Disk Utility sees problem invisible to Disk Warrior?

Question

Hi all,
In brief: Disk Utility seems to think I've got a big problem, Disk Warrior seems to be unable to fix it.
More detail: I ran verify disk from Disk Utility and was told I needed to repair my startup volume. So I ran Disk Utility's repair disk function from the install CD and it was unable to repair the disk. It was also unable to repair permissions.
So I reached for trusty Disk Warrior and ran that. It rebuilt the directory, reporting various changes, eventually ending with zero errors. That should have fixed it, right?
But then I re-ran Disk Utilty and was told, again, that the disk needed to be repaired.
Here's what happened when I ran DU's repair function from the install CD:
- I selected only the volume containing Mac OS X for repair and Disk Utility reported there's an "invalid leaf record count (it should be 3 instead of 525) and also that '1 HFS volume repaired' but '1 HFS volume could not be repaired'. (I'd selected only my startup volume).
- The verify disk function reports the same
- The repair disk permissions function cannot complete its task. Its error message reads: "Disk Utility internal error: disk utility has lost its connection with the disk management tool and cannot continue. Please quit and relaunch disk utility."
So, I ran Disk Warrior AGAIN (2nd time) and sure enough, it reports that it successfully rebuilt the directory but that the rebuilt version has no changes from the original version (meaning it's ok, right?).
Needless to say, if my startup disk DOES need repair, I want to do something about it. But does it need repair? And if Disk Warrior can't fix it, what can? Could it be that Disk Utility is seeing a problem that's invisible to Disk Warrior?
By the way, I ran DW's manual diagnostic and it said the drive itself was operating normally.
Very grateful if any of you can give me some insight into this.
Jason
Dual G5 2.5Ghz 2GB RAM, Powerbook G4 1.33Ghz, iPod 60GB   Mac OS X (10.4.8)   500GB internal HDD

Answer 1

Hi Allan,
Sure thing. Here's the business.
Disk Warrior (v3.0.3)
DW reports that it's successfully rebuilt a new directory each time I run it. I've run it three times now. The first time, there were differences between the original directory and the rebuilt version and it displayed a message coloured red describing this. On the subsequent two occasions, it has displayed a message coloured green and said there are "no changes to the number or contents of the files and folders" in the rebuilt directory.
DW's manual diagnostic reports that the drive itself is "operating normally."
DU
Running DU internally (from the volume that also contains 10.4.9), it can only 'verify', of course. The volume's name is 'G5 hard drive'. The full message is:
Verifying volume “G5 hard drive”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Incorrect number of Extended Attributes
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
d.",1)
G5 hard drive
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
Running DU (repair disk) from the install CD (for Powermac G5, OS X 10.3.5) produces the following report:
Repairing disk for "G5 hard drive"
Checking HFS plus volume
Checking extents overflow file
Checking catalog file
Checking multi-linked files
Checking catalog hierachy
Checking extent attributes file
Invalid leaf record count
(It should be 3 instead of 422)
Repairing volume
The volume G5 hard drive was repaired successfully
Repair attempted on 2 volumes
1 HFS volume repaired
1 HFS volume could not be repaired
So let's say that DW is doing it all right, and the copy of DU on the install CD (10.3.5) is producing an inaccurate result because it doesn't match up with Tiger, I can understand that. But why would the same problem come up with DU run internally from (in the course of the last 24 hours) both 10.4.8 and 10.4.9 (because the problem survived my upgrade)?
On the other hand, Allan, possibly DW isn't the right tool for the job. In that case, do you know what is?
Thanks,
Jason
Dual G5 2.5Ghz 2GB RAM, Powerbook G4 1.33Ghz, iPod 60GB   Mac OS X (10.4.9)   500GB internal HDD