DiskWarrior 4.0 (Glowing) Review
I’ve finally received my DiskWarrior 4.0 CD-ROM, and it was worth the wait. If you have an older, non-Intel Mac and already HAVE DiskWarrior, then there is no need to upgrade.
For the purposes of DiskWarrior having COMPLETE access to make repairs on any drive, it’s essential to start from a CD, rather than in the usual way.
Basically, running DiskWarrior is transparent, just like always. The same CD starts up my Intel-based MacBook Pro OR my 800-megahertz G4. The program works exactly the same way, with no surprises. It still takes forever to start up from a CD (eighteen minutes from pushing the power-button on the G4 until I had DiskWarrior ready to do some work). This is because there are over 100,000 teensy files in the operating-system, and they all have to load from a s-l-o-w CD drive.
The nicest bonus was how much faster DiskWarrior performed, once either Mac had finally booted up from the CD. It blazes through all of the steps, with no discernible delays. The G4 only took two minutes to entirely diagnose and then rebuild its internal 80-gigabyte drive’s directory. I didn’t time the MacBook, but it was equally, pleasingly zippy when rebuilding all of the big, stonkin’ external drives that are stacked all around my desk.
So, once again, if I had to forsake all other diagnostic & fixin’ programs but one, then I would still choose DiskWarrior with no hesitation at all. It has saved hundreds of people’s bacon during my career, and has NEVER made their lives worse in any way.
If you don’t have DiskWarrior in your tool-bag yet, then I suggest that you buy the CD version and RUN IT EVERY MONTH, without fail. That way, small problems go away before they mutate into big problems.
When I refer to big problems, I’m referring to LOSING ALL OF YOUR DATA because some power-sucking USB device (Epson printers, Zip drives, non-powered USB hubs) cause some derangement when your Mac is writing data. Then, the damage gets worse, invisibly. Finally, by the time that you can perceive your problems, then your Mac is flashing an icon on your screen instead of actually starting up in a pleasing way.
Macs running OS X REALLY CAN be “four nines” dependable (meaning up and running 99.9999% of the time), but they need to be maintained in order for that to happen. Part one is DiskWarrior, and part two is Applejack.
Run them both at the beginning of each month, and you will have a healthy, long-lasting Mac!
