Possibly dumb Q: Running Disk Utility when booted from OSX Install DVD

Hey there Mac folks. I was wondering about this:

I'm running OSX 10.4.5 on a 2x2.0GHz G5 with 4 internal drives. (I stuffed 2 into the PCI bay with a G5Jam bracket kit.) I use Disk Utility v10.5.3, which is current for OSX 10.4.5, when doing basic maintenance/repair on my secondary drives, as well as to repair permissions and do a verify (but not repair) on my startup drive. When I have to do a repair on my startup drive, barring the use of other 3rd party apps, I have to boot from my OS 10.4 DVD, and use the Disk Utility there. However, since it's a 10.4.0, the Disk Utility there is v 10.5.0.

So, the question: Should I care? Any chance of a problem? I know the Disk Utility's repairing doesn't really care what OS, if any, is installed on a drive it's repairing (at least I think that's true?), but I have no idea what changes/improvemnts have been made to Disk Utility. Actually, I've always wondered about this sort of thing since OS 10.0.

I think I can make a copy of my Tiger install DVD with the newer version of Disk Utility inserted onto it, replacing the old one with v10.5.3. I don't know if it's worth the trouble though. I figure that for the newbie users, Apple would have thought of this, and addressed it if it were a potential problem. (Despite this Q, I'm not a newbie!)

G5 2x2.0GHz, 2.5GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.4.5), 4 internal 250GB SATA drives, external 1TB RAID via FW

Posted on Mar 10, 2006 10:37 PM

Reply
1 reply

Mar 10, 2006 11:17 PM in response to JonYo

Hi, JonYo.

Booting from your Tiger Install DVD to Verify or Repair your startup disk is fine. No worries!

The major changes in Disk Utility from 10.5 to 10.5.3 were:

• Better handling of overlapped extent allocation errors. Third-party utilities, such as Alsoft’s DiskWarrior may still be better at this task.

• The addition of live verification: the ability to Verify your startup disk while booted from such. One of the intermediate releases

The key point is to only use Tiger-compatible disk utilities with Tiger.

If you've implemented a proper backup and recovery solution where you are creating a bootable duplicate of your startup disk, you could also start up from the duplicate and run the latest version of Disk Utility on such to Verify or Repair your usual startup disk. For advice on the backup and recovery solution I employ, see my "Backup and Recovery" FAQ.

Computing without a comprehensive backup and recovery solution is like driving without auto insurance. 😉

Good luck!

😉 Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

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Possibly dumb Q: Running Disk Utility when booted from OSX Install DVD

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