Disk Warrior & Tiger Cache Cleaner

Hi,
I'm new to the mac world, and I've been introduced to the concept of regularly needing to:
1. Use Disk Warrior
2. Clear the "cache"
I'm stumped by the premise that an operating system needs two third party utilities to basically function normally.
Could someone explain exactly why these utilities are needed and seem to be must-haves in the mac world?
Thanks,
Nikhil

IndianCowboy:
You've opened a can of worms, put 10 experienced mac users in a room and you'll get 12 opinions on maintenance and repair, and some will debate their methods quite vigorously. I've come to the conclusion that it really is individual, no two people have exactly the same software on their Mac or use it in the same way (you may not realize it but we each develop our own techniques).
In your case you came up against a serious directory problem that requires reinstalling the system, but this is rare. Overlapped files is very serious but also very rare and unlikely to be related to any maintenance or lack of it.
You'll need to play around a bit and find out what works best for you.
Personally, I don't run anything until my Mac starts acting up; gets slow, apps start crashing, or simply quirky behavior (or the rare kernal panic). Then, depending on how bad it is I'll run Cocktail (very similar to Tiger Cache Cleaner) or run Disk Warrior first then Cocktail. Where many problems start is in the caches which get rewritten constantly and so are volatile. Sometimes just a restart will fix these things or a Safe Boot (holding down the shift key). A safe boot runs some repairs and deletes all your font caches, so it's a good thing any time you are having font problems. And a simple restart will often fix many problems. It really takes some time to get the feel for what to do in each situation. I've gotten pretty good in figuring out what needs to be done with each bad behavior.
Before an update I will always run Disk Warrior and Cocktail first then repair permissions afterwards. This might be overkill but I have no problems with updates at all.
Or follow the advice others here have given, I bet most will work. Follow the link to Dr. Smoke's site, he has lots of very good info (including the problems you might run into with cache cleaning) and his method of rebuilding the launch services database is far better than any other, don't do this one with a utility, use the Doc's method.
But don't think of running Disk Warrior and cleaning caches as routine maintenance, it's repair for problems. The single most important thing you can do is clone your hard drive to an external Firewire drive. I don't put mine on a schedule for updating the clone but only do so when I know the system is purring like a kitten, so i know the clone is always in good shape. An added advantage to a clone is that it optimizes the disk (also known as defraging). Make a clone then restore it to your main hard drive and you have a perfectly defragged drive that runs very fast and is easier and faster than defragging software.
Kevin

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    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

  • Disk Warrior and 'The Folder with the ? Mark'

    Good morning. My MacBook recently crashed and I am left with the dreaded and endlessly blinking 'Question Mark Folder'. I have tried to restart using the System Disk and running Disk Utility but the Hard Drive is nowhere to be found.
    I have read in the Discussions that running DiskWarrior may help. I have the program on my PowerBook G4 as well as on an external hard drive, but I do not have a DiskWarrior disc. Is there a way to run the program from these to repair the drive on my MacBook or retrieve my data? If not, is there a way to make a DiskWarrior disc from my .dmg file?
    Thanks for your help.
    John

    Disk Warrior comes on a bootable disc unless you downloaded it or lost yours. You cannot easily make a bootable CD or DVD, but your could put it on a bootable external hard drive that has a bootable copy of OS X (current version) and your copy of DW must be at least 4.0 for Tiger or 4.1 for Leopard.
    However, it's most unlikely that DW will help you because the question mark means that important system files are lost or corrupted. The solution is to reinstall OS X. It's possible you can do the following:
    How to Perform an Archive and Install
    An Archive and Install will NOT erase your hard drive, but you must have sufficient free space for a second OS X installation which could be from 3-9 GBs depending upon the version of OS X and selected installation options. The free space requirement is over and above normal free space requirements which should be at least 6-10 GBs. Read all the linked references carefully before proceeding.
    1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
    Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
    Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then quit DU and return to the installer.
    2. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
    3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
    4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
    5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
    6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

  • Disk Warrior help

    hi, here's my situation.
    2.5 dual with 3.5 gigs of RAM. Running Tiger. hard drive i believe is a Hitachi (whatever is the default drive) and is 160 gigs.
    I was editing in DVPSP 3 and it kept quiting on me. so i restarted. when i did the OS did not come up instead i got the folder with the flashing question mark. not good. it happened to me last year and i knew that i was in trouble.
    I rebooted with the install cd. i then went to disk utility and tried to repair the disk. i got an error saying, "Invalid B-tree node size." from what i researched this means the drive is corrupted but not a hard drive failure, correct? i also looked for the start up disk but the drive was not detected there as well. all i saw was the install cd.
    I also have another internal hard drive installed. a 250 gig drive that i use for all my video work. it just so happened that the drive i was working on last night was my main drive (the 160 gig drive) as the 250 gig drive was full. this drive seems to be ok.
    I bought disk warrior last night which i installed on an Imac I have. I hooked this up to the 2.5 dual via a firewire cable. from the Imac i started Disk Warrior and i could see both my drives on the 2.5 dual. i selected my damaged drive and selected "Rebuild."
    I realized it was going to take a few hours so i went to sleep. this morning it was done and i read the report, saying it had built a temporary drive. like the dummy that i am (and being half asleep didn't help) i accidently cancelled everything. i didn't click on "Replace." ah!!!
    so i re-did everything while i went to work this morning. so when i get home later today, after i click on "Replace." everything will be good? i realize some stuff might be lost but i want to at least be able to boot into my system. i have a lot of photos that i want to save and also the latest project i was working on.
    is it true you can also "Preview" the new drive and be able to back up files right then before it replaces your old drive.
    any advice will be greatly appreaciated! thanks.
    - robert

    Hi, Roberto and ds_store—
    I'm writing to share a few thoughts, fwiw, in addition to ds_store's helpful reply. Though I consider myself a relative newbie to such maladies (particularly in OS X), I've unfortunately also experienced disk corruption within the last 10 days. . .
    (1) Re: "this means the drive is corrupted but not a hard drive failure, correct?" — probably. But this is something you can easily check. I'd suggest two things:
    ](a) Booting from your Install Disc, open Disk Utility and select your HD. Note the "S.M.A.R.T. status." Hopefully, it says "verified."
    ](b) While holding down the option key, boot from your Install Disc again. This will provide you with 2 or 3 choices of "boot volumes" for startup. Select Apple Hardware Test (AHT). Run in Extended Test mode. Among other components, this will provide results evaluating your logic board, mass storage (HD), and memory (RAM).
    If Disk Utility reports S.M.A.R.T. status "verified" and AHT indicates that mass storage has "passed," these provide a strong indication that your HD probably has not suffered any significant hardware failure. (Note that this is not definitive without further diagnostics that an Apple-Authorized Service Provider can conduct.)
    (2) Another benefit of running AHT is that it may provide an indication of other factor(s) that caused your Power Mac to suffer from such significant disk directory corruption. Imho, this is a question well worth your attention. (In my case, it was bad RAM. Not only didn't DiskWarrior work initially because of this — but the directory would have probably become corrupted again because of the RAM problem, even if I had been able to replace the directory with one "rebuilt" by DW.) Assuming DW does work for you (which seems likely, based on what you've described), you may benefit from running Disk Utility and DIsk Warrior again in the near future as a means to evaluate whether there is an ongoing source of corruption. Keep in mind that DW focuses on disk directory maintenance and repair — other HD maintenance/repair functions require TechTool Pro or other utilities.
    (3) Re: "a lot of photos that i want to save and also the latest project i was working on" — if DW is successful, your data may be fine. But if it proves necessary (and directory corruption isn't too bad or is improved by DW), you may be able to recover your unsaved data using FireWire Target disk mode, with your PowerMac as target and iMac as host.
    (4) Re: "is it true you can also "Preview" the new drive and be able to back up files right then before it replaces your old drive?" — I haven't tried this personally with DiskWarrior, but it should be feasible, according to the details described in the "What to Look for During Preview" section (pp. 30-33) of the DiskWarrior Manual that you can read from its CD.
    I hope some of this is useful to you. Good luck!
    Dean

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