DiskWarrior steps for farkled disk

[ElyseC]

Just FYI for anyone interested, as I type my Mac G5 tower is being checked
by DiskWarrior and has been in that process for the past 18 hours, with
virtually no change in the progress bar.

Seeing no apparent change in the progress bar after about an hour, I called
Alsoft to inquire if this is normal. Left a message and their tech called me
back giving me the following advice, then emailing it to me, too, so I
didn't have to scribble it down while on the phone. I'll pass along here in
case it happens to help anyone else sometime down the road. Let me add that
where DW appeared to stop was it its "step 5" and with a parenthetical
comment below the progress bar that said "(Speed inhibited by disk
malfunction)". Here are the tech's instructions:

1)
If the mouse cursor still moves during step 5, then the computer did not
hang or freeze. DiskWarrior is still working on reading the directory of
the disk.

Such slowdowns are usually the result of having bad blocks on the media.
DiskWarrior is having trouble reading data from the locations on disk
where the directory structures are stored.

Please let DiskWarrior run for as long as it takes. This can take quite
a few hours but should eventually complete. On rare occasions, it might
even be necessary to run this for a day or two.

2)
When you run DiskWarrior started up from the CD, and you select Preview
at the DiskWarrior report, your new directory and your old directory will
appear side by side in the Preview window. At the top of these windows,
you will see the name of the disk you are viewing: one will read "your
disk(original)" and the other will read "your disk(preview)".

First, compare the original and preview directories. Does it appear that
all of your files and folders are there? If so, you can now copy from
the rebuilt directory to another drive. To do this, select your other
drive in place of "your disk(original)". Now, that column should list
the files and folders in the disk you can backup to. In the other column
(i.e. the Preview disk), select items (a few at a time) and click the
Copy button below the list of files and folders. This will backup your
data to that drive.

3)
After DiskWarrior completes, the disk should be in a usable state.
However, since the "speed inhibited" message indicates hardware-related
issues, the best long term solution is to backup your files, reformat the
hard drive, re-install the operating system and restore from backup.
When you are reformatting your drive, you should choose to "Zero All
Data" (an option in Apple's Disk Utility program).

Hopefully no one else here will ever need this info, but if you do....

[Mike]

Thanks for posting that. It's reassuring to know that DW can cope with even badly damaged discs (though I do hope I never need to put it to the test).

Hope your machine is back up and running.

[ElyseC]

Originally Posted by Mike

Hope your machine is back up and running.

Not yet, alas. DiskWarrior has been running for about 48 hours now.

I have emailed the Alsoft tech asking for confirmation that DW will - for sure - complete or throw in the towel and tell me there's nothing to be done but wipe it, lose all the data and rebuild from scratch. He'll probably read it once he gets to work tomorrow morning, so until I hear differently I'm just letting it run. <sigh>

[djb]

Useful, Elyse. Thanks for posting it.

[ElyseC]

Originally Posted by djb

Useful, Elyse. Thanks for posting it.

You're most welcome. Hopefully no one else here will ever need it.

[djb]

One small correction... The correct term is "florfed" not "farkled".

;-)

[ElyseC]

Originally Posted by djb

One small correction... The correct term is "florfed" not "farkled".

;-)

You northern folks do have your own way of saying things, dontcha now? ;-))

[Michael Rowley]

Elyse:

You northern folks do have your own way of saying things

I like the sound of 'farkled': it has a nice rustic ring to it. I can imagine imagine some ancient from down in, say, Sussex saying, 'It were right grunchy, not to say farkled; that's it, it were farkled'.

I must correct you on your notions of 'north' though: Saskatoon is at about the same latitude as Ipswich (the original English town).

[djb]

Originally Posted by ElyseC

You northern folks do have your own way of saying things, dontcha now? ;-))

Whatchutalkingbout?

<http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=florfed>

The CORRECT term is "florfed.

;-P

[djb]

Originally Posted by Michael Rowley

I must correct you on your notions of 'north' though: Saskatoon is at about the same latitude as Ipswich (the original English town).

I thought this was Bolton... That's Inter-City Rail for you.