directory is overwritten by an errant program that inadvertently writes its own data, the directory is damaged. When the Mac OS attempts to use the incorrect directory information to read or write information on a disk, an error will occur. This error may be very minor and go unnoticed. It might cause a kernel panic or crash. Or, worst of all, the entire contents of your disk could become inaccessible.
But the best use of DiskWarrior is for preventative maintenance of your disks. Many forms of directory damage do not manifest themselves until long after the damage has actually occurred. You can prevent this damage from escalating by running DiskWarrior on your disks regularly. DiskWarrior will rebuild your disk directory, eliminating all existing directory damage. The directory DiskWarrior creates is also optimized for maximum directory performance, and this will speed up the performance of your disk.
When other utilities attempt to repair your directory, they attempt to do so by “patching” the directory structure. This method can result in sections of the directory being patched over and deleted. Since whole sections of the directory can be deleted, this attempt at repair can cause loss of directory data and thus loss of access to your files. Because of this, you should always use DiskWarrior first when you suspect directory damage on your disk.
DiskWarrior can be used to activate internal diagnostics that are built into disk devices to help determine if a drive is in danger of physical malfunction. These tests can be executed manually, or you can choose to have the tests run automatically every day, week or month. DiskWarrior also provides several notification options should the diagnostics report a problem.
Basic Terms You Need To Know This section explains some terms and concepts that are used throughout this manual. Application An application is a tool your computer uses to manipulate information and perform a useful function for you. Applications include such products as AppleWorks. Block The physical surface of a disk is comprised of many 512 byte storage areas called physical blocks. The larger the disk, the greater the number of physical blocks on the disk.
Disk A disk is the medium on which information is stored. There are many types of disks including floppy disks, hard disks (like the one that is probably inside your Mac OS computer), and removable disks. A disk must be initialized before it can be used. Document A document is a type of file that you create with an application. Documents include the information you enter, modify, view, or save to a disk.
Partition Many disks come with management utilities which allow you to divide a disk into additional disks called partitions. There is also independent system software which allows you to partition a disk. Partition Map The partition map is a section of the disk that contains the information for each partition on the disk. Most Mac OS disks are set up as one partition, but if you set up your disk as multiple partitions, each partition will behave as a separate disk.
Wrapper Volume An HFS Plus volume may be contained within an HFS volume (wrapper volume) in a way that makes the volume look like an HFS volume to systems without HFS Plus support. Embedding an HFS Plus volume within an HFS volume also allows a Mac OS computer to start up from an HFS Plus volume if it has built-in support for HFS but not HFS Plus.
Chapter 1: Introduction Basic Terms You Need To Know
Chapter 2 Using DiskWarrior
Installation of DiskWarrior Requirements To rebuild the directory on a Mac OS Standard (HFS) or Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus) disk, DiskWarrior requires a G3-based or higher Mac OS computer with at least 128 MB RAM. The disk to be rebuilt must be locally connected, must not be write protected, and must have a valid partition map. If you plan to rebuild the directory on your startup disk, you need to start up from another disk capable of starting up Mac OS X v. 10.2.
If you received DiskWarrior electronically, you can register your software on the Web at . You will need to enter your registration number as your serial number. Note: Your DiskWarrior serial number is required for proper registration of your purchase so that you may receive Technical Support, updates and future product special offers.
2) Select the DiskWarrior icon found in the CD window and drag it to your hard disk. Alsoft recommends that DiskWarrior reside in the Utilities folder of the Applications folder. 3) To run DiskWarrior from your hard disk, simply double-click the DiskWarrior icon. In order to run DiskWarrior, you must be started from Mac OS X v. 10.2.1 or later. Installing the DiskWarrior received via download purchase: 1) Open the ‘DiskWarrior.dmg’ file you received via download.
How To Get Even More from DiskWarrior At this point you could simply let DiskWarrior automatically take excellent care of your disks. But we highly recommend that you learn how to work with all the powerful yet easy-to-use features of DiskWarrior. To learn how to use these advanced features, continue reading.
Running DiskWarrior Rebuilding Your HFS and HFS Plus Disks You will find DiskWarrior extremely easy to use. You will start by selecting a disk, clicking Rebuild, and then waiting a few moments for the DiskWarrior Report. Then you will view the Report, making note of the problems that were found and repaired and anything that DiskWarrior recommends to you. At this point, you should preview the rebuilt disk, checking if any files or folders you may have lost have been recovered.
Note: To ensure that no files are open on your disk, start up from the DiskWarrior CD. 3) Double-click the DiskWarrior application. This will start DiskWarrior. If the DiskWarrior CD is your Startup Disk, then the DiskWarrior application will open, bypassing the normal Finder desktop. If this is the first time you have run DiskWarrior, and you are not running the application from the DiskWarrior CD, you will be presented with several dialogs. Read each carefully and respond appropriately to each.
4) Select the disk to be rebuilt from the disks pop-up menu. If you have problems finding the disk whose directory you want to rebuild, refer to Problem: The disk I want to rebuild does not appear in the Disks Pop-up menu. on page 48, "Chapter 3: Troubleshooting and Error Messages." 5) The lower portion of the main window will indicate whether the directory is ready to be rebuilt.
If the DiskWarrior CD is the startup disk: • Clicking Preview will cause the DiskWarrior Preview Window to open. The left pane of the DiskWarrior Preview Window will show the contents of your disk in its original state, displayed with its original icon. The right pane of the DiskWarrior Preview Window will show the contents of the preview disk if the disk was originally mounted and appeared on the desktop.
9) If the DiskWarrior CD is not the startup disk, make sure you close all files and folders and quit any applications you have tested in the previous step before proceeding. You do not need to stop the Preview before proceeding, but you may if you wish. Note: If the disk you have selected is locked, you will be able to preview the replacement directory but you will not be able to write the new directory to the disk.
13) If you have started your Mac OS computer from a disk besides your normal startup disk (such as the DiskWarrior CD), select “Restart” from the Apple menu to resume running from your normal startup disk. If the DiskWarrior CD is the startup disk, quitting the application will cause your computer to restart. What to Look for in the DiskWarrior Report After the rebuild has been completed, DiskWarrior will show you a DiskWarrior Report.
What to Look for During Preview When DiskWarrior presents the preview disk, you have the opportunity to check and test the disk as it will appear after it is rebuilt. You can see if files and folders that you lost have been recovered. You can also inspect the files and folders listed in the DiskWarrior Report. Previewing When the DiskWarrior CD Is the Startup Disk If the DiskWarrior CD is the startup disk, clicking Preview will cause the DiskWarrior Preview to open.
that had an entry in an inaccessible portion of the directory. If any of the files or folders whose enclosing folder could not be found are part of a software package, you may need to create enclosing folders with the correct names and locations after you have rebuilt your disk so that the software that uses these files works correctly, or you may need to reinstall the software package. The files that had an entry in an inaccessible portion of the directory may have been lost or thrown away.
Warning: If you have copied files to a FireWire disk and did not eject the disk after copying files in the DiskWarrior Preview Window, do not unplug the drive until after your machine has finished restarting and you eject the disk in the Finder. When you have finished with the DiskWarrior Preview Window, return to the DiskWarrior report window and choose either Rebuild or Cancel.
At this point, if you discover that there are items missing from the preview disk, use the Find command in the File menu of the Finder to search for these items. Choose Specific Places in the “Search in” pop-up list. Then select the preview disk to search. Under “Add criteria,” choose visibility, then select items with visibility off. Click the Search button. Check the search results to see if the missing items are included.
DiskWarrior Shortcuts - AppleScripting and Drag and Drop Now that you fully understand the steps required to rebuild your disks with DiskWarrior, there are two other methods you can use to rebuild your disks with DiskWarrior. However, you should be aware of the following two caveats: 1. Make sure that you have entered in your registration information as described in step 3) Double-click the DiskWarrior application. on page 25 in this chapter. 2.
Strategies for Rebuilding with DiskWarrior Caution: If you suspect there is directory damage on your disk, it is recommended that you run DiskWarrior before other disk repair utilities. Other disk repair utilities may render the directory damage irreparable even to DiskWarrior. As you have seen in the previous section, DiskWarrior shows you your rebuilt disk before finalizing the repairs. This allows you to preview what your rebuilt disk will look like before you decide to finalize the rebuild.
Using DiskWarrior to Recover Data from Malfunctioning Disks Occasionally, due to a mechanical malfunction, a disk becomes unusable. Unfortunately, you usually still have data you need on the disk when this happens. Although a malfunctioning disk cannot be repaired, DiskWarrior may be able to allow you to recover as much data as possible from such a disk, even if it is a disk to which data can no longer be written. Follow the directions in the section Running DiskWarrior on page 24 in this chapter.
Note: This is the same scavenge procedure DiskWarrior uses to recover your data when it finds directory errors, but it normally skips the scavenge procedure when the directory has no major errors. Therefore, you do not need to make DiskWarrior scavenge the directory except when DiskWarrior states “All file and folder data was easily located” in the DiskWarrior Report but you suspect that files and/or folders are still missing from the replacement directory.
Graphing a Disk Directory DiskWarrior allows you to create a graph that indicates the degree the directory is internally fragmented. This graph visually shows you the number of fragments and the distance each fragment is out of place. Rebuilding your directory with DiskWarrior optimizes your directory. Other programs don't provide the true directory optimization provided by DiskWarrior.
1 will now link to node 4 and node 4 will now link to node 2. This causes the nodes to be out of order. The links indicate the order in which the nodes are to be read. Following the links you visit all of the nodes and items in the correct order. However, to follow the links, you will have to jump from node 1 to node 4 then back to node 2 and then to node 3 (Figure 2-5). As more items are added to the directory, this process of splitting is repeated and the nodes are increasingly out of order.
Figure 2-6 Optimizing defragments and removes unnecessary nodes. About DiskWarrior’s Directory Optimization Graph DiskWarrior’s Directory Optimization Graph creates an optimization graph that indicates the degree the directory is internally fragmented. It doesn't just indicate the number of fragments. You can visually determine the number of fragments and the distance each fragment is out of place.
4) Click the Graph button. A progress dialog will appear and, after a brief delay, it will be replaced with a window containing the graph. Note: In order to graph a disk, your display will need to be set to thousands of colors. If it is not, you will be shown a message that will ask if you want DiskWarrior to change this display setting. Then, when you close the graph window, DiskWarrior will return your display setting to its previous setting.
Figure 2-7 Graph of a typical hard disk before optimization. Figure 2-8 Graph of the same disk after optimization, nodes are packed and in order.
Using DiskWarrior’s Hardware Monitoring Click the hardware icon in the DiskWarrior application to manually activate DiskWarrior’s hardware monitoring, to set the frequency of the tests, and to set how DiskWarrior notifies you if it detects a problem. Note: DiskWarrior’s hardware monitoring will only work on ATA drives with built-in S.M.A.R.T. capabilities. Apple uses ATA drives as internal hard drives on Macintosh computers. Select either the manual or automatic diagnostics tab.
About DiskWarrior’s Hardware Monitoring DiskWarrior’s hardware monitoring capability uses internal diagnostic routines built into disk drives by their manufacturers to detect and track how often a drive exceeds its operating tolerances. The more frequently the drive exceeds these tolerances, the more likely the drive is to experience hardware malfunction, and the more at risk any data on that drive becomes.
Automatic Diagnostics You can also configure DiskWarrior to run the hardware monitoring automatically. If you choose to have DiskWarrior automatically check your drives, DiskWarrior will install a small program in your Login Items. The program checks every few hours of running time to see if it should activate. The program requires very little system resources and virtually no CPU time. It neither reads nor modifies any data from any disk.
Figure 2-10 The E-mail Configuration Window You may have e-mail sent via either SMTP or sendmail. If you choose sendmail, you will need only to specify the recipients and the subject of the e-mail notification if you do not wish to use the default subject. Note: In order to specify sendmail as your e-mail delivery method, you will need to configure your system to use sendmail. It is not configured by default. If you choose SMTP as the delivery method, you will need to provide some additional information.
Chapter 3 Troubleshooting and Error Messages
Troubleshooting Note: Be sure to read the document “DiskWarrior Read Me”. Last minute changes to the documentation are detailed there. ❏ Problem: The disk I want to rebuild does not appear in the Disks Pop-up menu. DiskWarrior cannot rebuild a disk that is not HFS or HFS Plus (Mac OS Standard or Mac OS Extended). The disk to be rebuilt must be locally connected, must not be write protected, and must have a valid partition map. ❏ Problem: DiskWarrior tells me that the disk to be rebuilt is locked.
❏ Problem: My Mac OS computer “hangs” during the rebuild (pointer moves when the mouse is moved, but there is no reaction when I click anywhere on the screen). If your Macintosh hangs during the operation of DiskWarrior, this could be caused by hardware or software problems with a hard disk or a problem with the SCSI, USB, or FireWire chain. Make sure that the disk drivers are the current versions for the operating system running on your computer.
Disk Status Messages These messages appear in the main window and describe the status of the selected disk. ❏ Directory is ready to be rebuilt. Click Rebuild to rebuild the selected disk. ❏ Directory cannot be rebuilt because this is the startup disk. Your startup disk is the disk containing the current System folder. The selected disk is the startup disk. To rebuild this disk, refer to Rebuilding Your HFS and HFS Plus Disks on page 24, "Chapter 2: Using DiskWarrior.
❏ Rebuilding was canceled. ❏ Rebuilding was stopped because of an error (error number). ❏ Directory cannot be rebuilt because of a problem communicating with this disk (error number, error number). This status message indicates that DiskWarrior was unable to access this disk. This could be evidence of a bad block on the disk, a hardware defect, or problems with termination or cabling. ❏ Directory is ready to be previewed. This disk is locked. The directory cannot be replaced, but the disk can be previewed.
Chapter 3: Troubleshooting and Error Messages Disk Status Messages