Is Disk Warrior any good?

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Has anybody used Disk Warrior?



Is it any good?



One to avoid?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    omegaomega Posts: 427member
    I myself have never used it, but the people I know who have had to use it for emergency purposes tend to swear by it.



    I know myself always has a 'friend' who was a copy in case it is needed.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Messiah

    Has anybody used Disk Warrior?



    Is it any good?



    One to avoid?




    No repair tool can fix every damaged disk directory, but if Disk Warrior can't fix it, most likely it can't be fixed.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member
    I'm wondering if it fix whatever CS2 screws up every time it's installed.



    Disk Utility reports: First Aid failed. Disk Utility stopped verifying "Macintosh HD" because the following error was encountered: The underlying task reported failure on exit.



    The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.

    Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit.

    Volume needs repair.



    There is also mention of "Illegal name".



    Happens as soon as you install CS2, and is repeatable across a number of different machines...



    Hmmm... I wonder if DiskWarrior can fix this?
  • Reply 4 of 7
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Messiah

    I'm wondering if it fix whatever CS2 screws up every time it's installed.



    Disk Utility reports: First Aid failed. Disk Utility stopped verifying "Macintosh HD" because the following error was encountered: The underlying task reported failure on exit.



    The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.

    Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit.

    Volume needs repair.



    There is also mention of "Illegal name".



    Happens as soon as you install CS2, and is repeatable across a number of different machines...



    Hmmm... I wonder if DiskWarrior can fix this?




    Damn, I didn't know CS2 did this. Just today I installed it on the Quad G5 I use and Apple Motion started hanging up. The process reported that it couldn't access some vnode, which suggested a drive problem. Sure enough, running Disk Utility reported an error with the illegal name message.



    Because it was the system disk, I would have had to boot off the installer. I couldn't find it though so I restarted in single-user mode (which oddly turns all the G5 Quad fans on) and then I just did the fsck -f and it repaired the fault and all was well again. You boot into single user mode by holding command-s at startup. After running fsck -f, just type reboot.



    As for Diskwarrior, I was disappointed to see that all it really did was repair a disk directory. I've never needed to do that but I guess if that's what was needed, Diskwarrior might be what I'd use. For features and value for money, I prefer Techtool Pro.



    Nonetheless, it sounds like you have the same error I coincidentally got today, which is easily fixed with disk utility itself. Someone in the office joked that CS2 had caused it.



    So, the solution is either



    A. boot off the install disk and run disk utility to repair the disk



    or



    B. 1. boot holding command-s

    2. this will take you to a command line where you type fsck -f

    3. wait until it is finished then type reboot
  • Reply 5 of 7
    rob05aurob05au Posts: 348member
    Hi



    I tried Disk Warrior 3.0.3 rev 39 to fix the exact same problem and lost some folder icons of adobe apps.



    I personally don't trust it under 10.4.* as it screws up things.



    I would just simply use my Boot DVD and repair the disk via that and reboot from the HD and do a Repair Permissions.



    This has worked more successfully for me several times.



    The problem I find with Dusk Warrior is that the system is 10.4.2 and each time apple updates the system version a lot of things change and and so Disk Warrior really can only fix problems under the boot system on the CD from which it comes.



    Just my 2¢



    Rob
  • Reply 6 of 7
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Messiah

    I'm wondering if it fix whatever CS2 screws up every time it's installed.



    So you noticed that too? I installed the CS2 demo last May and my hard drive died within a week. Strange things started accumulating like Finder crashes, icons, and speed. I was sure Adobe caused this.



    Last week I had to install the InDesign demo because I have some homework and Scribus can't read InDesign files. The icons are acting up again! Damnit Adobe!



    Now that is just my 400Mhz laptop... All the printers are on my G5 and again I need to install it. No problems yet, but I am backing up every night.



    Quote:

    Dear Adobe:

    Whatever you are doing to the disk stop! No App installer needs to mingle with the system at such a level to cause disk errors. You are doing something wrong and need to fix this problem.



    -Ebby



    I'll jump to conclusions and say this is some kind of DRM flag embedded into the file structure of the drive. Anyone else want to take a stab at this bug?
  • Reply 7 of 7
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    In another thread somewhere, several of us noted that CS2 hosed our drives. It screwed up ALL FOUR of my partitions. DU was able to fix them though.



    Disk Warrior is for repairing directories,



    If your goal is to recover lost files, you want Data Rescue. You don't pay unless it finds files that can be recovered.
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