What's the equivalent of CHKDSK in Mac?

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Level 1

54 points

What's the equivalent of CHKDSK in Mac?

Can anybody tell me if there's an application that does the same job in MAC Leaopard that CHKDSK (Check Disk) did on Windows? Can the MAC HD be defragmented as the windows HD used to be done? I asking because I'd like to do periodic maintenance. I have had my iMAC for a couple of years now and it never even crashed once, but it may be necessary to check the disk or defragment it, as a routine maintenance job, right?

iMac, MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Nov 22, 2009 2:16 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Malcolm Rayfield

Level 7

28,117 points

Nov 22, 2009 2:41 AM in response to hani7up

In Disk Utility (Utilities folder) select the drive in the left column (the drive, all the way at the left, not the volume indented below it).

At the bottom of the window make sure "S.M.A.R.T. Status" shows "Verified". This means the drive is not indicating any hardware errors.

In the "First Aid" tab, click the "Verify" button to check the directory structure.

Click the "Repair Permissions" button to check permissions on system files. This may generate a lot of error messages, but they can be ignored. If you run it a second time, most will be gone.
<http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448>

Defragmentation is not recommended.

The important thing is to always have good backups, via Time Machine or other methods. A drive can fail at any time, with no warning.

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Answer 2

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Nov 22, 2009 4:09 PM in response to hani7up

Just to expand a bit on the "defrag" question, it's rare that Macs need defragging.

That's because OSX does it automatically on any file under 20 mb.

The only time it may become an issue is if you consistently run with your internal HD nearly full (OSX likes 15% or more free), and frequently add or change lots of large files. Some folks doing very heavy video editing may run into fragmentation problems, but it's quire rare.

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Answer 3

hani7up Author

Level 1

54 points

Nov 22, 2009 11:59 PM in response to Pondini

Thanks Pondoni
It's good to get this kind of information. For a person such as myself, a switcher (and a very happy one, I must say), it is a little difficult to get rid of bad habits that one had to assume with the other OS.
Thanks again and have a nice day.

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