DiskWarrior 3.0 is here!
 

WOOT!

I've been waiting for this for a loooooong time. As soon as I get my copy, I'll post a short review. :-)


-/-
Mikey-San
"Woot."

Too bad it doesn't come with PlusOptimizer. I guess I'll just have to purchase one of their remaining copies of 2.1.

I suppose a decent review should include a catastrophic directory failure leading to a 'stuck' system. Who's gonna volunteer?

edit: I forgot the ;)

huzzah!

i'm close to being an involuntary voluteer. a drive here is uttering the death rattle noises. i doubt if DWX can recover a catastrophic hw failure, but who wants to subsidize my testing? :D

::digs around looking for the receipt from DW 2.1::

I wouldn't rush to get this if I were you. I've just bought it online and Alsoft's secure sever has ground to a halt. I can't get to the download page nor the 'go here if your download doesn't start and we'll email you a copy' page :(

[edit] I finally managed to request they email me a copy which, eight hours later, still hasn't arrived. I guess there's been a lot of interest - which isn't overly surprising. [/edit]

emailed version
 

Just a quick note to let you all know that if you tried to buy this online and ended up asking them to email it to you (as a consequence of their server being so busy) be warned that the file is 9161KB and may cause problems if your isp sets a lowish email quota. I had the file sent to my work email address but even there (on a T1 connection) my default quota size was only 5MB so I didn't get it until after I'd arranged for my quota to be upped.

This seemed to be the best thread to post about this although no one really followed through and gave their review of the software yet.

I just downloaded DiskWarrior 3.0 for OSX. I had a heck of a time getting it because the files were corrupted when they arrived and would not expand. I use the latest Stuffit Expander on OSX 10.2.6. The email option to ge the files worked eventually but took forever and I had to call Alsoft to find out what that was all about. Anyway, they send in two parts so it won't clog up the mail server limits of some ISP's.

First order of business was to make a boot cd to use on the startup disk. Using BootCD 0.5.3, that went without a problem as noted in this thread.

Upon starting up from the new boot cd and running DW, it came back saying I had a lot of links with bad creation dates, all of them from my /sw directory, and most from within /sw/share/man/man3. Also, it reported one file, a mail.app deleted items.mbox file, as having a bad link.

So, I didn't think too much of all of that although I was not experiencing any problems with my system at all and hadn't for a very long time. I did preview the files in question and found that none of them appeared to be links, the arrow missing from the icon in the finder column view I used at the time. They were just files on both the before and after preview.

I elected to go ahead with the rebuild and then quit DW to reboot. It didn't reboot though, just sat there with the spinning gear forever. And so I had to force a restart which went very quickly without any apparent problem.

But the first thing I noticed was that my Mail.app wouldn't launch from the dock. Trying from the /Applications/Mail.app didn't work either. I found a bunch of the system installed apps wouldn't launch too. Sherlock, Terminal, Calculator, Quicktime Player, etc...

I rebooted into SUM and ran fsck, no problems found. I tried repair permissions from Disk Utility and saw the usual special perms, locate.db and utmp stuff plus one I hadn't seen before, timezone data. But that didn't get those apps to launch. I could still get my xterm going through Xdarwin which I still use frequently because I don't use Apple's X11. Everything looked quite normal except I couldn't get all those apps to launch.

I finally gave it up and restored from my firewire backup with psync. I guess the old adage of, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", probably applies here. But I am dismayed with having paid for my first full version of DiskWarrior and having this happen out of the gate.

BTW, I never used DW before because I was waiting patiently for a year and a half to buy this new version. I used to be a loyal Norton user, over 12 years, but they wouldn't ever fix v6.0.3 to be more than crippleware, so I vowed never to use them again.

DiskWarrior has had such an outstanding reputation and I haven't found anyone else to have this negative an experience with them as of yet. After all this, I'm not too inclined to run the software again and I'm feeling like I got gipped.

Any thoughts, anyone?

I'm still waiting for my copy... Anyone else eligible for the $7 upgrade option receive the software?

I've only run it a couple of times, and then only after running fsck (after my machine has crashed). The normal scenario is that fsck will find a few relatively trivial errors with temporary files after which DW might find a few 'text encoding' problems (or something equally non-mission-critical). I certainly haven't had it cause any problems, or at least none that I'm aware of. It remains to be seen what it wil make of a serious crash.

Quote:

Originally posted by AKcrab

Can't you just download from their site and pay only that if you were promised?

Quote:

Originally posted by djn1

Did you upgrade from v2.1?

I could, but I just bought 2.1 in February, and think I deserve a shiny new CD to replace it. ;)

No, I didn't have a copy of 2.1.

Quote:

Originall posted by AKcrab

They said they are going to send the cd in the snail mail within two or three weeks of the order. I should hope that would include you as well.

Quote:

Originally posted by djn1

OIC. Did you get the cd in the snail mail or make your own as I have done?

I got the CD a couple of weeks after I downloaded it. Having said which, I don't imagine I'll ever use it. I have the app installed on a separate partition on my main drive and also on a separate internal drive.

Quote:

Originally posted by djn1

Thanks for the info. I haven't tried that method yet, but I may in a little while. I was thinking there might be some problem with the home made boot cd versus the factory made one.

Got my upgrade from 2.1 CD a while ago, and, stunningly, had a disk go haywire a few days later. DiskWarrior did it's usual thing, and all is now well. Seems rock solid and, if anything, faster than 2.1.

Still problems with DW
 

I tried the boot from another local cloned partition with DW and saw some of the same errors come up as with the home made cd but others not. This time, there were no /sw/* link errors at all. But the main error is the one sounding serious. It reads:

Disk Warrior has detected damage in the wrapper Volume Information for the disk named "OSX". The replacement directory cannot be built unless this damage is repaired.
....<snip>

Disk: "OSX"
The Attribute Bits of the Volume Information is incorrect and needs to be repaired.
Location: "Desktop"
....<snip>

Repair prevents such problems as wasted disk space and applications not functioning properly.
...END

Ironically, the applications got messed up when I was testing from the boot cd. But from the local cloned partition, I saw no difference what so ever in the preview of the two disks and no new folders at the root level as indicated in the manual, so I elected to go ahead with the change. Nothing happened. The DW application was grayed out and unavailable until the good old kernel panic came. I forced the reboot and tried again with the same result.

After that second in a row attempt, I booted into the original startup disk and found everything untouched and still working as good as it always has. So, at least it didn't mess me up and cause me to have to restore from my backup again. But the bottom line is that I can't get DW to work for me, first from the cd and second from the spare local clone partition.

Hmmm, I would have to agree with the adage!

I have been a Mac/UNIX user for years, and I have never defraged/optimized/whatever. I have backups, I test them regularly, and I have only had to use them when I have made a bonehead move and deleted files myself. I have had a glich or two with HFS+ under OS X (duplicate '..' entries) but nothing I have needed a tool to fix.

I seem to hear more problems from the people who use these tools than from people who don't!

Just my 2 cents though.....

Quote:

Originally posted by stetner

Yes, I'm feeling like I should get my money back if I can. I haven't needed anything like this for as long as I've been using OSX which is soon after the Public Beta came out. I guess I figured I should have it as my ace in the hole should something unexplainable arise. That's what I had Norton for but all it ever really fixed was bundle bits and creation/modification dates and the like. Nothing too serious since the days of OS9 and earlier.

Further investigation reveals...
 

...that I am not alone on this one at all. Sheesh! I should have checked elsewhere first before buying the darn thing. Trust but verify is how I should have had it. Check it out here.

I have this problem too (as, it appears, a number of others do as well). It does not happen every time, just occasionally.

So I watched 'top' in Terminal while I ran DW from the boot partition on another partition. While DW was working, it had 4 processes going. After the rebuild, I quit DW and only 3 of the 4 processes quit. This happens every time. Sometimes it will hang upon reboot or logout and sometimes it won't. If I kill the final DW process before reboot or logout, it won't hang....of course, since the hang is only intermittent anyway I don't know that this is conclusive. Perhaps the next time I kill the final DW process and reboot, it could hang!?

Anyway, just a thought.

ekkk I have not Checked but is there more then one version of DW
 

1) ekkk I have not Checked, but is there more then one version of DW 3.x ?
2) Also anyone know what verson of X their *(minimal) Boot CD comes with? vs. what version people might build or run it from on other paritions?

DW Offical DW boot version is faceless, no DeskTop, unlike 9.x.

** I have personaly only had good work form DW3 aross 1/2 dozen machines and dozens of repairs, all flawless. .. Only from their factory boot CD.

That said nothing works 100 percent of the time for 100 percent of situations.

No matter how often, and how many ways one backs up their is still utility to repairs of dir. damage. Maybe your back up is 24 hours old. Maybe you just want an additional option. **Of course back up is still best/most complete defense against all forms of disk problems. But in the real world (where you can not force everyone to have 20 kinds of back up even though its in their best interest) DW will save a drives ass more often then backups that might not be there, or might not be recent enough... But Before using any utilty it is always better to have a back up to go to if it fails (and an end user should always be warned of the potential risk).

The majority of posters to this forum trust DW2 and now DW3 more then any other product out there. And I am greatful for a X booting and Native version.

First, for systems that will not boot 9 and Second because 2.1x as wonderful as it was, sometimes froze solid while making repairs... Somthing I blame more on 9.x then DW. Usually rebooting and re-running the repair worked, but it was disconcerting all the same.

**Please note I am no way diminishing the problems of the posters in this thread.

I am merely suggesting that their may have been a cause:

e.g. a badly built boot CD, rolling your own X CD is one is tough nut.

And running DW3 from another boot volume should be an option, but may as yet not be a reliable one?? I have not gone that way and won't.

I am sold on DiskWarrior. I don't waste many chances to sing its praises. DW 3 still repairs beautifully, there just might be a hang at logout/restart sometimes. I did not intend to sound negative toward DW (which has saved me in the past), I was hoping to point toward a solution for those who have the hang problem.

For informational purposes: I have a factory CD that they sent me in the mail. The hang happens whether I use the CD or run DW from another boot volume. I was, as you noted, running from another boot volume so that I could run Terminal.

At any rate, I'm hoping that solving the problem is as simple as killing the final process before rebooting or restarting. It seems to be working for me so far.

I paid $10 Canadian for Diskwarrior 3 through my school. Haven't had to use it yet, but its there when my Quicksilver needs to be spanked then nursed back to health. She's been good so far.

As you might have suspected, the extra process still running when DiskWarrior quits, is the one that is doing the hardware check. If you select "Automatically check all drives for hardware malfunction" under the "Automatic Diagnostics" of the "Hardware" portion of the DW window, then there will always be a DW process running, starting at login (you can see DiskWarriorStarter in your 'Login Items' PreferencePane).

When you start DW, it will kill this process and create a new one, along with three others. All 4 are running during the rebuilding process (although two use 0% of the CPU), and only three are killed when DW is quit. The remaining one, I presume, is the process left to do the hardware diagnostics (replacing the original such process which was created at logon). Even if you do not have "Automatically check all drives for hardware malfunction" selected, all 4 processes will be created when DW starts, but all 4 will also quit when DW is quit.

Thus, although I have not had any hangs since I've started killing this final process before logout, it seems unlikely that killing this final DiskWarrior process will solve the hang at logout/restart problem.

Neat about kill -9 sort of thing when DW NOT using their CD
 

Neat about kill -9 sort of thing when NOT using DW3 factory CD:(

I am actually (and I am sure others are too) interested in the Combined expereinces of others here and elsewhere regarding booting from other volumes and using DW3.

It is just for now I have not found a need to run the repairs that way. .. I could think of a million scenarios, the two most obvious being no DW3 boot CD and a broken CD/DVD player where you might want too.

I will keep an eye out for offical and communal info.

So far though the Zeit Giest seems to be with DW3, use thier boot CD *Good* Not using DW3 boot CD BAD*.

Please note that while one should respect their Softare Lic, they make no attempt to stop you (No Copy Protection) from making Arcvhival copies of DW3 so that barring a failure your of CD/DVD player at the same time as Dir Damage one should always have DW3 handy.

*One Side note I have not mentioned is making a Disk Image of DW3 and then burning CD when needed. Of course this latter trick might require an extra machine or boot volume you would be virtually guaratneed of almost always having DW3. I would still recommend keeping a CD copy everywhere your computer goes though.

I like having the ability to run DW off of another partition or drive because then when an update (the free kind that fix bugs) comes out, I can use the update without spending $10 on a new CD containing the update.

Incidentally, one of my Macs (600 MHz Summer 2001 iMac) will not boot from the factory DW CD. I have not tried using BootCD to make another one.

Yes Imagined there were many good Reasons
 

Yes Imagined there were many good Reasons beyond the ones I mentioned.

Strange that the DW3 CD wont Boot up one of you machines.

Have you tried the troublsome changing boot Pref from System Prefs or
**better and Safer ** the on the Fly Method other then holding the C key down

**e.g. Press Option-Command-Shift-Delete
during startup Bypass primary startup volume and seek a different startup volume (such as a CD or external disk).

I have to say that until the reliabilty of using other boot volumes is establsihed you may need to pay the $10.

**At least in your case as you have at least more then one machine one that CD works with and one that it does not you can also start the Ibook in FW target mode on a system that will Boot from DW3 CD e.g. Restart the ibook with T key held down, Giant FW simple then FW Plug ibook system into one that can boot into DW3. You should be able to repair the Ibook then, as it is in Target mode. I would also contacl Alsoft as it is supposed to be able to boot a ibook such as yours, they could send you a replacement DW3 boot CD.


For those who want the Full Monty of commands URL below or Its content pasted below:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75459


Mac OS X: Keyboard Shortcuts Article ID:
Created:
Modified: 75459
12/16/02
4/9/03


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOPIC
This document contains common Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DISCUSSION
Startup
Keystroke Description
Press X during startup Force Mac OS X startup
Press Option-Command-Shift-Delete
during startup Bypass primary startup volume and seek a different startup volume (such as a CD or external disk)
Press C during startup Start up from a CD that has a system folder
Press N during startup Attempt to start up from a compatible network server (NetBoot)
Press R during startup Force PowerBook screen reset
Press T during startup Start up in FireWire Target Disk mode
Press Shift during startup start up in Safe Boot mode and temporarily disable login items and non-essential kernel extension files (Mac OS X 10.2 and later)
Press Command-V during startup Start up in Verbose mode.
Press Command-S during startup Start up in Single-User mode (command line)



Finder window
Keyboard shortcut Description
Command-W Close Window
Option-Command-W Close all Windows
Command-Right Arrow Expand folder (list view)
Option-Command-Right Arrow Expand folder and nested subfolders (list view)
Command-Left Arrow Collapse Folder (list view)
Option-Command-Up Arrow Open parent folder and close current window




Menu commands
Keyboard shortcut Description
Shift-Command-Q Apple Menu
Log out
Shift-Option-Command-Q Apple Menu
Log out immediately
Shift-Command-Delete Finder Menu
Empty Trash
Option-Shift-Command-Delete Finder Menu
Empty Trash without dialog
Command-H Finder Menu
Hide Finder
Option-Command-H Finder Menu
Hide Others
Command-N File Menu
New Finder window
Shift-Command-N File Menu
New Folder
Command-O File Menu
Open
Command-S File Menu
Save
Shift-Command-S File Menu
Save as
Command-P File Menu
Print
Command-W File Menu
Close Window
Option-Command-W File Menu
Close all Windows
Command-I File Menu
Get Info
Option-Command-I File Menu
Show Attributes Inspector
Command-D File Menu
Duplicate
Command-L File Menu
Make Alias
Command-R File Menu
Show original
Command-T File Menu
Add to Favorites
Command-Delete File Menu
Move to Trash
Command-E File Menu
Eject
Command-F File Menu
Find
Command-Z Edit Menu
Undo
Command-X Edit Menu
Cut
Command-C Edit Menu
Copy
Command-V Edit Menu
Paste
Command-A Edit Menu
Select All
Command-1 View Menu
View as Icons
Command-2 View Menu
View as List
Command-3 View Menu
View as Columns
Command-B View Menu
Hide Toolbar
Command-J View Menu
Show View Options
Command - [ Go Menu
Back
Command - ] Go Menu
Forward
Shift-Command-C Go Menu
Computer
Shift-Command-H Go Menu
Home
Shift-Command-I Go Menu
iDisk
Shift-Command-A Go Menu
Applications
Shift-Command-F Go Menu
Favorites
Shift-Command-G Go Menu
Goto Folder
Command-K Go Menu
Connect to Server
Command-M Window Menu
Minimize Window
Option-Command-M Window Menu
Minimize All Windows
Command-? Help Menu
Open Mac Help




Universal Access
Keyboard shortcut Description
Option-Command-* (asterisk) Turn on Zoom
Option-Command-+ (plus) Zoom in
Option-Command-- (minus) Zoom out
Control-Option-Command-* (asterisk) Switch to White on Black
Control-F1 Turn on Full Keyboard Access
When Full Keyboard Access is turned on, you can use the key combinations listed in the table below from the Finder.
Control-F2 Full Keyboard Access
Highlight Menu
Control-F3 Full Keyboard Access
Highlight Dock
Control-F4 Full Keyboard Access
Highlight Window (active) or next window behind it
Control-F5 Full Keyboard Access
Highlight Toolbar
Control-F6 Full Keyboard Access
Highlight Utility window (palette)




The Universal Access preference pane allows you to turn on Mouse Keys. When Mouse Keys is on, you can use the numeric keypad to move the mouse. If your computer doesn't have a numeric keypad, use the Fn (function) key.

Mouse Keys
Keystroke Description
8 Move Up
2 Move Down
4 Move Left
6 Move Right
1, 3, 7, and 9 Move Diagonally
5 Press Mouse Button
0 Hold Mouse Button
. (period on keypad) Release Mouse Button (use after pressing 0)




Other Commands
Keystroke Description
Option-Command-D Show/Hide Dock
Command-Tab Switch application
tab Highlight next item
Command-Up Arrow Move up one directory
Command-Down Arrow Move down one directory
Page Up or Control-Up Arrow Move up one page
Page Down or Control-Down Arrow Move down one page
Option-Drag Copy to new location
Option-Command-Drag Make alias in new location
Command-Drag Move to new location without copying
Shift-Command-C Show Colors palette in application
Command-T Show Font palette in application
Command-Shift-3 Take a picture of the screen
Command-Shift-4 Take a picture of the selection
Command-Shift-4, then press Control while selecting Take a picture of the screen, place in Clipboard
Command-Shift-4, then Spacebar Take a picture of the selected window
Option-Command-esc Force Quit
Control-Eject Restart, Sleep, Shutdown dialog box
Control-Command-Eject Quit all applications and restart
Option-Command-Eject or
Option-Command-Power Sleep
Command-click window toolbar button (upper right corner) Cycle through available views for the window's toolbar (dependant on the nature of the Finder or application window).

Correction, the factory DW CD won't start up the original eMac (700MHz), it will start up the iMac.

One more thought...
 

One more thought... Beyond the FW Trick...

"Automatically check all drives for hardware malfunction" under the "Automatic Diagnostics" Just Say NO. Seriously......

*** I only Repair the one Disk. One at a time and *Never do the Auto thing.....

I Just Launch the main DW Repair Utilty that re-creates the Dir Structure.... From the Main Tab.

That latter Ooption must check the Drive for Bad Blocks. While an Application should never have a troublsome options Scanning the wholle Surface checking for Bad Blocks is terriblyly time consuming. ... Unless you suspect actual bad blocks this seems like asking for trouble.

This is also (I belive) a new feature not part of the core DW2 or DW3 App. It is only accessible by going to the advanced Tab.....

DW3 REVIEW
 

Purchased at my local Apple store a week ago to fix a problem with my drive. Supposedly it did its job, but I still have the same problem. It was fast, and simple enough to use. So I guess this is a good review? Just don't buy it at a certain computer super store...they want $10 more than list price.

Re: DW3 REVIEW
 

What is the problem? Maybe we or others on these boards can help solve the problem.

RE: DW3 REVIEW
 

Re: DW3 REVIEW


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by toddg78
Purchased at my local Apple store a week ago to fix a problem with my drive. Supposedly it did its job, but I still have the same problem.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



What is the problem? Maybe we or others on these boards can help solve the problem.

RE:

You can read my FULL problem posted on here somewhere, I just posted it a few minutes ago.

I spoke too soon. I still have the problem of my Mac hanging when I try to shut down or reboot after rebuilding my drive. I emailed Alsoft support, which seems to think that this is only an issue with dual processor G4's and the DW CD and it is blamed on the System provided by Apple for the CD.

....starting a new thread for assistance.

So this problem happens even of the CD
 

So this problem happens even of the CD from DW??

Yes, but not all the time, for some reason...you'd think that there could not be too many variables with starting from a CD. (Except whether you chose it as a startup disk from System Preferences, by holding down the C key at startup, or the option key at startup.

Alsoft tech support said to use BootCD to construct another startup CD to put DiskWarrior on.

I did, and so far through 4 attempts, the Mac has cleanly rebooted each time (beginning the restarting phase faster than it did before when it wouldn't hang). I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but so far it looks like DiskWarrior is in like Flynn again.

Cool:)
 

Did you use your OSX 10.28 system to Do it?

Re: Cool:)
 

Yes, I built it from 10.2.8. I also included Disk Utility on the CD. Prior to this new version of Disk Warrior, I seemed to remember that Alsoft recommended running Disk FirstAid before running DiskWarrior. Al Whipple said that Disk FirstAid would 'do no harm' to the directory.

So I began to repair permissions until I noted that it was speeding through all of them changing all of them...I guess that on the BootCD it does not have a bom to check them off off and so it does not work like it should. So I interrupted it and repaired them later.