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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

DiskWarrior. Worth $100?

Frank Weeks

Frank Weeks

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I am having problems with one of my raids. My G-tech Speed ES doesn't show up in finder. It is in disk utility but when I click "Verify Disk" I get an error message
"Invalid node structure
The volume G-Speed could not be repaired" in Red print

Called G-tech. They felt the problem might be in my Mac Pro (8-core, 2008) Perhaps system drive. They recommended Diskwarrior.

I don't have a problem purchasing the software if it benefits performance. Even if it turns out to be a bad drive.

Any thoughts?
 
I had a single drive with a corrupted data tree, Drive Genius did nothing, Data Rescue could pull the data off of the drive, but Drive Warrior actually fixed it.

There might be a trial version out there...

cheers
 
Go for DiskWarrior.

Saved me on numerous occasions. 100 buck well spent in my honest opinion.

And from what I've heard it's one of the first things that Mac techs will run to do a diagnosis.

Basically, if you work with hard-drives, you are bonkers if you don't have at least a few bits and pieces in a kit (hardware and software) to res-erect a drive WHEN it fails. I say WHEN because if you work with hard-drives on a daily basis, you WILL experience a drive failure at some point in time.

I've quoted this before because I found it amusing (but oh so true) and I happened to stumble upon it when I was originally researching Diskwarrior.


"If you do not have both a backup and an off-site backup of your files, you do not own them. You are simply borrowing them from Fate."

And what Colin said above I agree with - Data Rescue can successfully rescue data (fancy that) but not repair code errors that may be corrupting a drive. Disk Warrior will do both. One thing Data Rescue can do that DW can't is rescue accidentally trashed media. And what neither piece of software will do is beat the human who trashed the data in the first place with a big stick. Unfortunately.

All jokes aside, if I had to only choose one of these types of software it would definitely be Disk Warrior. Be aware that Disk Warrior does not support FAT32 drives so it won't work in directly retrieving media from a REDDrive or RED formatted CF card.
 
I have both Diskwarrior and TechTools Pro. They seem to compliment each other, as one catches problems the other one doesn't. But if I'd to chose only one, I would go for Diskwarrior.

Won't help you on external disks, but as a general system help utility with some better disk maintenance than Disk Utility, there is the donation-ware Applejack.
 
Guess what the Apple Genius's use when you bring in a computer with a bad drive?

Yup...Disk Warrior.

Worth far more than $100 if it saves your drive some day. It's the best tool to fix directory problems, which are one of the more common disk errors.
 
DiskWarrior is the best off-the-shelf app out there for repairing drive structure info, node data, folder hierarchies, etc.. Data Rescue has the edge for restoring files that have been erased or drives that have been accidentally quick-formatted. And it looks like Cam and others have pointed that out as well.

Before you start down the path of using software data recovery, make a quick inspection of the drive hardware. Do the drives seem to spin up? Can you hear them or feel some vibration when the unit is powered up? If there is a hardware failure, no software is going to bring your data back to life. The hardware will have to be repaired first. If the drives spin up, do they make any unusual noises or sounds that are different or possibly louder than when they were working properly? If so, shut the drive down and stop right there. If the drive heads are making contact with the platter, you can be destroying your data with every revolution of that motor.

Have you tried the drive on a different system? I'm rather skeptical of it being a problem with your Mac.

You can try DiskWarrior for free to see if it will identify a problem. But you have to buy it to actually recover data or repair file structures.

Frank, If it looks more like it might be a hardware problem, PM me. I may have some more suggestions.
 
Thanks for all the solid advice. DiskWarrior seem to be the best bet and well work the money. I will download it tomorrow and give it a spin :).

Frank, If it looks more like it might be a hardware problem, PM me. I may have some more suggestions.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jeff. Hopefully I can resolve this myself. This computer has run flawlessly for over two years. It was about time it burped.
 
Frank Weeks said:
I am having problems with one of my raids. My G-tech Speed ES doesn't show up in finder. It is in disk utility but when I click "Verify Disk" I get an error message
"Invalid node structure
The volume G-Speed could not be repaired" in Red print

Called G-tech. They felt the problem might be in my Mac Pro (8-core, 2008) Perhaps system drive. They recommended Diskwarrior.

I don't have a problem purchasing the software if it benefits performance. Even if it turns out to be a bad drive.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Allways run DW prior to anything else, and if you have serious trouble with the disk, try to offload from the temporary reconstructed "shaddow" disk before reconstructing.

DW is the best little app in the world and should be in any Mac-owners arsenal. Datarescue and the like are cool, but they tend to mess more with the disks. Run DW first, and maybe you don't have to go there...
 
DW is a unique app, as unlike Apple Disk Utility, it doesn't try to fix the disk directory, but it builds brand new directory from recovered data. This way you end up with brand new, error free directory. Very often, while Disk Utility isn't able to repair the drive, DW does it with no problem.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
DiskWarrior is the best off-the-shelf app out there for repairing drive structure info, node data, folder hierarchies, etc..
Click to expand...

Yup. Saved my ass on more than one occasion on my old Medea VideoRAID RT drives...

Used to make custom bootable CD's with TTP for emergencies.
 
Extra vote for DW. Saved my butt on several occasions. Great quote from Cam, it's definitely ending up on a sticker or something.

(Is there a way to print onto camera tape yourself?)
 
Here's the best Disk Warrior tip I can give you guys (and man, it's been a big help and in one instance it likely prevented a suicide - mine).

Disk Warrior shouldn't be thought of as a repair utility - it's a maintenance utility. You really should run it once a month or so.

In my experience, your system drive is the most easily corrupted with the thousands of tiny system files and the amount of disk activity from running apps. But booting & running DW from the CD takes forever.

So, install the most basic OSX system you can on every bootable drive you have (skip things like languages and printers). If you have a ton of drives, install it on at least two or three. Install diskwarrior in the apps folder of each of those installs.

Then, to run DW, boot off a different drive using startup disk in system prefs. Disk Warrior running from the CD is nightmarishly slow - running on a hard drive, it gets done pretty fast. Makes it a lot easier to run it regularly, and thus you'll be more likely to run it regularly.
 
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