Maxtor Crash - DiskWarrior Question

What really matters is not the size of the drive, but how much was filled. Even 500GB will take a LONG time, if the directory damage was severe. In that case, Disk Warrior uses its special magic to scavenge the hard drive for files, and rebuilds the disk directory structure based on what it finds. I can't really give an estimate because I've never tried it on such a large drive and it also depends on variables like how big the files are and how many files there are (a few big files or a lot of small files).

You should be able hear constant disk access on the external drive, and if there are disk access lights, those should be flashing continuously.

Note: If DiskWarrior reports that it cannot repair the damage, do not despair. DiskWarrior has a Preview feature. If the disk was repaired enough to be able to mount in Preview mode, you can treat it as any mounted volume. You can access it and copy off files in Finder. You can even use Disk Utility to make a Disk Image of the volume. It happened to me once, and I was able to retrieve almost the entire volume, even though Disk Utility reported it failed to repair the volume. Pretty good result for a "failure."

Yes, if it was me and I saw the access lights flashing more or less continuously, I would feel comfortable that DiskWarrior is still working on it.

If you installed DiskWarrior on your hard drive and it is running from your normal startup drive, make sure you have disable the screen saver and any sleep functions. You may even want to disable display sleep (just turn the brightness down manually). And disable anything that runs on a timer, such as an alarm clock or auto shutdown. Go into Dashboard and turn off any widgets.

DW has been reported to take days, and that was years ago with smaller capacity, but severe catalog corruption.

DW doesn't 'come up for air' so to the system, it will show "not responding" and I really wish Alsoft would make it more responsive to mouse and user interaction. And threaded.

You can't even move the window when it is working.

In the rare instance where DW can't, sometimes TechTool Pro (4.6.1+ now) can and will (DW wants to write new directory, but as single entrance and may not be able to, TTP uses a different method and will write directory). Rare but then having 700GB of small files means the directory also has to track all those files and file fragments, too.

DW should be able to fix an invalid node problem. As much as it is a needed and necessary tool in arsenal of maintenance, I do wish they would make some changes.

When you hold down OPTION the REBUILD button changes to ".,.." and gives you the option to SCAVENGE a drive.

Redundancy. Multiple backup sets, one set would always be off-line, backup of your backup. Even a mirror of each drive.

Personally, I think One-Touch and other vendor label externals get mentioned more as having problems than if you build or buy your own case and stay with Oxford 9xx series based FW/USB case.

I agree that TechTool Pro is also very good. I think it's now the equal to DiskWarrior in this type of repair, and it does a lot of other things; Disk Warrior is a +one trick pony+, although it does that one trick very well.

With Leopard, I've been using the latest TechTool Pro 4.x only. I wonder when version 5 is going to be ready; they've been promising it since MacWorld in January (I'm supposed to get a free upgrade).

"This summer" is what is on MicroMat, which usually is Mac-speak for September 20th!

Free for full purchases after mm/yy, not for me. Rather late than out the door too soon, though.

One thing I've experienced and beginning to learn, no repair is 100% full-proof. Sometimes it is more like a chance to get up and running and backup, but ever since a crash/freeze (testing something unstable) I've had odd problems here and there, nothing specific, even after running DW and TTPro. Finally decided time to reformat and restore from an older system copy I keep safe but ready to use.

Same thing happened when I had memory errors 18 months ago. DW kept finding small minor errors. Bit the bullet and did a fresh install and was fine after that. So much for ECC and catching parity errors. Files were "okay" but the content? maybe not. Something was amiss there too.

If you want another disk tool, probably *Intech Speedtools* to test media (which can map out bad blocks though I never found any) and Integrity to test I/O on any drive, along with its Defrag and Bench tools. What I don't like about their program, it is hard-coded to use Safari rather than default web browsers (OmniWeb).
https://www.SpeedTools2.com

At MacWorld, it was "Spring," if I remember correctly. And the Micromat folks were offering the current latest version for a show price, with a free upgrade to version 5 when released. I already had an older 4.x version which worked fine with Tiger but not Leopard. Since I was about to upgrade to Leopard, and the show price was about the same as the normal upgrade price, I bought another copy.

I think I have a copy of Intech Speedtools somewhere; came with an OWC hard drive. Never used it.

If it is still running, you must be up over 40 hrs at this point - and patient!

Window not showing and it doesn't come up for air... have you tried "Show All" though I doubt sending a message won't help if it isn't listening.

If it shows "not responding" its busy, if it is black... ? ;-(

Take a look in Activity Monitor at Disk Activity to see what is happening.

I have the exact same Maxtor Driver and mine just failed on me last night while trying to copy over 4 gb file. It turns on, and lights up, but it wont mount and it makes a weird clicking noise. I was thinking I was out of luck and I would lose all 200gb of my music and 400gb of video... Perhaps Ill give Disk Warrior a try. Are there any other options for external disk repair or is this as good as it gets? Thanks.

That number might be the number of bad (or at least currently unreadable) sectors on the drive.

The "Locating directory data" is usually the step that takes the longest time, if there is problem with the drive.

As mentioned in the topic thread, Tech Tool Pro by MicroMat can also do this type of repair. There is a major update due soon, and buying now gives you the current version and the new version when it's finally ready.