Properly testing the Drive Media Integrity on your Macintosh drives and disks is crucial to a healthy running Mac, and far too often overlooked by even the most seasoned of Mac users.
It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who remain unaware or oblivious to the underlying structure upon which their visible files and folders reside. I suppose I should be more open to the idea that it is an arcane concept, or a science that is too difficult to grasp, but I must have my own block when it comes to this dispensation.
I guess the best suggestion I can make to people to give them some better idea, despite the modern times we live in and the seemingly fantastic reliability of today's computers, of just how vulnerable computer hardware is and will remain for the near future, is to suggest that it be compared to media more available to the touch.
If you were to examine a vinyl LP or a plastic audio CD, you can easily see the surface upon which the data that makes the sounds is written.
Now, with a vinyl LP (phonograph record), it is much easier to imagine (and see) how the media can become damaged. Dust, dirt, fingerprints and scratches can quickly reduce the sound to a cacophony of snaps, crackles, pops and static that makes the cat crawl on the ceiling.
Even a CD, its data less-exposed behind its clear, much tougher plastic coating, can so easily be scratched and smudged into a condition that reproduces that electronic stutter that makes you feel like a Borg (human-robot) on too much caffeine, and whilst the Dynne be happy, thine own ear doth protest.
Take a look at that LP or CD. Now, imagine it spinning at thousands of revolutions per minute. Now, imagine a small, sharp object crashing into it, and how many revolutions it might take for it to stop spinning. Now imagine the total physical area that might be affected as the object skips and bounces along the surface.
If you can picture that, you can, to some degree, imagine what might be happening to your Macintosh hard drive disks (HDD), floppy disks (FDD), Zip Disks (FzDD), or any other mounted and spinning disk, when you do that three finger salute (Command-Control-Power) to escape a frozen Mac.
Now, picture that process repeated over and over, for each time you have given the salute to your Mac, or you were running when you had a power outage, or the dog unplugged the computer. . .
Now, I hear you saying, "But, Frederico, what else can I do?", and, "Hey, if that was the wrong thing to do, why would Apple list it in the Emergency Handbook that came with my Mac?"
Well, if you read that manual a bit more carefully, and also try to read between the lines, you 'll note that Apple suggests a whole bunch of other things, too, but that one things seems to be about the only thing some people retain in regards to crash and conflict repair.
Your Mac drives can only take just so much of that kind of thing, and you'll see it first on a data-level, that causes your Mac to crash even more.
How many of you have seen an error to the effect of, "There is an Error in the B-Tree at 4, 104". Or, "Disk First Aid has found problems it cannot repair. . ." ?
If you have seen this kind of thing, you're only seeing signs of what might be happening to your physical media, but, unless you actually, specifically test for it, you'll never know for sure, because Disk First Aid does not perform the needed media-level tests, and utilities like Norton, TechTool, MacMedic and the rest may, or may not be set to test this function either.
There was a time, not long ago, when the above phrase was an indication of low-quality. Today, computerphiles know the phrase 'Western Digital Caviar 1.2 Gigabyte Hard Drive' means about as low condition of quality as one can achieve, at least when it comes to hard drives.
For the computer-neophyte, that little jab at Western Digital Corporation refers to the infamous series of HDDs that nearly put WD out of business, and which had a purported failure rate of 90%+.
I myself was the proud widower of three of these drives, and I've been pall-bearer to dozens of others.
My point here, is that even if you are not doing anything wrong, and you are doing every bit of Preventative Maintenance you can, you can still be a victim of "Defects in Workmanship or Materials".
Once again, unless you take the time to test for it now and again, you might not find out until that irreplaceable project is in bits and pieces (in a way not intended), scattered about in an irretrievable fashion on your expensive, now dead, HDD cum paperweight.
Without making this article any longer than it need be, I'm going to skip all the data presentation (to be available at a later date) and get right to the point:
There is no better utility that I have found in my many years of cobbling back together dead and broken computers of all kinds than I have found in FWB Hard Disk Toolkit.
No other utility, of any version, including Apple Drive Setup, Norton Disk Doctor v3-4, TechToolPro2.x, MacMedic 1.x, MacToolsPro and more, has passed the Frederico Titanic Repair test, though one of them came close. Even the FWB HDT PE edition succeeds where others fail.
Briefly, I have a stack of Western Digital Caviars as mentioned above, and a few Seagate Hawk (ST32430N), all of which have extensive and irreparable damage to the physical media, in the form of hundreds of bad blocks. Some of the damage is flaking media (the physical surface literally flaking off at the microscopic level), and other damage (on the Hawks), is a result of unterminated SCSI conflicts causing crash and electrical damage to the drive head and media.
I use these known-totalled drives as testing grounds for would-be pretenders who would take the crown of King of All Media Scanners. If you attempt to use these drives, you will meet with instant crashes and freezes just operating in Finder, especially if you try to copy large files to and from the drive(s). If you fill the drives with known-good graphics and fonts files, then copy it back out to another drive, you will find large quantities of corrupt file forks and unreadable files among the transferred data, if, that is, you can manage to actually get the Finder to move the files without puking.
Apple Drive Setup 1.7.3 will perform a low-level media initialization and test procedure, and will happily bless the drive as being in fine condition, and Norton does the same. TechToolPro 2.1 will sometimes find something, but it always crashes when it tries to reallocate the data and repair it, nor can it repair it when the drive is completely empty. TTP2.5.x will get a bit further before it crashes, but it definitely chokes, too. MacMedic actually can identify the problems exist, but also claims to have adeqautely repaired the problems when it has not.
The only utility to almost make the grade is the beloved MacToolsPro, a product such a threat to Norton Utilities, that Symantec bought it and killed it. A product so well designed, that even though it has not been updated since System 7.3 (?), it still performs many reliable functions under OS8.6. MTP is able to identify some of the errors, and refuses to fix them.
However, only FWB HDT can adequately identify, and, more importantly, disqualify the Titanic drives from further use. And, moreover, it has, in my own extensive experience and knowledge of other's success, repeatedly found and corrected errors overlooked by all the named utilities listed here, save MTP, and cured a world of mysterious crashes and freezes experienced by frustrated, but otherwise sharp-witted Mac owners depending on Norton and TTP (or on nothing at all). More importantly, it fixed the drive so that it could still be safely used.
I am in no way, shape or form affiliated with FWB Incorporated, nor do I own any stock, have any relatives or friends within the company or parent corporation, nor have I ever even received so much as a free copy of the software, let alone any monetary or physical compensation from the makers of this fine product, except as it pertains to the endless hours of lost time and uncountable dollars saved, earned, and put to better use elsewhere as a result of using the FWB product line.
Nope. While I love their media repair section, I, among quite a few others, have been burned badly by buggy FWB disk drivers. I do not advise the average user to employ third-party disk drivers unless it is under the explicit instructions of your personal MacGuru, or a requirement of your third-party drive manufacturer.
You really need to be able to "feel" for when your disk drivers are involved in little, freaky, odd and seemingly untraceable events. If you have trouble sniffing out a System-level Extension conflict, without using Conflict Catcher or InformInit, then the last thing you need is a questionable disk driver.
If you buy Apple-blessed HDDs, and use the latest of Apple Disk Drivers, you have the best assurance, albeit not 100%, of not having a buggy driver installed on your machine.
Please note, you do not have to use third party disk drivers in order to use third party media testing and repair functions. You may still use Genuine Certified Apple Disk Drivers to insure maximum compatibility with your Macintosh OS, while enjoying the extreme reliability of FWB disk repair features.
If you can't live without the additional features provided by third party disk drivers, such as volume-level passwords, then please do use third party disk drivers as you like, such as those from FWB, CharisMac and SilverLining.
Just be aware of the potential problems, keep yourself well backed up, keep up with the folks at MacFixIt, and report any problems you have directly to the manufacturer, instead of depending on others to fix your bugs for you.
Well, here we are, almost at the end of the article, and I hear you saying, "Where are the special Frederico instructions, pictures and tips on how to test my drive media?"
There aren't any. At least not here.
Since I'm not advising the use of any utility other than FWB products for physical media testing and repair, and they write such a dandy little manual, and, since it is bone-easy to use, I'm not going to bother with it. Just read the manual, and all will be explained. My only tip is that you use the highest available settings, and save a log report for future reference.
Finally, don't forget that inspecting the physical media is only part of the formula, and it's a part that requires far less frequency than Caring for Your Directory and Rebuilding Your Desktop. Be sure to combine all elements into a regular and thorough Preventative Maintenance program.
Oh, allright, here's one link for those of you who don't have FWB and can't afford $40 for the PE version, or who aren't planning to buy a HDD from OWC, where they give you FWB PE for $10 with the cost of most drives, so you effectively get the upgrade for free if you factor in the cost of the drive v. FWB HDT Pro by itself:
You're still here? Go on, get outta here. Go get FWB and tell me your drive has been repaired.
Article last revised on: 14 August 1999
Author: Frederico
Editor: WebClub '99
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