Onyx says disk needs repair; Disk Utility says disk is okay?

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Level 1

19 points

Onyx says disk needs repair; Disk Utility says disk is okay?

Yesterday, I finally picked up Snow Leopard. Before installing I figured i'd do some maintenance. Ran Onyx. It came back saying the disk needs repair. So, I inserted my Leopard install disk, booted from it and ran utility. Came back with a number of issues; Incorrect number of thread records, invalid volume file count. So, I ran repair and it came back that it was repaired successfully. Ran verify again to check and it came back fine. But now, when I run Onyx, it still gives me the warning that the disk needs to be repaired. I actually went and verified one more time, and again, it came back okay. Then started Onyx again, and still says needs repair. So, I'm stumped. Is the disk fine? Is Onyx wrong? I'm trying to get this sorted before I upgrade to Snow Leopard. Should I just disregard Onyx's warning, since I've verified and reverified, and just run the maintenance? Any help or insight would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

iMac 20 : PB12 867, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Jan 30, 2011 9:11 AM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jan 30, 2011 9:36 AM in response to Cory Smith1

Onyx is probably wrong.

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Answer 2

Cory Smith1 Author

Level 1

19 points

Jan 30, 2011 10:09 AM in response to Kappy

Ha, okay. Simple enough. 🙂

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Answer 3

Cory Smith1 Author

Level 1

19 points

Jan 30, 2011 10:52 AM in response to Cory Smith1

Quickly though, and I just thought about this...Onyx does let you continue on into the maintenance interface. With it still saying the disk needs repair, should i NOT perform the Onyx maintenance? Or is it okay to disregard the disk repair warning and go ahead with the maintenance?

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Answer 4

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jan 30, 2011 3:38 PM in response to Cory Smith1

OnyX is using the same UNIX command as Disk Utility.

As I understand it, the "live verification" process is quite tricky; making sure all the various directories and catalogs are "in sync" while OSX is busily running requires some things to be stopped briefly, and isn't always accurate.

Try it with as little else running as possible. If it shows errors, also try running +*Verify Disk+* via Disk Utility under the same conditions, and see if you get the same results.

But the bottom line is, if +*Repair Disk+* while booted from your Install disc says there aren't any problems, there aren't any problems.

Just be sure that you always use a compatible version of OnyX and Disk Utility; Leopard for Leopard, Snow Leopard for Leopard.

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Answer 5

Cory Smith1 Author

Level 1

19 points

Jan 30, 2011 8:00 PM in response to Pondini

Okay, thanks. Yes, it was booted from the install disk and that did say there were no issues. It would seem that things must be fine. I do find it interesting that Onyx keeps coming back showing an issue however. Thanks for all of the help.

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Answer 6

Cory Smith1 Author

Level 1

19 points

Jan 30, 2011 8:32 PM in response to Cory Smith1

Interesting update, relating back to the initial disk repair. As stated, errors that came back were "missing thread record" and "missing directory record." Those both had numbers related to them, 25329968 and 2496885. When repairing, it said something about searching the lost+found directory. Then, it came back repaired. I just noticed, while going into my applications, that there's a new folder there that's never been there in Macintosh HD. It's a folder called "lost+found" and within that folder are 2 folders that that have those numbers above...there's a folder called "25329968" and "24966885." What in the world are these? Why are they now there? Both folders are empty by the way, 0 items.

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Answer 7

Mar 15, 2011 10:12 AM in response to Cory Smith1

I am having the same issue. Computer was acting unstable, Illustrator crashing and slow so I ran Onyx and it said to repair the disk. So I ran the repair disk utility from the startup disk (Snow Leopard) and it came back with errors: "missing thread record", "incorrect number of thread records", "invalid volume count", "missing directory record? and "invalid volume file count". It repaired everything successfully and I verified using disk utility and it said it was okay. But upon restarting and running Onyx again, it still says the disk needs to be repaired.

I admit I know nothing when it comes to this stuff happening in the background. Please let me know if I need to do something else or be concerned about the kind of errors it found/repaired.

Thanks!

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Answer 8

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Mar 15, 2011 3:55 PM in response to Thicks101

Check it again with Disk Utility on your install disk. If that says it's ok, it's ok.

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Answer 9

Feb 8, 2012 7:25 AM in response to Cory Smith1

This was happening to me until today. Both Onyx and Disk Utility scared me about my internal disk too. Then when I checked, I saw that Journaling was turned off on my disk. Once I turned it back on, both Onyx and Disk Utility said disk was ok.

To turn journaling on and off using Disk Utility:

Open Disk Utility (located in Applications/Utilities).
Select the volume to enable or disable journaling on.
To enable, click the Enable Journaling button or choose Enable Journaling from the File menu.
To disable journaling, choose Disable Journaling from the File menu.

Note: In Mac OS X 10.4 and later, press Option to make Disable Journaling visible in the File menu.

(from http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2355)

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