I am attempting to defrag my Mac

and keep receiving this error message:Starting fsck… Checking HFS Plus volume. Checking Extents Overflow file. Checking Catalog file. Invalid key length The volume Macintosh HD00 needs to be repaired. fsck exited with code
I have attemted to run Disk Utility but it shuts down as soon as I ask it to repair. Where can I find this, and how do I repair it?

Hve you booted from your install disc and run
Disk Utility
   1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
   2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
      Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
   3. Click the First Aid tab.
   4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
   5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
   6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.

Similar Messages

I am attempting to plug my mac into my tv. I am using the mini dvi to s video adapter. When I plug it in, the display goes all wonky and becomes stretched and enlarged.

When I attempt to connect my mac to the monitor using a mini dvi to s video adapter the display becomes enlarged and stretched. I cannot seem to fix this using the system preferences or the quick keys that allow you to zoom in on the display. Any suggestions?

I am using MAC OSx 10.5.8 (9L31a) as my operation system. The TV says "No signal. Check connected device's power, cable connection and source selection." Seems to me that that goes in hand with what the Samsung tech said about the Mac needing to be forces to use the external display. But how do I do that?

"How do I defrag my mac?" "You don't need to, it does it itself" Fragmented Free Space: 99%. READ THIS NOW

Just a heads up for my fellow Mac users.
"How do I defrag my mac?"
"You don't need to, ever. It does it automatically."
"But it's running really slowly..."
"Repair permissions or something. Defragging is not necessary on a mac."
Techtool pro is now defragmenting my mac. Looks like the job's going to take about 4 hours. I thought I'd give everyone the truth about this while waiting (on a different computer obviously)
The truth is, Apple's defragmenting system ***** BALLS. It has two massive, massive flaws which I feel people urgently need to be made aware of.
#1: It only defragments files up to 20mb. If you're a movie producer, a songwriter, a photographer, or anything which involves working with many massive files, the built in defragmenting program WILL NOT HELP YOU IN THE SLIGHTEST.
#2: It only defragments FILES. Free space is ignored, which eventually causes absolutely hrrendous problems.
Let me give you an analogy here. Imagine your mac's hard drive is a bookcase with lots of books on it.
File fragmentation is when it can't find a gap in the bookcase big enough for the entire book, so it breaks the book into pieces and srotes them in different gaps.
Space fragmentation is when there are gaps all over the bookcase, instead of all the books being pushed to one side so there's a long gap elsewhere.
Apple's built in defragmenting program will only fix the first problem - and even then, it will ignore any book bigger than 20 pages long, if you have bigger books which are broken up, you're screwed.
Why is space fragmentation a problem? It's a problem because it directly LEADS TO file fragmentation. If there is a large block of free space all in one part of the disk, then an entire file can be written to it. However, if there is no single free block big enough for the file, it HAS NO CHOICE but to fragment it.
So basically you might have 5 GB free and want to save a 2GB imovie project. That's cool. But what you may not realize is, the biggest single area of free space is only say 600MB. Others are around 300 and 400. Therefore the file MUST be fragmented into all these different areas, which wouldn't be necessary if all the free space was in one area of the disk.
But apple's built in tools don't do anything about this, at least not in Tiger. PErhaps this has been fixed in later installations but I'm almost certain the same issues exist in leopard.
Your only option is to buy a defragmenting program. I know this ***** but believe me, this IS something you NEED to do if your activity on your laptop involves disk space - intensive projects. I'm using TechTool Pro which has been recommended to me as hands down the best. It has a number of other functions as well, right now I'm only using the defragmenting tools but it has others for repairing damages disk sectors and other mantainence tools. There are other programs such as iDefrag out there as well.
Why am I telling you this? I'm telling you because I experienced mind numbing frustration trying to get answers from the Apple community. Google it or ask the question yourself and you will most likely be whacked in the face with the intro to my post here - "You don't need to, it's not necessary, macs do it themselves, blah blah blah"
Even worse, Apple's own webpage on the subject is nothing short of a disaster. It basically says "You PROBABLY don't need to defragment, unless you work with large files." That's it. You'd expect it to have an extra section saying "If you DO happen to work with large files, here's what you do" but no such section exists. It basically says "You don't need to defrag most of the time, and on the rare occasions when you do, well, too bad, you're screwed."
I urge everyone to heed this or they will be tearing their hair out at how slow their mac has become and the fact that no one will offer any meaningful advice other than the standard, generic, "Repair permissions" - the Mac equivelant of "have you tried turning it off and on again".
My disk is at 99% fragmented free space. NINTEY NINE PERCENT. In other words, although I have 25GB of free space, there was not a single contiguous block on the entire machine. I had almost 5,000 fragmented files as well, mostly imovies. Defragmenting got this down to about 300.
The defrag job is taking more than 4 hours and will probably go on to take a lot longer than that. This machine has been slowly grinding to a halt over the last 3 years and now I know why.
Please don't listen to anyone. Get yourself a defragmenting folder, and email Apple to tell them it's just not good enough to give their customers half assed answers and inadequate basic maintainence tools. Mac OS X must literally be the only operating system out there where something as basic as defragmenting is not only almost impossible to get answers on, but actually costs money to fix once you DO get answers.
As customers, we should not accept this any longer. I intend to spread the above message far and wide.
I LOVE Apple. I've always been "a mac" and I always will be. This in no way a mac bashing post or a windows endorsing one. I wouldn't switch back to windows if you gave me a million euro.
But sometimes even the best developers can royally f*ck up. This is one of them.
There is no readon people should be forced to put up with this crap. Absolutely no reason at all. I've had 3 months of crappy performance with no official explanation whatsoever.
Apple if you're reading this: I love your products. I'm a loyal customer. People are more forgiving than you think, speak up, admit you dropped the ball, and DO something about it in your next updates to Lion and whichever versions of Leopard you are still actively maintaining.
There's no shame in admitting when you're wrong. The shame is in hiding behind false promises and walls of silence.
--Loyal customer, but feeling rather betrayed by all this.

The old rule of thumb was to keep 10-12 GB free. Any lower than that and you will start to have trouble. I was very close to that for a long time and never had any complaints. Now, Lion "encourages" 20% free space (on my newer 250 GB drive) so I try to keep it with more than 50 GB free.
Do you still have the original memory in that machine too? The metal plate you have to remove in the battery compartment also provides access to the RAM. Your machine will take 2 GB of RAM, possibly 3. You definitely want to max that out too.
Regardless, you definitely need a new hard drive. When Apple switched to PC components, they had to take a quality hit. These 2.5" notebook hard drives are not very reliable. I'm surprised your hard drive hasn't died by now. I usually get a new hard drive with every major OS upgrade. A $ 50 investment every couple of years is no big deal.
Unfortunately, you (and I) suffer from being an early adopter in 2006. Those 32-bit machines only accept 2 GB RAM (maybe 3) and are only 32-bit so they can't be upgraded to Lion. Because of this limitation, you won't see as dramatic an improvement as you would with a 2007 machine. If you run more than a couple of applications, your hard drive is always going to have to be doing some VM work. My 2006 machine has even lost its bluetooth. I gave it to my brother. My very similar 2007 Macbook is still running great.
So, you must get a new hard drive because your old one is likely on death's door. If you don't have at least 2 GB - get it. If you can't afford a new machine, you might want to consider an SSD. That might help mitigate your RAM limitations. You can spend from $ 100 to $ 350 and get a dramatic speed improvement.

When attempting to set up Mac OS to open a specific app (version), and selecting 'Change All' on Get Info, it reverts to most latest app version of the same. Any clues?

When attempting to set up Mac OS to open files with a specific app (version), through 'Change All' on Get Info, it reverts to most latest version of the same app. Any reason why it does not allow my other version of same app to be the default one?

I have Acrobat Pro 10.1.13 and Adobe Reader 10.1.13.
If I use the Finder to get all PDFS to open with Reader instead of Pro, they do. And vice versa, using the Change All.

Is it worth defragmenting a mac?

is it worth defragmenting a mac?

No. But keep your system backed up, the drive 20% or more free space. Free space can be fragmented and when that gets low it performs poorly. The OS defrags larger files back to single unfragmented when written out - if it can.
The easiest way is to just clone the system to a new drive, pull the old drive and use the new clone as that will organize files and directories. AND it is safe. I would never use in all my yrs a program to reorganize files. Use to be some value in writing a new disk directory as that could help with finding and accessing files while leaving files alone.

Should I defrag my Mac HHD (internal) before installing OS X Yosemite?

Should I defrag my Mac internal HHD before installing the new Yosemite OS X?

No. But you should:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions - Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion or Lion
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. 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 click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Now be sure to make a backup of the current system before upgrading. Be sure you need to upgrade. There is really no need to do so as yet.
See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps.

When I started my Mac the screen was white with the Apple logo and power motion icon running. I attempted to turn off Mac then a message stating "Debugger called: Button SCI . Also "Waiting for remote debugger connection." What is my next step?

When I started my Mac the screen was white with the Apple logo and power motion icon running. I attempted to turn off Mac then a message stating "Debugger called: <Button SCI>. Also "Waiting for remote debugger connection." What is my next step?

Hi , and a warm welcome to the forums!
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.
If 10.7.0 or later...
Bootup holding CMD+r, or the Option/alt key to boot from the Restore partition & use Disk Utility from there to Repair the Disk, then Repair Permissions.
And sorry to report that OSX is more Widows like than ever, but….
If that doesn't help Reinstall the OS.

How do you defrag your Mac?

Hi,
I read about defragmenting not being needed on the Mac platform and I have also read about how this can be beneficial.
Well, I am willing to try defragmenting in an attempt to speed up and optimize the system. I am using also Parallels with XP Pro to run software for work.
Can you please suggest what would be the best way to accomplish that?
I would prefer quality software that has a good record track and is reliable. Automation is a bonus as I intend to let it do the job during the night.
My normal routine is to run Yasu every now and then and also clone the hard disk to an external LaCie HD (regularly) and then clone it back (about twice a year).
I am open for suggestions, thank you.
PS: I read good reviews about a software "iDefrag" capable to defragment even the files within the Virtual Machine, do you think that I should consider it?

I use iDefrag.
http://coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php
The also have a program called iPartition that does non-destructive partitioning very well. Coriolis Systems seems to do an excellent job writing their software in a way that respects OS X. Check out their website for a demo and a list of features.
I use the online defrag (it's quick and easy) once a week or so, and every three weeks or month I run a full defrag. To do a full defrag you need to either start up from another drive with iDefrag on it (I use my external Firewire drive) or burn a CD using the included utility to start up from.
I've been very impressed with this software and have found it invaluable for installing BootCamp on some laptops that had fairly full HDs where otherwise Boot Camp would say it couldn't partition.
iDefrag also optimizes the order of files on the disk and places metadata at the start of the drive for quick access. You can specify or create custom optimization algorithims if you have particular needs that vary from the norm.

My macbook pro hard drive is 80% full, how do you "defrag" a mac to make it run faster?

Is there a program in mac to make my macbook pro run faster? On my PC I would defrag it but on my mac, I don't know how to do it. Can someone suggest the best way to tune up my macbook pro to delete unnecessary files and make it run faster?

joyvdk wrote:
Is there a program in mac to make my macbook pro run faster? On my PC I would defrag it but on my mac, I don't know how to do it. Can someone suggest the best way to tune up my macbook pro to delete unnecessary files and make it run faster?
There are no degragmenters bundled with Mac OS X, however there is iDefrag a third party defragmenter utility. That said, I highly doubt that defragmentation will bump your computer speed. According to this Apple KB article, Mac OS X is very capable at preventing fragmentation and even the way now hard drives are being manufactured circumvent the possibility of fragmentation.
Hope this helps.

Malware " Mac Secure" attempted access to my Mac. I rebooted but now thunderbolt bridge in my preferences and I cannot clear it. Is this an attempt by malware to gain access?

I cannot remove thunderbolt bridge from preferences. Even after I rebooot it is still there . I have not clicked ok to co figure. I saw it after a malware attempt " Mac Security" . Is the the thunderbolt an attempt to access my system by malware?

Many thanks BobRz for prompt and brilliant suggestion!!!!!! It worked!!!!
Just a follow question, any idea on how to delete duplicate copies of files and music as I have tried to delete as many files as possible yet the start up disc remains full?
Thanks a lot!!!!

Is there any type of defragmenting for macs?

I am a new user...I'm curious...is there anything like this that I should perform every so often.
Thanks in advance!

Ah, corteasy! You sure know how to open a kettle of worms!
If you have a look at much of the discussion lower down in the thread that starts at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1527952&tstart=0 you will find this extensively discussed, with various links provided.
The "official" Apple answer is basically "not usually", though they point to a few exceptions (linked to in the thread I mention).
Fragmentation of files on Macs is rarely a problem while you have a nice empty HD. It can become a problem when the disc is close to full, however, as the Apple system essentially reduces "file fragmentation" by a process which can increase "free space" fragmentation. Eventually this reduces the effectiveness of the built in defrag routines.
For a general article on maintenance of OSX (even though it hasn't been updated fo rLeopard it essentially still all applies) it is hard to go past the article at http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html . Despite the slightly off putting name, its author, Randy Singer is a long term Mac Guru who was a coauthor of several editions of the excellent (but now superceded) "Mac Bible".
But don't expect this discussion to stop here. Many people have deeply held views about the question of fragmentation on macs and how to deal with it, both pro and anti! Ultimately it all boils down to the sort of work you do with your Mac, how full the HD is, and the like. I doubt that you will have to worry about it much, unless you are into working with large video files and the like, until you are down to the last 20% of free space on your HD (and even then some will deny that it matters, though I don't agree with them).
The MacAttorney link also includes some other good advice on regular maintenance processes.
Cheers
Rod
Message was edited by: Rod Hagen

Defragging my MAC??

I need help with my MAC. It has been going quite slow lately, and it definitely shouldn't be. It took about 15 minutes just to import a CD. So my question is how do I de-frag this thing? Will it work and possibly speed things up? Will it wipe out any important things? Is there something more effective I could do to speed this thing up? Thank you!

What capacity is your hard drive and how much available free space is left on it? Right click on your Macintosh HD from the desktop and get Info. Generally you do not need to defrag your hard drive on a Mac. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375?viewlocale=en_US
As general maintenance open up Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility select your hard drive on the left and under the First Aid tab click Repair Disk Permissions then Verify Disk.
You might also want to download and install Onyx. It's a handy app that among other things will let you run the maintenance tasks.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2319?viewlocale=en_US
http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/download.html
George

HT1147 Do I need to defrag a Mac?

Do I need to defrag an iMac?

if you have a large number of files taking longer time to read/write, regularly creating a lot of files like photo editing files (making them smaller and then larger again in size).Fragmented Files can slow down your applications and longer system startup launch.
Support Link: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375
If your disks are almost full, and you often modify or create large files (such as editing video, but see the Tip below if you use iMovie and Mac OS X 10.3), there's a chance the disks could be fragmented. In this case, you might benefit from defragmentation, which can be performed with some third-party disk utilities.

Defrag on Mac? Hard drive cleanup?

Hi again -
I'm trying to support my wife with her G4. She's rapidly running out of space and, not being familiar with the Mac, am not sure what to do.
Is there something like a "defrag" option? Alternatively, how does one delete un-needed software?
Thanks!
Chris

I got incentive to do some investigating.
I examined my own hard drive, 115 GB (after formatting). I started off with about 14 GB free. I ran Speed Tools Defragmenter on it repeatedly until it no longer reported any files being defragmented, but still reported several hundred fragmented files. I kept on deleting large files and repeatedly running Defragmenter but it still wouldn't defragment all (according to Speed Disk's report).
This is ShowVolumeFragmentation (SVF) utility's report about half way through the delete large files and defragment again process, maybe when I had about 16 GB free. SVF also reported about 200 files still fragmented:
Number of freespace pieces >= 5GB: 0
Number of freespace pieces >= 1GB: 0
Number of freespace pieces >=500 MB: 1
Number of freespace pieces >= 100 MB < 500 MB: 1
Number of freespace pieces >= 10 MB < 100 MB: 1
Number of freespace pieces >= 1 MB < 10 MB: 5794
Number of freespace pieces < 1 MB: 19590
Below is SVF's report after I had removed more large (nearly a GB or larger) files (some of which had been on the drive, unchanged, since I first set it up) until there was about 20GB free. The report (not pasted here) still shows about 200 fragmented files. I'm puzzled because there's a 500GB chunk free and these files are mostly 2-20 MB mp3s and the like. Freespace piece distribution has moved around a bit, probably because defragmenting opened up some larger areas, but there's still a lot of bits and pieces.
Number of freespace pieces >= 5GB: 0
Number of freespace pieces >= 1GB: 0
Number of freespace pieces >=500 MB: 1
Number of freespace pieces >= 100 MB < 500 MB: 1
Number of freespace pieces >= 10 MB < 100 MB: 2
Number of freespace pieces >= 1 MB < 10 MB: 6745
Number of freespace pieces < 1 MB: 17996
Based on the report above (and other data not shown here) I saw I still had about 4 GB in freespace pieces <1 MB which made them nearly useless. I then decided to clone (not block clone) to an external, erase the internal, then clone back, all with Carbon Copy Cloner. Here's a SVF report after I did that:
Number of freespace pieces >= 5GB: 1 = 19.75 GB
Number of freespace pieces >= 1GB: 1 = 1.43 GB
Number of freespace pieces >=500 MB: 0 = 0 GB
Number of freespace pieces >= 100 MB < 500 MB: 0 = 0 GB
Number of freespace pieces >= 10 MB < 100 MB: 2 = 0 GB
Number of freespace pieces >= 1 MB < 10 MB: 3 = 0 GB
Number of freespace pieces < 1 MB: 62 = 0 GB
There is clearly a lot more contiguous space. The report shows 62 still fragmented files vs. the 200 remaining pre-clone. However, these files are largely only in 2 fragments each vs. the anywhere from 2 to 50 pre-clone. I'm still puzzled as to why some of my <10MB mp3 files were not copied onto contiguous space during cloning seeing as there's a very large contiguous chunk, but the situation has clearly improved as regards to fragmented freespace.
The Speed Tools defragmenting tool defragmented files but I think any decrease in the <1MB free pieces was only a side effect. Despite having 99.945% of the files unfragmented pre-clone I still had 4+ GB of pretty fragmented free space. Cloning only reduced file fragmentation to 99.985% unfragmented files but converted almost all of that 4GB to pretty much contiguous space.
Speed Tools defragments files but doesn't directly defragment freespace. The cloning process did take care of the fragmented free space, and apparently also some of the file fragmentation.
Now the question still exists, will I see any change in performance?
Edit:
Ran Speed Tools Defragmenter again. Took care of the remaining fragmented files.
Message was edited by: Limnos

Mail keeps crashing whenever it attempts to connect to .mac server

Ugh. I have been having some major problemos w/ my mac lately (if you're up to it, search my other recent posts -- all of which are still open and needing resolutions).
Anyway, this issue pertains to Mail. Whenever the app tries to connect to the mail.mac.com server, it crashes. I'm not sure why. I've been reduced to checking my mail online which isn't great... and I'm falling behind in productivity since usually my Mail auto filters most of my incoming email to certain local folders.
I'm not sure if it's related or not, but my keychain has erased (or at least I can no longer access) ALL my logins and passwords and it won't let me add any new ones. The reason why I thought I'd mention this bit of info is that there's a "Remember this password in my keychain" check box on the window in Mail that prompts me to enter my password for the mail server. When I enter the password and click "ok", I get an error box that says "Keychain 'login' cannot be found to store 'kingp.'
Also another thing worth noting... I submitted a post a few weeks ago (this one regarded all my addresses being lost) and 2 people replied to the post. I know this because I got 2 auto emails from Apple stating that someone had posted a reply. However, when I click on the link in each email to visit the thread, I get an error page. And even when I log in and look at my posts and responses, neither responses is there. I'm starting to feel like a PC user -- I thought I'd never say that about Mac!! (If you're a real mac user, you know how ****** off you have to be to say that).
Please help restore faith! ANY help is greatly appreciated.

Hi David... For the longest time, I could not see your post. I received the heads up email from Apple saying there is a new reply to your post, but when I'd go online to see it, it wouldn't show! Very weird. Anyway, I was able to see it now. Since this original post, I was able to get help for my Mail problems. However, I still had issues pertaining to my Keychain which I believe your recommened actions took care of.
After I did the keychain repair you suggested, this is what I got:
Repair started
Checking keychain configuration for Peter King (user ID=501)
Home directory is /Users/kingp
Checked login keychain
Keychain ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain appears to be damaged
Renamed /Users/kingp/Library/Keychains/login.keychain to /Users/kingp/Library/Keychains/login_renamed.keychain
Created login keychain
User differs on ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.plist, should be 501, owner is 0
Owner corrected on ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.plist
Checked default keychain
Checked keychain search list
Checked contents of ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain
Checked contents of /Library/Keychains/FileVaultMaster.keychain
Problems successfully repaired
Repair completed
I like that it says "Problems successfully repaired" ;0) but I seem to have lost all my keychain data. Any ideas as to how to recover it?
Thanks again...

I am attempting to defrag my Mac

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for