I am having a problem with my hard drive. OSX reports bad nodes, rebuilding 
catalogue B tree rebuild fails etc.

Disc Warrior reports drive OK, Smart reports OK etc

On repair folders, it starts, then the rolly line stops rolling about a 
third of the way through, then about three minutes later the drive stops 
spinning then all I can hear from the drive is 
chug-chug-chug-chuyyug-chug-chug-chug (then repeating).

I know this program is slow but is there something I can do to 'revive' this 
repair process which SEEMS to have stalled? 

news.rcn.com <news.rnc.com> wrote:

> Disc Warrior reports drive OK, Smart reports OK etc
> On repair folders, it starts, then the rolly line stops rolling about a
> third of the way through, then about three minutes later the drive stops
> spinning then all I can hear from the drive is 
> chug-chug-chug-chuyyug-chug-chug-chug (then repeating). 
> I know this program is slow but is there something I can do to 'revive' this
> repair process which SEEMS to have stalled? 

I bought Discwarrior around 5 years ago for the sum of 50ukp, (around
90usd at todays rate), and was expecting it to revive a dying HD.
It utterly failed, and just kept stalling, and then reporting a few bad
sectors after around 3 hours.
A total waste of time and money - it would have only cost a little more
to buy a new HD at the time.
It sounds like your disc is dying.
Alan.
-- 
To reply by e-mail, change the ' + ' to 'plus'.

On Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:49:00 -0500, "news.rcn.com" <news.rnc.com>
wrote:

>I am having a problem with my hard drive. OSX reports bad nodes, rebuilding 
>catalogue B tree rebuild fails etc.
>
>Disc Warrior reports drive OK, Smart reports OK etc
>
>On repair folders, it starts, then the rolly line stops rolling about a 
>third of the way through, then about three minutes later the drive stops 
>spinning then all I can hear from the drive is 
>chug-chug-chug-chuyyug-chug-chug-chug (then repeating).

This is the noise of perpetual read-retrying on a bad disk
block/sector/whatnot. It'll be the disk firmware doing a bunch of
repeats, them DW saying "Ok, one read failed, lets try another". Say
the firmware tries 32 times, and DW tries 100 times - that'll take a
while.

Sometimes it works, othertimes the combined drive+software give up and
mark it as bad, otherothertimes the whole thing gets thrown out the
window by an irate user.

	Cheers - Jaimie
-- 
I went to a planet where the dominant lifeform had no bilateral symmetry, and
all I got was this stupid F-Shirt.  (after Ruth Colby, Al Heim & Eric Pivnik)

alan@darkroom.+.com (A.Lee) writes:

>I bought Discwarrior around 5 years ago for the sum of 50ukp, (around
>90usd at todays rate), and was expecting it to revive a dying HD.
>It utterly failed, and just kept stalling, and then reporting a few bad
>sectors after around 3 hours.
>A total waste of time and money - it would have only cost a little more
>to buy a new HD at the time.

DW was never intended to solve failing hardware. It can not.
The OP has a drive funeral to attend.

DW did and does solve a bunch of other issues with bad bits barfed
onto working hardware. 



-- 
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

"Jaimie Vandenbergh" <jaimie@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote in message 
news:3urem29s0g6pm9tvvllehfkn2jfpavv40m@newsposting.sessile.org...
> On Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:49:00 -0500, "news.rcn.com" <news.rnc.com>
> wrote:
>
>>I am having a problem with my hard drive. OSX reports bad nodes, 
>>rebuilding
>>catalogue B tree rebuild fails etc.
>>
>>Disc Warrior reports drive OK, Smart reports OK etc
>>
>>On repair folders, it starts, then the rolly line stops rolling about a
>>third of the way through, then about three minutes later the drive stops
>>spinning then all I can hear from the drive is
>>chug-chug-chug-chuyyug-chug-chug-chug (then repeating).
>
> This is the noise of perpetual read-retrying on a bad disk
> block/sector/whatnot. It'll be the disk firmware doing a bunch of
> repeats, them DW saying "Ok, one read failed, lets try another". Say
> the firmware tries 32 times, and DW tries 100 times - that'll take a
> while.
>
> Sometimes it works, othertimes the combined drive+software give up and
> mark it as bad,
So does it mean nothing that the drive tests good by SMART on DW before 
running the folder repair (admittedly in this way)?
otherothertimes the whole thing gets thrown out the
> window by an irate user.
>
> Cheers - Jaimie
> -- 
> I went to a planet where the dominant lifeform had no bilateral symmetry, 
> and
> all I got was this stupid F-Shirt.  (after Ruth Colby, Al Heim & Eric 
> Pivnik) 

On 2006-11-25 05:10:47 +0000, "news.rcn.com" <news.rnc.com> said:

> So does it mean nothing that the drive tests good by SMART on DW before 
> running the folder repair (admittedly in this way)?

No, but SMART can not detect all failures. According to 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring%2C_Analysis%2C_and_Reporting_Technology> 
it can only detect about 30% of problems. Which is better than nothing, 
but not fool-proof.

Cheers,

Chris

why dont you try starting the mac with the actual discwarrior cd?
that mayhelp to...
"Chris Ridd" <chrisridd@mac.com> wrote in message 
news:4sq4ndF10l2ieU1@mid.individual.net...
> On 2006-11-25 05:10:47 +0000, "news.rcn.com" <news.rnc.com> said:
>
>> So does it mean nothing that the drive tests good by SMART on DW before 
>> running the folder repair (admittedly in this way)?
>
> No, but SMART can not detect all failures. According to 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring%2C_Analysis%2C_and_Reporting_Technology> 
> it can only detect about 30% of problems. Which is better than nothing, 
> but not fool-proof.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris
> 

"news.rcn.com" wrote:
> 
> I am having a problem with my hard drive. OSX reports bad nodes, rebuilding
> catalogue B tree rebuild fails etc.
> 
> Disc Warrior reports drive OK, Smart reports OK etc
> 
> On repair folders, it starts, then the rolly line stops rolling about a
> third of the way through, then about three minutes later the drive stops
> spinning then all I can hear from the drive is
> chug-chug-chug-chuyyug-chug-chug-chug (then repeating).
 I know this program is slow but is there something I can do to 'revive'
this
> repair process which SEEMS to have stalled?




I (rather stupidly, but out of sheer necessity) purchased this program a
while ago.

I find it does more damage to your hard disk and file structure and
would avoid it at all costs.

It's pretty much like Symantec's tools for Windows - useless and
dangerous.


Odie
-- 
Retrodata
www.retrodata.co.uk
Globally Local Data Recovery Experts

>> Disc Warrior reports drive OK, Smart reports OK etc

> I (rather stupidly, but out of sheer necessity) purchased this program a
> while ago.
Did you ever locate a better one? The drive is a Toshiba so there isnt any 
manufacturer's utliity or is the simple situation that the drive has totally 
died as everyone suggests?  (The query I have is that before I bought it, I 
put a question out about rebuilding the B-catalogue tree and was assured 
that DW stood a 98% chance of repairing it)

>
> I find it does more damage to your hard disk and file structure and
> would avoid it at all costs.
>
> It's pretty much like Symantec's tools for Windows - useless and
> dangerous.
>
>
> Odie
> -- 
> Retrodata
> www.retrodata.co.uk
> Globally Local Data Recovery Experts 

Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous@hotmail.com> wrote:

> > Disc Warrior reports drive OK, Smart reports OK etc
> > 
> > On repair folders, it starts, then the rolly line stops rolling about a
> > third of the way through, then about three minutes later the drive stops
> > spinning then all I can hear from the drive is
> > chug-chug-chug-chuyyug-chug-chug-chug (then repeating).
>  I know this program is slow but is there something I can do to 'revive'
> this
> > repair process which SEEMS to have stalled?

> I (rather stupidly, but out of sheer necessity) purchased this program a
> while ago.
> 
> I find it does more damage to your hard disk and file structure and
> would avoid it at all costs.
> 
> It's pretty much like Symantec's tools for Windows - useless and
> dangerous.

What an absolute load of rubbish. You are speaking from a position of
complete ignorance.

DiskWarrior does just one thing. It doesn't magically repair broken hard
disk drives. It doesn't magically undelete trashed files. It doesn't
recover corrupted files. It doesn't claim to do any of those things, and
anyone who bought it expecting it would was sadly mistaken.

What it does do, and incredibly well, is repair disk directory
corruption. That was - it's not nearly such a problem under later
versions of Mac OS X - the single most common serious cause of problems
faced by Mac users. 

There's a good reason why it has the reputation it does, and your
uselessly inaccurate assessment of it only gives a reason to doubt the
reliability of your various other pronouncements about technical
matters.

Daniele

> What an absolute load of rubbish. You are speaking from a position of
> complete ignorance.
>
> DiskWarrior does just one thing. It doesn't magically repair broken hard
> disk drives. It doesn't magically undelete trashed files. It doesn't
> recover corrupted files. It doesn't claim to do any of those things, and
> anyone who bought it expecting it would was sadly mistaken.
>
> What it does do, and incredibly well, is repair disk directory
> corruption. That was - it's not nearly such a problem under later
> versions of Mac OS X - the single most common serious cause of problems
> faced by Mac users.
>
> There's a good reason why it has the reputation it does, and your
> uselessly inaccurate assessment of it only gives a reason to doubt the
> reliability of your various other pronouncements about technical
> matters.
>
> Daniele

What rubbish you write - I've tried this program a few times and that
was more than enough to agree with Odie above.

"There's a good reason why it has the reputation it does" - and what is
it?

"D.M. Procida" wrote:
> 
> Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > > Disc Warrior reports drive OK, Smart reports OK etc
> > >
> > > On repair folders, it starts, then the rolly line stops rolling about a
> > > third of the way through, then about three minutes later the drive stops
> > > spinning then all I can hear from the drive is
> > > chug-chug-chug-chuyyug-chug-chug-chug (then repeating).
> >  I know this program is slow but is there something I can do to 'revive'
> > this
> > > repair process which SEEMS to have stalled?
> 
> > I (rather stupidly, but out of sheer necessity) purchased this program a
> > while ago.
> >
> > I find it does more damage to your hard disk and file structure and
> > would avoid it at all costs.
> >
> > It's pretty much like Symantec's tools for Windows - useless and
> > dangerous.
> 
> What an absolute load of rubbish. You are speaking from a position of
> complete ignorance.
> 
> DiskWarrior does just one thing. It doesn't magically repair broken hard
> disk drives. It doesn't magically undelete trashed files. It doesn't
> recover corrupted files. It doesn't claim to do any of those things, and
> anyone who bought it expecting it would was sadly mistaken.
> 
> What it does do, and incredibly well, is repair disk directory
> corruption. That was - it's not nearly such a problem under later
> versions of Mac OS X - the single most common serious cause of problems
> faced by Mac users.
> 
> There's a good reason why it has the reputation it does, and your
> uselessly inaccurate assessment of it only gives a reason to doubt the
> reliability of your various other pronouncements about technical
> matters.
> 
> Daniele

Daniele,

I spend 20 hours a day doing data recovery, researching data recovery,
and trying out such products in line with my research.

During the course of my efforts, I have found DW to be a useless piece
of software, which often causes damage that it purports to "fix."

However, that is merely my humble (yet informed) opinion.

Should you disagree - that is entirely your own choice, and I cannot
argue with that.



Odie
-- 
Retrodata
www.retrodata.co.uk
Globally Local Data Recovery Experts

"D.M. Procida" <real-not-anti-spam-address@apple-juice.co.uk> wrote in 
message 
news:1hpd4ng.1gtlkmb1pqhh5dN%real-not-anti-spam-address@apple-juice.co.uk...
> Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > Disc Warrior reports drive OK, Smart reports OK etc
>> >
>> > On repair folders, it starts, then the rolly line stops rolling about a
>> > third of the way through, then about three minutes later the drive 
>> > stops
>> > spinning then all I can hear from the drive is
>> > chug-chug-chug-chuyyug-chug-chug-chug (then repeating).
>>  I know this program is slow but is there something I can do to 'revive'
>> this
>> > repair process which SEEMS to have stalled?
>
>> I (rather stupidly, but out of sheer necessity) purchased this program a
>> while ago.
>>
>> I find it does more damage to your hard disk and file structure and
>> would avoid it at all costs.
>>
>> It's pretty much like Symantec's tools for Windows - useless and
>> dangerous.
>
> What an absolute load of rubbish. You are speaking from a position of
> complete ignorance.
>
> DiskWarrior does just one thing. It doesn't magically repair broken hard
> disk drives. It doesn't magically undelete trashed files. It doesn't
> recover corrupted files. It doesn't claim to do any of those things, and
> anyone who bought it expecting it would was sadly mistaken.
>
> What it does do, and incredibly well, is repair disk directory
> corruption.

OP here: Not sure you are right there: DW reports that my drive is OK It 
sees past the PCB, past the mecahnical parts of the drive, past the 
firmware, to the platters and to the psysical parts of those discs which it 
reports as being OK. Disk Repair in OSX reports invalid node structure 
although it cant repair the b-catalogue tree. THAT is supposed to be 
precisealy what DW is supposed to do and what it isnt doing, which is why I 
posted here. But no one else seems to have had this problem with DW not 
doing exactly what others report it can do easily; and what even you seem to 
think it should be able to do "incredibly well"?

 That was - it's not nearly such a problem under later
> versions of Mac OS X - the single most common serious cause of problems
> faced by Mac users.
>
> There's a good reason why it has the reputation it does, and your
> uselessly inaccurate assessment of it only gives a reason to doubt the
> reliability of your various other pronouncements about technical
> matters.
>
> Daniele 

In article <45688C87.4304CA0B@hotmail.com>, Odie Ferrous
<odie_ferrous@hotmail.com> wrote:

> "D.M. Procida" wrote:
> > There's a good reason why it has the reputation it does, and your
> > uselessly inaccurate assessment of it only gives a reason to doubt the
> > reliability of your various other pronouncements about technical
> > matters.
> > 
> > Daniele
> 
> Daniele,
> 
> I spend 20 hours a day doing data recovery, researching data recovery,
> and trying out such products in line with my research.
> 
> During the course of my efforts, I have found DW to be a useless piece
> of software, which often causes damage that it purports to "fix."
> 
> However, that is merely my humble (yet informed) opinion.
> 
> Should you disagree - that is entirely your own choice, and I cannot
> argue with that.

Obviously one's opinions of DW depend 1) on what one expects of it and
2) how it worked (or not) in any particular situation. 

FWIW -my own experiences have been very good.  e.g. External firewire
drives that had crashed when I accidentally unplugged them during a
'write' operation later failed to mount at all.  OSX just said they
(120Gb and a 250 Gb drives)  were  unrecognised  and did I want to
format them.  DW rebuilt the whole directories.  The only data lost was
that being written when they were unplugged. 

For me, that one usage alone was worth the cost of DW. 

I don't use it as a 'fitness check' (I use OSX Disk Utility for that)
and I never expected it to resurrect a dead disc, so I am not
disappointed that it may not do either of those things.   

Odie, as a professional computer person, clearly spends more hours per
week rescuing data  than I do in a lifetime.  I'm not a computer
professional. I don't even know if DW sold as a 'data rescue' program
or just a directory fixing program and I'm not even sure if there is a
difference between data-rescue and directory-fixing.   However, it
seems that Odie, quite rightly in his professional capacity, expects
more of DW than I do.  Therefore he is disappointed and I am not. 

I can merely repeat that the one use I had of the program was (for me)
well worth the purchase price. 

Kit

In article <45688C87.4304CA0B@hotmail.com>, Odie Ferrous
<odie_ferrous@hotmail.com> wrote:

> I spend 20 hours a day doing data recovery, researching data recovery,
> and trying out such products in line with my research.

PS to my last post...
Is that a typo?  Do you really mean 20 hours per week? Or do you really
only sleep for 4 hours per day?
:-)

In either case, so far I've not spent 20 hours on data recovery in my
whole life...
:-)

Kit

news.rcn.com <news.rnc.com> wrote:

> > What it does do, and incredibly well, is repair disk directory
> > corruption.
> 
> OP here: Not sure you are right there: DW reports that my drive is OK It
> sees past the PCB, past the mecahnical parts of the drive, past the 
> firmware, to the platters and to the psysical parts of those discs which it
> reports as being OK. 

It can report on S.M.A.R.T. status, but all it can do is report what the
drive says. It certainly can't do any of the things you have just
listed.

> Disk Repair in OSX reports invalid node structure although it cant repair
> the b-catalogue tree. THAT is supposed to be precisealy what DW is
> supposed to do and what it isnt doing, which is why I posted here. But no
> one else seems to have had this problem with DW not doing exactly what
> others report it can do easily; and what even you seem to think it should
> be able to do "incredibly well"?

It could be that you are simply unlucky - it's incredibly good, but I'm
afraid that doesn't mean it will be incredibly infallible. For a problem
like that it's worth contacting Alsoft.

You could try running it in Scavenge mode - hold down Option and the
"Rebuild" button changes to "Scavenge".

Daniele

Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous@hotmail.com> wrote:

> > There's a good reason why it has the reputation it does, and your
> > uselessly inaccurate assessment of it only gives a reason to doubt the
> > reliability of your various other pronouncements about technical
> > matters.

> I spend 20 hours a day doing data recovery, researching data recovery,
> and trying out such products in line with my research.

Only 20 hours? Pah, what an amateur.

See, it's these absurd claims which make your pronouncements so dubious.

If you spend four hours a day eating, sleeping, posting to Usenet, and
doing all the other things a normal human being does, then you are
comlpetely nuts, and no-one should pay any attention to you except when
they're backing away slowly. 

If you don't, then it means that you are prepared to start making
ludicrously exaggerated comments to support at all costs whatever claim
you have made.

Either way, it gives people reasons not to take your comments seriously.

> During the course of my efforts, I have found DW to be a useless piece
> of software, which often causes damage that it purports to "fix."
> 
> However, that is merely my humble (yet informed) opinion.

It's inadequately informed. By your own admission you know little about
Macs, and have little experience with them. 

How "often" have you used DiskWarrior? I, or the people working with me,
must have used it about once a day on average over a period of around
six years, on many dozens of different Macs. All our clients had copies,
and used them regularly. That adds up to thousands of instances of
running it, on hundreds of different Macintoshes, since the late 1990s.

Not once in that time did we have any evidence to suggest that
DiskWarrior had caused any problems, though many, many times it fixed
problems and was the only repair required, often after other remedies
had failed.

As I said, as Mac OS X developed DiskWarrior seemed to became less
essential - I think file system journalling may have been the key factor
in that - and maybe it's no longer the must-have item in the Mac-user's
toolkit, but that is a completely different issue from your claim. 

Daniele

news.rcn.com <news.rnc.com> wrote:

> > I (rather stupidly, but out of sheer necessity) purchased this program a
> > while ago.
> Did you ever locate a better one?

A three years ago (the last time I had a HD problem, on a 667 TiBook
running OIS 10.2.0) I used Drive10. It worked well- it also worked well
for somebody else I know.

Clearly, if the HD is actually dying nothing will work, but Drive10 was
impressive in my case. The three years since have been trouble free but
the machine is now running 10.2.8.

As far as I know, Drive10 is no longer commercially available, so
presumably it had problems. But it did me proud. 

The irony is that, as a result, I bought DiskWarrior but never needed to
use it and now I've lost the bloody CD for DW, and all the gubbins. The
horror... 
-- 
Peter

"D.M. Procida" wrote:
> 
> Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > > There's a good reason why it has the reputation it does, and your
> > > uselessly inaccurate assessment of it only gives a reason to doubt the
> > > reliability of your various other pronouncements about technical
> > > matters.
> 
> > I spend 20 hours a day doing data recovery, researching data recovery,
> > and trying out such products in line with my research.
> 
> Only 20 hours? Pah, what an amateur.
> 
> See, it's these absurd claims which make your pronouncements so dubious.
> 
> If you spend four hours a day eating, sleeping, posting to Usenet, and
> doing all the other things a normal human being does, then you are
> comlpetely nuts, and no-one should pay any attention to you except when
> they're backing away slowly.
 

Ok, let me re-phrase that.

I did exaggerate a little.  Possibly.  Perhaps.  Maybe.

However, there have been periods of two weeks (I think up to three)
where I have literally worked 20 hours a day - and more.

If you have your own business with an international reputation, you
don't do the "9-5" routine.  It simply doesn't work.

Draw your own conclusions from that, but rest assured, I do put in the
hours.

But why do I feel I need to justify this to an incompetent of your ilk?


Odie
-- 
Retrodata
www.retrodata.co.uk
Globally Local Data Recovery Experts

Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous@hotmail.com> wrote:

> > > I spend 20 hours a day doing data recovery, researching data recovery,
> > > and trying out such products in line with my research.
> > 
> > Only 20 hours? Pah, what an amateur.
> > 
> > See, it's these absurd claims which make your pronouncements so dubious.
> > 
> > If you spend four hours a day eating, sleeping, posting to Usenet, and
> > doing all the other things a normal human being does, then you are
> > comlpetely nuts, and no-one should pay any attention to you except when
> > they're backing away slowly.

> I did exaggerate a little.  Possibly.  Perhaps.  Maybe.
> 
> However, there have been periods of two weeks (I think up to three)
> where I have literally worked 20 hours a day - and more.
> 
> If you have your own business with an international reputation, you
> don't do the "9-5" routine.  It simply doesn't work.

I'm sure you do an excellent job with data recovery, far better than I
ever could. 

As for your reputation, I hope it's wonderful and that you deserve it -
but if you start using your very limited experience of something else,
which many people have a great deal of experience with, and start saying
silly things about it which people know are just wrong, then you risk
having people wonder about the other things you say too.

> Draw your own conclusions from that, but rest assured, I do put in the
> hours.
> 
> But why do I feel I need to justify this to an incompetent of your ilk?

Only you can answer that question, but it could be because you realise
justification is something that your position is lacking.

Daniele 

D.M. Procida <real-not-anti-spam-address@apple-juice.co.uk> wrote:

> Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > > > I spend 20 hours a day doing data recovery, researching data recovery,
> > > > and trying out such products in line with my research.
> > > 
> > > Only 20 hours? Pah, what an amateur.
> > > 
> > > See, it's these absurd claims which make your pronouncements so dubious.
> > > 
> > > If you spend four hours a day eating, sleeping, posting to Usenet, and
> > > doing all the other things a normal human being does, then you are
> > > comlpetely nuts, and no-one should pay any attention to you except when
> > > they're backing away slowly.
> 
> > I did exaggerate a little.  Possibly.  Perhaps.  Maybe.
> > 
> > However, there have been periods of two weeks (I think up to three)
> > where I have literally worked 20 hours a day - and more.
> > 
> > If you have your own business with an international reputation, you
> > don't do the "9-5" routine.  It simply doesn't work.
> 
> I'm sure you do an excellent job with data recovery, far better than I
> ever could. 

after two weeks working over 20 hours a day, I would have thought that a
baboon would be able to do a better job of data recovery, as his
attention span would be down to seconds and he would be at the least
halucinating or suffering serious mental problems. Certainly not someone
I would like near my disks. Give me someone who has managed at least 6
hours of sleep any day.


-- 
Woody

www.alienrat.com

Woody wrote:
> 
> D.M. Procida <real-not-anti-spam-address@apple-juice.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> > Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > > > I spend 20 hours a day doing data recovery, researching data recovery,
> > > > > and trying out such products in line with my research.
> > > >
> > > > Only 20 hours? Pah, what an amateur.
> > > >
> > > > See, it's these absurd claims which make your pronouncements so dubious.
> > > >
> > > > If you spend four hours a day eating, sleeping, posting to Usenet, and
> > > > doing all the other things a normal human being does, then you are
> > > > comlpetely nuts, and no-one should pay any attention to you except when
> > > > they're backing away slowly.
> >
> > > I did exaggerate a little.  Possibly.  Perhaps.  Maybe.
> > >
> > > However, there have been periods of two weeks (I think up to three)
> > > where I have literally worked 20 hours a day - and more.
> > >
> > > If you have your own business with an international reputation, you
> > > don't do the "9-5" routine.  It simply doesn't work.
> >
> > I'm sure you do an excellent job with data recovery, far better than I
> > ever could.
> 
> after two weeks working over 20 hours a day, I would have thought that a
> baboon would be able to do a better job of data recovery, as his
> attention span would be down to seconds and he would be at the least
> halucinating or suffering serious mental problems. Certainly not someone
> I would like near my disks. Give me someone who has managed at least 6
> hours of sleep any day.
 
I cannot deny, without the help of excessive caffeine, I wouldn't be
able to do it.

I don't *like* doing it at all - but one has to "keep up appearances"
etc.

I get by.


Odie
- -
Retrodata
www.retrodata.co.uk
Globally Local Data Recovery Experts

Woody <usenet@alienrat.co.uk> wrote:

> > I'm sure you do an excellent job with data recovery, far better than I
> > ever could. 
> 
> after two weeks working over 20 hours a day, I would have thought that a
> baboon would be able to do a better job of data recovery

Funny you should say that, because it was always my contention that a
monkey trained to insert a DiskWarrior CD could earn a respectable
living doing Mac support, as long as it were polite to the customers.


> as his attention span would be down to seconds and he would be at the
> least halucinating or suffering serious mental problems. Certainly not
> someone I would like near my disks. Give me someone who has managed at
> least 6 hours of sleep any day.

I think we were well into "I'm the most well'ard geek round here"
territory.

Daniele

"D.M. Procida" <real-not-anti-spam-address@apple-juice.co.uk> wrote in 
message 
news:1hpdj4k.4x2sa41w2ehvpN%real-not-anti-spam-address@apple-juice.co.uk...
> It could be that you are simply unlucky - it's incredibly good, but I'm
> afraid that doesn't mean it will be incredibly infallible. For a problem
> like that it's worth contacting Alsoft.
>
> You could try running it in Scavenge mode - hold down Option and the
> "Rebuild" button changes to "Scavenge".

Many thanks for this:

I suspect I am getting somewhere though the problem might ultimately be with 
the disc itself as others have commented, perhaps somewhat obviously for a 
program which is designed to repair a disc: I am  now getting an error 
message which at least tells me it is trying to do something: "Speed 
inhibited by disc malfunction".  I have heard it runs VERY slowly. Lets try 
running this a few times and see what happens.

> Daniele 

On 26/11/06 16:53, "news.rcn.com"  wrote:
>
>> It could be that you are simply unlucky - it's incredibly good, but I'm
>> afraid that doesn't mean it will be incredibly infallible. For a problem
>> like that it's worth contacting Alsoft.
>> 
>> You could try running it in Scavenge mode - hold down Option and the
>> "Rebuild" button changes to "Scavenge".
> 
> Many thanks for this:
> 
> I suspect I am getting somewhere though the problem might ultimately be with
> the disc itself as others have commented, perhaps somewhat obviously for a
> program which is designed to repair a disc

....but DW *isn't* designed to repair a disk; it's designed to help recover
data after it's been corrupted.   It repairs the data rather than the disk.

news.rcn.com wrote:

> I am having a problem with my hard drive. OSX reports bad nodes, rebuilding 
> catalogue B tree rebuild fails etc.
> 
> Disc Warrior reports drive OK, Smart reports OK etc
> 
> On repair folders, it starts, then the rolly line stops rolling about a 
> third of the way through, then about three minutes later the drive stops 
> spinning then all I can hear from the drive is 
> chug-chug-chug-chuyyug-chug-chug-chug (then repeating).
> 
> I know this program is slow but is there something I can do to 'revive' this 
> repair process which SEEMS to have stalled? 
> 
> 
What error messages do you get if you 'fsck -fy' in single user mode?

Bob W

Huge <noone@noemail.com> wrote:

> why dont you try starting the mac with the actual discwarrior cd?
> that mayhelp to...

I'm on tenterhooks here.

        -z-

-- 
THONK BOKE

Woody <usenet@alienrat.co.uk> wrote:

> after two weeks working over 20 hours a day, I would have thought that a
> baboon would be able to do a better job of data recovery, as his
> attention span would be down to seconds and he would be at the least
> halucinating or suffering serious mental problems

Hallucinations from sleep deprivation are kinda cool. I tried them as a
student.

        -z-

-- 
THONK BOKE

On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 13:14:24 +0000, D.M. Procida wrote
(in article 
<1hpev2e.17j0bub17rppevN%real-not-anti-spam-address@apple-juice.co.uk>):

> Woody <usenet@alienrat.co.uk> wrote:
> 
>>> I'm sure you do an excellent job with data recovery, far better than I
>>> ever could. 
>> 
>> after two weeks working over 20 hours a day, I would have thought that a
>> baboon would be able to do a better job of data recovery
> 
> Funny you should say that, because it was always my contention that a
> monkey trained to insert a DiskWarrior CD could earn a respectable
> living doing Mac support, as long as it were polite to the customers.
> 
>

Daniele �

Just because you have left the honourable profession of Mac-fixer is no 
reason to start giving away trade secrets.

Back from Munich now - excellent long-weekend thank you) and also ready to 
say that Disk Warrior has (in about 9 out of 10 cases) made disks usable 
again. It's not infallible, but I've never found it cause problems. Sometimes 
it says "I can't do the job."

My 2 euro-cents' worth

-- 
regards
hugh
hugh at clarity point uk point co
(by the sea) (using Hogwasher)

You never can truly tell when you have run out of invisible ink.

"zoara" <me17@privacy.net> wrote in message 
news:1hpftsr.1pk4les352d42N%me17@privacy.net...
> Huge <noone@noemail.com> wrote:
>
>> why dont you try starting the mac with the actual discwarrior cd?
>> that mayhelp to...
>
> I'm on tenterhooks here.
FYI: That was the first thing I tried before starting from Options and then 
gettinng into DW and trying to repair and then trying to scavenge
>
>        -z-
>
> -- 
> THONK BOKE 

"Bob Wardrope" <newsbybobwar@blueyonder.invalid> wrote in message 
news:FPpah.7515$k74.7126@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> news.rcn.com wrote:
>
>> I am having a problem with my hard drive. OSX reports bad nodes, 
>> rebuilding catalogue B tree rebuild fails etc.
>>
>> Disc Warrior reports drive OK, Smart reports OK etc
>>
>> On repair folders, it starts, then the rolly line stops rolling about a 
>> third of the way through, then about three minutes later the drive stops 
>> spinning then all I can hear from the drive is 
>> chug-chug-chug-chuyyug-chug-chug-chug (then repeating).
>>
>> I know this program is slow but is there something I can do to 'revive' 
>> this repair process which SEEMS to have stalled?
> What error messages do you get if you 'fsck -fy' in single user mode?

Interesting idea I had never heard of before: DW gets as far as Step 5 
(rebuilding directories) and then gives the constant error message Speed 
inhibited by disk malfunction, which I thought meant that at least it was 
trying to do something. But in effect, the blue bar showing how much it is 
doing doesnt get any further than half way across the screen: Meaning that 
scavenge doesnt appear to be actually doing anything because it isnt moving 
ANY further. I HAD heard that DW is unblievably slow when operating properly 
but does anyone think two days is too short a time to let it run before 
giving up on it?

So I cancelled out and tried single user mode which was exceptionally 
enlightening in that I thought that my screen had died (or  a cable had come 
out of the panel) and had been forced to use an external monitor to do all 
of this checking. Suddenly on pressing apple-S, the screen sprang  back into 
life!!!

But running 'fsck -fy' from the root gave me the same error message as 
booting off a Tiger install disc and trying to run an ordinary repair:
Disc0s9 i/o error
invalid node structure (4,8653)
rebuilding B-catalogue tree
Disc 0s9 i/o error
The Volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired
> Bob W 

On 2006-11-28 14:48:57 +0000, "news.rcn.com" <news.rnc.com> said:

> 
> "Bob Wardrope" <newsbybobwar@blueyonder.invalid> wrote in message 
> news:FPpah.7515$k74.7126@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>> news.rcn.com wrote:
>> 
>>> I am having a problem with my hard drive. OSX reports bad nodes, 
>>> rebuilding catalogue B tree rebuild fails etc.
>>> 
>>> Disc Warrior reports drive OK, Smart reports OK etc
>>> 
>>> On repair folders, it starts, then the rolly line stops rolling about a 
>>> third of the way through, then about three minutes later the drive 
>>> stops spinning then all I can hear from the drive is 
>>> chug-chug-chug-chuyyug-chug-chug-chug (then repeating).
>>> 
>>> I know this program is slow but is there something I can do to 'revive' 
>>> this repair process which SEEMS to have stalled?
>> What error messages do you get if you 'fsck -fy' in single user mode?
> 
> Interesting idea I had never heard of before: DW gets as far as Step 5 
> (rebuilding directories) and then gives the constant error message 
> Speed inhibited by disk malfunction, which I thought meant that at 
> least it was trying to do something.

It feels like we're going around in circles here (unlike your disk) 
because your disk is too broken to be repaired by anything sensible.

Cheers,

Chris

In article <p-WdnYnsDKPv0fHYnZ2dnUVZ_uSdnZ2d@rcn.net>, news.rcn.com
wrote:

> Interesting idea I had never heard of before: DW gets as far as Step 5 
> (rebuilding directories) and then gives the constant error message Speed 
> inhibited by disk malfunction, 

I'm not an expert on either disk mechanisms or data recovery, but it
seems to me that the problem you have and the error messages you get
indicate there is a physical problem with your hard drive. 

If that is so then you may have to accept that there is a physical
problem cannot be fixed with any software.  This is not a 'fault' with
Disk Utility or with DW.  They can't always recover all data from a
disk which is malfunctioning. Indeed, if anyone did write a program
that could *always* recover all data from a disk which is
malfunctioning then I suspect they would become rich.

My advice would be to forget trying to 'fix' the disk.  Just scavenge
as many files as you can and then throw away the disk.

Kit

BTW Thereafter, running DW it shows on disc diagnostics that the disc is OK 
and then that the date is wrong, the wrapper volume information is wrong and 
I should run REBUILD (says nothing about scavenge mode) followed by all the 
old symptoms, -  rebuilding directories, speed inhibited by disc malfunction 
(but no error message telling me that it can't repair the directory 
structure which it says it is still trying to repair) followed by the 
spinning coloured wheel and no progress from the half-way across the rebuild 
bar stage and what I presume will be another two day wait for nothing to 
happen

"news.rcn.com" <news.rnc.com> wrote in message 
news:p-WdnYnsDKPv0fHYnZ2dnUVZ_uSdnZ2d@rcn.net...
>
> "Bob Wardrope" <newsbybobwar@blueyonder.invalid> wrote in message 
> news:FPpah.7515$k74.7126@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>> news.rcn.com wrote:
>>
>>> I am having a problem with my hard drive. OSX reports bad nodes, 
>>> rebuilding catalogue B tree rebuild fails etc.
>>>
>>> Disc Warrior reports drive OK, Smart reports OK etc
>>>
>>> On repair folders, it starts, then the rolly line stops rolling about a 
>>> third of the way through, then about three minutes later the drive stops 
>>> spinning then all I can hear from the drive is 
>>> chug-chug-chug-chuyyug-chug-chug-chug (then repeating).
>>>
>>> I know this program is slow but is there something I can do to 'revive' 
>>> this repair process which SEEMS to have stalled?
>> What error messages do you get if you 'fsck -fy' in single user mode?
>
> Interesting idea I had never heard of before: DW gets as far as Step 5 
> (rebuilding directories) and then gives the constant error message Speed 
> inhibited by disk malfunction, which I thought meant that at least it was 
> trying to do something. But in effect, the blue bar showing how much it is 
> doing doesnt get any further than half way across the screen: Meaning that 
> scavenge doesnt appear to be actually doing anything because it isnt 
> moving ANY further. I HAD heard that DW is unblievably slow when operating 
> properly but does anyone think two days is too short a time to let it run 
> before giving up on it?
>
> So I cancelled out and tried single user mode which was exceptionally 
> enlightening in that I thought that my screen had died (or  a cable had 
> come out of the panel) and had been forced to use an external monitor to 
> do all of this checking. Suddenly on pressing apple-S, the screen sprang 
> back into life!!!
>
> But running 'fsck -fy' from the root gave me the same error message as 
> booting off a Tiger install disc and trying to run an ordinary repair:
> Disc0s9 i/o error
> invalid node structure (4,8653)
> rebuilding B-catalogue tree
> Disc 0s9 i/o error
> The Volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired
>> Bob W
>
> 

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 09:19:54 -0500, news.rcn.com wrote:

> "zoara" <me17@privacy.net> wrote in message 
> news:1hpftsr.1pk4les352d42N%me17@privacy.net...
>> Huge <noone@noemail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> why dont you try starting the mac with the actual discwarrior cd?
>>> that mayhelp to...
>>
>> I'm on tenterhooks here.
>
> FYI: That was the first thing I tried before starting from Options and then 
> gettinng into DW and trying to repair and then trying to scavenge

That was a grammar joke, sorry. I was waiting to find out what it "may
help to" do.

	-z-


-- 
Our team is conducting a benchmarking effort to gather an outside-in
view on development performance metrics and best practice approaches 
to issues of process and organization from companies involved in a 
variety of software development (and systems integration).

"Kit" <kitzyme@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:281120061522591248%kitzyme@yahoo.com...
> In article <p-WdnYnsDKPv0fHYnZ2dnUVZ_uSdnZ2d@rcn.net>, news.rcn.com
> wrote:
>
>> Interesting idea I had never heard of before: DW gets as far as Step 5
>> (rebuilding directories) and then gives the constant error message Speed
>> inhibited by disk malfunction,
>
> I'm not an expert on either disk mechanisms or data recovery, but it
> seems to me that the problem you have and the error messages you get
> indicate there is a physical problem with your hard drive.
>
> If that is so then you may have to accept that there is a physical
> problem cannot be fixed with any software.  This is not a 'fault' with
> Disk Utility or with DW.  They can't always recover all data from a
> disk which is malfunctioning. Indeed, if anyone did write a program
> that could *always* recover all data from a disk which is
> malfunctioning then I suspect they would become rich.
>
> My advice would be to forget trying to 'fix' the disk.  Just scavenge
> as many files as you can and then throw away the disk.
The problem is that nothing can be scavenged from the disc.  However I have 
just spoken to Alsoft who says that the program is just working as it should 
and is churning over the bad blocks and marking them.  Before passing on to 
the next one. I did say that the program had been working for 2 days without 
success and he disputed the importance of this and said that it may well 
take that time to rebuild the catalogues: In fact he said they had reports 
of the rebuild process taking as long as nine days!! The only time you give 
up is when it reports that it cannot repair, which it hasn't done yet at 
all.

BTW he agrees with you all: This is one failing hard drive.  He said that 
when it is finished, DW will offer to copy the data it has 'recovered' to 
some other disc and NOT rely on this one. I must do this and he said chuck 
the disc away immediately as it is undoubtedly on the point of failing. 
Still, it is probably still under the Toshiba warranty even if the Apple one 
has run out on this 1 GHz G4 PowerBook.

The problem of course is that there is no easy way of replacing the HDD in 
this particular computer!! It involves taking virtually every screw off the 
drive (unless someone out there knows an easy way?)
> Kit 

In article <xr-dnZVf19Fcx_rYnZ2dnUVZ_vidnZ2d@rcn.net>,
 "news.rcn.com" <news.rnc.com> wrote:

> spinning then all I can hear from the drive is 
> chug-chug-chug-chuyyug-chug-chug-chug (then repeating).

Sounds like hardware failure to me.

-- 
Being quick to take offense is not a virtue.

In article <281120061522591248%kitzyme@yahoo.com>,
 Kit <kitzyme@yahoo.com> wrote:

> My advice would be to forget trying to 'fix' the disk.  Just scavenge
> as many files as you can and then throw away the disk.

I'd add one bit here: check with the drive manufacturer to see if the 
drive is still under warranty.  If it is, the OP might get a replacement 
for free.  OTOH, if he knows it's well over 3 or 5 or whatever years 
old, nevermind.

-- 
Being quick to take offense is not a virtue.

In article <_7CdnY0TR4npCvXYnZ2dnUVZ_rmdnZ2d@rcn.net>,
 "news.rcn.com" <news.rnc.com> wrote:

> OP here: Not sure you are right there: DW reports that my drive is OK It 
> sees past the PCB, past the mecahnical parts of the drive, past the 
> firmware, to the platters and to the psysical parts of those discs which it 
> reports as being OK. Disk Repair in OSX reports invalid node structure 
> although it cant repair the b-catalogue tree. THAT is supposed to be 
> precisealy what DW is supposed to do and what it isnt doing, which is why I 
> posted here. But no one else seems to have had this problem with DW not 
> doing exactly what others report it can do easily; and what even you seem to 
> think it should be able to do "incredibly well"?

There's limits to what we can expect.  A couple of weeks ago, I pointed 
DW to a disk which was NOT failing, where DU reported similar messages 
to yours.  As the partition involved was strictly data, I was able to 
run DW immediately.  DW reported something over 1200 overlapping files.  
Joy.

I didn't bother waiting to see if it could fix that, because I didn't 
have time and because I wouldn't trust the result no matter what.  I 
erased the partition, which was a backup of another one, and rewrote it 
from scratch.

The big difference was that my drive wasn't making funny noises, and the 
other partitions there were and are working fine.

-- 
Being quick to take offense is not a virtue.

In article <251120062008334065%kitzyme@yahoo.com>,
 Kit <kitzyme@yahoo.com> wrote:

> PS to my last post...
> Is that a typo?  Do you really mean 20 hours per week? Or do you really
> only sleep for 4 hours per day?
> :-)

Prolly not.  I expect his entire post is horseshit.

-- 
Being quick to take offense is not a virtue.