Repair your startup disk - easily
I'm sure the tech savvy AI members know this easy way to repair your startup disk. But, just in case some tech-challenged members don't, this article appeared in the July 2009 issue of MacWorld:
"Try Safe Boot
When you hold down the Shift key at startup, your Mac does a Safe Boot. The directory check this routine performs is essentially the same as running Repair Disk, except that you don?t get any feedback as to the results. That means you can?t confirm whether your Mac needed repairs or whether repairs were successfully made. Still, as long as performing a Safe Boot cures your Mac, that probably doesn?t matter."
If you want to know if that worked, use disk utility:
"Click on Verify Disk
The Verify Disk button usually works even if Repair Disk doesn?t. Click on it if you can."
If the results say that everything is OK, you are good to go.
If you can't use verify on the main drive, move to your backup, open disk utility, click the main drive in DU, Verify Disk should work and, voila, it'll tell you if Safe Boot has repaired the main drive.
"Try Safe Boot
When you hold down the Shift key at startup, your Mac does a Safe Boot. The directory check this routine performs is essentially the same as running Repair Disk, except that you don?t get any feedback as to the results. That means you can?t confirm whether your Mac needed repairs or whether repairs were successfully made. Still, as long as performing a Safe Boot cures your Mac, that probably doesn?t matter."
If you want to know if that worked, use disk utility:
"Click on Verify Disk
The Verify Disk button usually works even if Repair Disk doesn?t. Click on it if you can."
If the results say that everything is OK, you are good to go.
If you can't use verify on the main drive, move to your backup, open disk utility, click the main drive in DU, Verify Disk should work and, voila, it'll tell you if Safe Boot has repaired the main drive.