Mac Pro restore hd

( Repair Disk ) only checks and repairs the Directory area of a Drive. It does not read ANY data blocks.

Your Drive sounds like it has Bad Blocks, and is suffering many many many re-tries. You should replace it to make fast progress now, or Zero it to force it to substitute spares (and determine whether it can be re-used or not).

To Zero:

use Disk Utility to Security Erase, Zero all Data, one pass (one click off the default of no security). This takes several hours to complete, and of course removes all data on the drive in a way that is completely un-recoverable. If it finishes with no errors, blocks have been substituted and you have 100 percent good blocks again.

If you get "Initialization failed!" it means more than 10 blocks were substituted, and you can run either it again or give up on the drive.

I never use Verify.

It should not take that long.

Disk Warrior though can - with a highly damaged directory and file system and have seen and read where it took hours and days.

Never interrupt. Though a verify should be safer. And never do an "erase free space" and stop it (or use it unless you must).

I would buy a couple new drives. One for replacement, one to recover files to.

Data Rescue 3

Carbon Copy Cloner

A new 3TB WD RED 3TB $118 and two new 1TB or larger drives.

Never live with just one backup. Clone it once or twice AND TimeMachine.

TimeMachine has a more complex file and directory structure.

I use two drives for TimeMachine. I use one for a week, switch over. Or use one just on weekend and do a one-time update to it and then go back to my daily use TimeMachine.

Grant might have mentioned - never let a drive get to less than 10% free. And with just 16GB out of 1TB that means all the free space is small, tiny, fragmented, and so is the directory, and files. HFSX does not like that and you could lose the index to where all your files are... which is what it sounds like happened.

One case where Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro 6 might be in order, only because you don't have enough backups and it was so very low on free space.

You could take the 3TB NAS RED and have 1.5TB for clone A

TimeMachine: you want more than 3x the amount of storage as your data will total, and take into account changes, updates, revisions, archived copies and such. And try to keep your active drives with no more than 60% full. And system drive should be just that, system and apps and next to nothing else. No media and data folders, those go on other drives.

One of the things that has bothered me is the seeming lack of HFSX to have a quota system and restrict and prevent using a drive - and the drive should show up with a nice red slash or X - and of course alert. For TimeMachine to even say "drive full" and ask to swap in a new drive. Or for "file storage" pools - Windows 8 just assign a new drive to the pool for backup use. There are improvements that went into HFSX but not all the features wanted when people asked or looked at what ZFS would offer.

70% full you do find performance suffers with many functions: time to seek, head movement, more use of slower areas of the disk platter tracks.

I'm sure a better storage and backup strategy can be worked out and 'grow into' to meet your needs and maybe household's. NAS RAID5 box even. Always have off line and even off site backup copies. A UPS to provide runtime and protection for power events and just to provide uptime and no unexpected issues. To protect high performance modems and routers, and a router with USB3 storage ability.

4 yrs for any of those drives? time to retire them to archive purpose, extra backups.

Aim for 50% free / used

WD RED are for RAID and NAS and unlike green are 7200 rpm but at similar pricing as WD Green

Adding a SSD PCIe controller can let you move your system out of drive bay.

Using a drive in lower optical drive bay works too to add 5th

External drive for at least one backup set. Some externals are hot swap and therefore just put in drive for backup and then put it off line on shelf. 2 - drive bays $75

I agree that the warning from T.M. should have just remove old, but it always needs room even for temp files. I am waiting after 6.5 yrs for T.M. methodology to mature 😟

You have to remember the days of SCSI voodoo and all the things we had to learn about active termination, cables, what slot to use and the rest!

Cloning T.M. is not in the cards.

Start fresh with a new drive for TimeMachine backups. Period. Until you know or just forget it but that drive needs a full zero all - about 6 hrs on a WD Black today.

System drive: SSD $100

TimeMachine: WD RED $120 3TB

Date: WD Black 2TB

Sonnet Tempo PCIe SSD SATA: $150-300 (optional expansion and performance)

A nice clean OS install to get on a solid foundation, then use Setup Assistant ONLY if you trust where the data is coming from.

For every and each volume, CLONE it at least once and then update with CCC "as needed." Two clones is ideal as redundant safety precaution and so one set is always live and one is off line and safe.

Data Rescue 3 first. Disk Warrior 4.x+ second.

Carbon Copy Cloner on non-TimeMachine volumes has an Advanced Settings : Option - do a checksum on each and every file. Takes longer but insures you get a good copy.

So you may need to "recover" files once, then clone the recovered files a 2nd time just to be sure you have good data.

Disk Warrior can do a long thorough "scavenger" of the drive and bypass the directory and work with what it finds out on the drive and assemble a new directory.

From its Preview window you can see the volume's Before / After and you can copy manually (don't think you can clone but might) any files you need.

Disk Warrior in extreme cases has run for days. Successfully.

TechTool Pro 5 and later would work sometimes but it was able to CREATE and write new directory changes in low space situations.

That almost sounds like something you want someone who has done it all once or more and also buying programs for one-time use possibly - compared to if you owned in the past.

That is why backup sets are the best maintenance and avoid the cost and all of those software programs.

To know that your drive is 'healthy' one of the best bets I think is a known reliable program that runs in background and reports bad sectors and can map them out. SoftRAID 4 $140. Back 12 yrs ago the support and all was worth more than the program.

Windows. I use it, but for some they get along just fine with using it in a VM rather than dual boot and run Windows natively. And avoid a dedicated drive (though that is the best way if you use Windows in dual boot and enough to justify).

RED. RAID Enabled. Suitable for RAID5 and NAS. Firmware optimized for RAID and time limit error recovery feature. WD Black 4TB drives are $399. You could have 3-4 x RED (3TB) in a mirror for backup set using RAID5 or even mirror (RAID1) or RAID10 even. Drive box and other equipjment extra but nice LAN backup.

Some people do a lot of media streaming on their LAN and want something to store all their media library and access from.

SATA is a type specification, an interface. ALL drives (other than say SAS or SCSI) are "sata"

I would not restore from your over full drive.

Oh well the neighborhood geek? they make great toy shops.

With the right surgeon even a Windows PC can be used to scan and recover Mac's HFSX files.

Simple is what Apple hopes. That is why TimeMachine nags and nags to "do you want to use this for TimeMachine" everytime I format a drive.

New graphic cards on Mac make flying easier and more fun 🙂

The verify is sort of doomed. Disk Utility isn't doing anything and it will get lost and confused. But it is your "all the eggs in one basket" also and... fragile.

I shop Amazon USA and others online but I know UK has slimmer offerings. In the EU there are some giant online stores for toys.

I use those old toys like an admiral with his map and charts and salt-shaker for a flattop carrier: move the destroyer escorts to here, and picture diagram my army.

In US$ for $100 you can roughly get any of these:

Samsung 840 120GB SSD / WD Black 1TB / WD RED 3TB / WD 10K VelociRaptor 250GB

Only one new to this thread is the WD 10K - more like pre-SATA SCSI drives, larger than the SSD but rock solid and while not as fast a decent little performer.

You need to have a regular hard drive for system even if you use an SSD.

Data Rescue 3 $90 but the demo is free and will show you if you is able to find most files to recover to another drive.

One drive for TimeMachine and one for clones and recovery.

Data should be on one drive, cloned to a 2nd at least, and on your TimeMachine.

I would probably have:

2 x WD RED 3TB - backup drive and recovery, can be used for data, multiple partitions for "clones"

2 x WD Black 1TB - data and clone copy

System drive of your choosing

An external drive enclosure - or two - for backups.

#15 FA-18 Super Hornets (2008)

Two U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets of Strike Fighter Squadron 31 fly a combat patrol over Afghanistan. The ability and technology of these military planes are beyond words! (Photo: Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon, U.S. Air Force)

Put a couple GTX 680 or AMD 7950 or something in SLI or Crossfire and some panoramic monitors 🙂

I keep pushing for these 900W/1500VA units:

UPS

http://www.amazon.com/CyberPower-CP1500PFCLCD-Compatible-1500VA-Tower/dp/B00429N 19W/

Okay...

Build a new foundation, a new home, for your OS and system.

Then add what bricks you can salvage and reuse.

When someone comes and says "but it is valuable, 10 yrs" I ask, WHERE ARE THE BACKUP TAPES?

You will have a new clean OS. That is easy.

Data recovery services make the $500 investment in new drives, disk recovery utilites, small cakes with their $2000 ? pricing.

Diskology Pro - your own forensic

http://www.diskology.com/diskjockeyproducts.html

http://diskology.com/djforensic.html

You can get your machine started with a bare new blank drive and an OS Installer.

When you download Lion or Mountain Lion, save it! put it on a flash drive and test and make an installer flash or DVD.

I don't think you want original. And if you have an ATI 5770 you need 10.6.5 or later.

Okay so use 10.6.3 DVD and upgrade it to 10.6.8.

Leave it AS IS.

Install Mountain on another physical drive.

You may want to dual boot or test ML out (the SL drive can become a bootable backup clone of ML later)

Create an OS X Lion Install disc

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20080989-263/how-to-create-an-os-x-lion-ins tallation-disc

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Lion would be nice to have around. An installer ? or just a working bootable system with 10.7.x, as long as it is or was in good working order. Then you can be up and running.

Try Data Rescue 3 and have a drive for it to recover files too that is safe and unused.

Windows can read HFSX but I would not take a chance with your drives until they are recovered.

VERIFY does nothing, fixes nothing, is a waste of time basically.