kleef@cs.vu.nl (Patrick van Kleef) (05/04/87)
I'm puzzled. Although my mother always told me never to run any testprograms unless something is noticably going wrong, I must admit I 'sinned' and ran into something I think is quite peculiar. The wonderful 'Disk First Aid' that came with my Mac SE reports an 'unable to verify status' on my internal harddisk. The manual that came along clarifies mostly nothing. At least no more than the suggestion there might be _something_ wrong. Full stop. Luckily, in the library of friend there's plenty of programs to check the status of harddisks too, so I ran his Disk Express that put its 'stethoscope' on the disk for about 10 minutes, without notifying the presence of a could_be disaster. Neither did a couple of other programs I ran. So, my assumption is Disk First Aid failed. Has anyone had similar experiences? To complete the factlist: - System 4.0, Finder 5.4 - DFA run from hard(=system)disk - approx. 10 megabytes of information stored - Disk Express run twice to optimize disk-access Cheers!
dgold@apple.UUCP (David Goldsmith) (05/04/87)
In article <993@ark.cs.vu.nl> kleef@cs.vu.nl (Patrick van Kleef) writes: >The wonderful 'Disk First Aid' that came with my Mac SE reports an >'unable to verify status' on my internal harddisk. The manual that came >along clarifies mostly nothing. At least no more than the suggestion >there might be _something_ wrong. Full stop. > >So, my assumption is Disk First Aid failed. Has anyone had similar >experiences? To complete the factlist: >- System 4.0, Finder 5.4 >- DFA run from hard(=system)disk >- approx. 10 megabytes of information stored >- Disk Express run twice to optimize disk-access Earlier versions of Disk Express did not leave a disk in a state acceptable to Disk First Aid, even though the disk was fine for day-to-day operations. I believe this was because Disk First Aid expects a second copy of the Master Directory Block which Disk Express was not updating properly. Newer versions of Disk Express will write the second copy properly, making the disk acceptable to Disk First Aid again. -- David Goldsmith Apple Computer, Inc. MacApp Group AppleLink: GOLDSMITH1 UUCP: {nsc,dual,sun,voder,ucbvax!mtxinu}!apple!dgold CSNET: dgold@apple.CSNET, dgold%apple@CSNET-RELAY BIX: dgoldsmith
coffee@aero.ARPA (Peter C. Coffee) (05/04/87)
In article <993@ark.cs.vu.nl> kleef@cs.vu.nl (Patrick van Kleef) writes: >The wonderful 'Disk First Aid' that came with my Mac SE reports an >'unable to verify status' on my internal harddisk. : >- System 4.0, Finder 5.4 >- DFA run from hard(=system)disk When I have used DFA, it has reminded me that it can only fix things if the disk being FA'd is _not_ the current startup disk. I double-click on the finder of my "First Aid" floppy, then run DFA from it. When you ran your friend's utility, did you perhaps run it from a floppy rather than from your hard disk? Hope this helps...DFA doesn't say much, but it sure seems to work (it recovered 892K from a huge file that Edit 2.0 trashed. Useful).
dudek@utai.UUCP (05/04/87)
In article <993@ark.cs.vu.nl> kleef@cs.vu.nl (Patrick van Kleef) writes: > >The wonderful 'Disk First Aid' that came with my Mac SE reports an >'unable to verify status' on my internal harddisk. The manual that came >along clarifies mostly nothing. At least no more than the suggestion >there might be _something_ wrong. Full stop. > >So, my assumption is Disk First Aid failed. Has anyone had similar >experiences? To complete the factlist: >- System 4.0, Finder 5.4 >- DFA run from hard(=system)disk >- approx. 10 megabytes of information stored I've gotten the same message running DFA on my external non-SCSI Apple HD20 on a Mac+ with either system 3.2 or 4.0 under various finders. I sure do wish the silly little program would be a bit more explicit (i.e. WHY is it unable to verify??!!). I've been waiting and waiting for somebody else to comment on this. I noted the problem several weeks ago, use the machine heavily, and have noticed no other major anomalous behavior. Greg Dudek -- Dept. of Computer Science (vision group) University of Toronto Usenet: {linus, ihnp4, allegra, decvax, floyd}!utcsri!dudek CSNET: dudek@ai.toronto.edu ARPA: dudek%ai.toronto.edu@csnet-relay DELPHI: GDUDEK Paper mail: DCS, 10 King's College Circle, Toronto, Canada
stew@endor.harvard.edu (Stew Rubenstein) (05/05/87)
In article <993@ark.cs.vu.nl> kleef@cs.vu.nl (Patrick van Kleef) writes: >The wonderful 'Disk First Aid' that came with my Mac SE reports an >'unable to verify status' on my internal harddisk. > >- System 4.0, Finder 5.4 >- DFA run from hard(=system)disk Disk First Aid must be run off a floppy in order to check and repair your internal hard disk.
graifer@net1.ucsd.edu (Dan Graifer) (05/07/87)
What exactly is Disk First Aid?
Is it useful only for Apple Internal Hard Disks on the SE?
If it is useful for other disks, what does one have to do where to get
a copy? (ie. how much and from whom?)
Thanks in Advance...
Dan Graifer
graifer@net1.UCSD.EDU
Disclaimer: Nobody ever listens to me anyways; Why should they start now?upl@puff.WISC.EDU (Future Unix Gurus) (05/08/87)
In article <3930@utai.UUCP>, dudek@utai.UUCP writes: > In article <993@ark.cs.vu.nl> kleef@cs.vu.nl (Patrick van Kleef) writes: > > > >The wonderful 'Disk First Aid' that came with my Mac SE reports an > >'unable to verify status' on my internal harddisk. The manual that came > >along clarifies mostly nothing. At least no more than the suggestion > >there might be _something_ wrong. Full stop. > > > I sure do wish the silly little program would be a bit more > explicit (i.e. WHY is it unable to verify??!!). If you want to find out what Disk First Aid is doing, after you have opened the disk (but before you click Start), type command S. A window will appear below the top window and it will tell you exactly what part of the disk it is checking. Make sure the Caps Lock key isn't down when you type the command S. I have also experienced the 'Unable to verify the status of this disk' message from Disk First Aid 1.0.1 (1.2 is current and just came out with the 4.1 system). Both times it found problems with the catalog BTree of my Jasmine Direct Drive 80. I didn't take any chances, and backed up the disk (91 disks - anyone know of a good tape backup?) the first time. The second time, as I was running the backup program, I noticed that all of my folders had disappeared. I was still able to boot off the disk and look at the contents of the System Folder (the folder was open in the Finder) but I wasn't able to recover any data (fortunately, I'd only restored from the backup that morning!). The moral of the story (at least from my observations) is this: if Disk First Aid finds a problem, there likely is one. Got those backup floppies handy? Robert J. Hammen U. of Wisc. Undergraduate Projects Lab {seismo,ihnp4,allegra,topaz,seismo}!uwvax!puff!upl upl@puff.wisc.edu GEnie: R.Hammen {soon to be puff.cs.wisc.edu}
lzulch@cdp.UUCP (05/08/87)
I agree that Disk First Aid failed as far as giving you a good error message. You must run it from a separate disk for it to be able to verify the status of your hard disk. It does do some good things and I use it regularly for preventive maintenance. Larry Zulch, Dantz Software Development
clubmac@runx.ips.oz (Macintosh Users Group) (05/10/87)
All I know about Disk First that isn't documented is that if you hold
'command-S' down after opening a volume, a status window is opened so you
know what DFA is doing.
Jason Haines
Club Mac Macintosh Users Group of Australia
Snail: Box 213, Holme Building, Sydney University, NSW, 2006, Australia
ACSnet: clubmac@runx.ips.oz ARPA: clubmac%runx.ips.oz@seismo.css.gov
UUCP:{enea,hplabs,mcvax,prlb2,seismo,ubc-vision,ukc}!munnari!runx.ips.oz!clubmac