User profile for user: peter stephen
peter stephen Author
User level: Level 2
265 points

Directory rebuild/ Disk Warrior freeze

Ok as I have four macs some of which are several years old but still doing a job for me I invested in DW 4.2. Installed it on my PPC G4 desktop with 10.5.6 ( according to Alsoft, meeting system requirements, which I checked beforehand ). Started up the G4 from the disc, booted smoothly. Ran a test on the drive and DW reported the directory was 28% fragmented ( out of order ).
So, you guessed it, I asked it to re-build the directory, it gets halfway through to step 8, telling me to wait a moment while it re-builds the directory and then the progress bar stops, the beachball begins and 30 minutes later its not moving at all.!!!
So what's my options lads, I can't stop it from the gui, if I power off the mac and restart from the HD I'm going to have a destroyed directory am I right and it won't restart at all ?.
Any ideas ?
Despite reading all the rave reviews, the FAQs, meeting the system requirements I get clobbered.
What can I do with this now.
Peter

G4 Powerbook, Mac OS X (10.5.5), Mac Pro, Mac Mini, G4 PPC, G4 Powerbook

Posted on Apr 27, 2010 3:24 AM

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10 replies
User profile for user: Don Archibald
Don Archibald
User level: Level 10
101,665 points

Apr 27, 2010 12:01 PM in response to peter stephen

Unless DiskWarrior's behavior was changed with the OSX versions of it, there is no risk in stopping the process.

With the older versions, DW would build a new directory, but do so 'on the side'; it would not replace the original (often damaged) one until it had built what it accepted as a valid replacement and you gave it permission to do the replacement; this occured at the very end of its running. The actual replacement process took but a few seconds, which guarded as best could be against a power loss in the midst of things totally munging the directory.

I would assume the newer versions of DW exhibit the same behavior.
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User profile for user: Texas Mac Man
Texas Mac Man
User level: Level 8
46,869 points

Apr 27, 2010 12:05 PM in response to peter stephen

Based on my understanding of how DW works, step 8 rebuilds a new directory file, but the current directory is not replaced until a later step. So, shutting Off the Mac should not cause any problems. Before doing this, however, you might check with Alsoft. I've seen posts where it took many hours for DW to do its thing. If you do shut down, I would recommend that you run Disk Utility from your Leopard install DVD. DU does some repairs that DW doesn't do. Then run DW.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

User uploaded file
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User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
140,795 points

Apr 27, 2010 12:52 PM in response to Don Archibald

The newer versions continue to work just as Don has eloquently described. It was building a prospective directory, for your later approval, and has not torn apart your current directory to do its work.

That said, your current directory could have been a mess when it started. It can't hurt to do a coarse repair using Disk Utility (booted from the Install CD) before you try Disk Warrior again. While Disk Utility is open note the S.M.A.R.T. status of the drive. Many claims of catastrophic drive failure in its error messages are often overblown, but they can indicate some Bad Blocks on the drive.
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User profile for user: peter stephen
peter stephen Author
User level: Level 2
265 points

Apr 27, 2010 1:34 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Very grateful to you all, I'm not so freaked out now. last time I defragged a disc was when we were all using nortons, I remember it taking a loNNNNg time as well ( several hours ) but it always showed progress. This is a bit un-nerving watching the beachball spin indefinitely. But I'll give it a day and if necessary shut it down. I'm relieved to have had so much good advice, many thanks.
Peter
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User profile for user: peter stephen
peter stephen Author
User level: Level 2
265 points

Apr 28, 2010 4:08 PM in response to peter stephen

Followup. left it overnight, still frozen, restarted the mac, started up with no problems. read all 51 pages of the DW manual and it says NOT to run DW from a disc on a volume which has DW installed, yet it also recommends installing DW on the startup volume in the utilities folder ??? So you have to uninstal it to use it on the startup volume ! It also doesn't lioke FW connections ?? So I disconnected all FW drives and tried again. Worked flawlessly, thanKs everyone for the advice.
Peter
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User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
140,795 points

Apr 28, 2010 5:25 PM in response to peter stephen

it says NOT to run DW from a disc on a volume which has DW installed


This is mainly because the Act of Installing Disk Warrior makes additional changes to a possibly damaged directory and uses up Disk Blocks that may be cross-linked to possibly damaged files.

To repair the Startup Volume, they want you to boot from the CD/DVD and run Disk Warrior from there. This also has a huge advantage in that your Hard Drive will not be in use for the System when you go to make repairs to it. That kind of stuff (moving parts of the System that are in use) can cause your Mac to freeze.

So you have to uninstal it to use it on the startup volume !


You can't run the copy that is stored on the Startup Volume while repairing the Startup Volume, but you do not need to uninstall it.
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Directory rebuild/ Disk Warrior freeze

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