Defragmentation method/DiskWarrior

[Jay Boshara]

On 11/9/03 7:04 PM, "iBook List" <ibook at lists.themacintoshguy.com> wrote:

>> Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 17:41:00 -0500
>> From: Brian Pearce <bpearce at cloud9.net>
>> Subject: Re: [P1] Defragmentation Method?
>> Message-id: <CAF1B596-1305-11D8-8264-000A957A1572 at cloud9.net>
>> 
>>> I read this and wanted to know the best program to defragment the HD
>>> in X?
>> 
>> I use DiskWarrior; it's a good repair tool to have around in case of
>> catastrophic problems like directory corruption.
>> 
>> BRIAN/bpearce at cloud9.net


Without question (in my experience), DiskWarrior 3.0 is far superior to
other disk utilities, such as Norton DiskDoctor, TechTool Pro, etc.  All the
Mac magazines seem to agree on that.  I have had DW since this summer, and
every time I use it (which is after any OS upgrade or major application
installation, and thereafter once every couple of months just to keep
everything shipshape) everything improves substantially -- system speed,
application speed, graphic rendering, scrolling, etc.

DW 3.0 has two main functions: 1) Rebuilding the OS X Directory (which means
fixing any file problems, recovering lost or corrupted data, then
defragmenting the whole Directory and replacing the old one with a new,
flawless, defragmented Directory); and 2) monitoring the hard drive for
impending mechanical problems using S.M.A.R.T. Technology (which I know
nothing about).  

As I understand it, DW defragments only the Directory -- NOT the entire hard
drive.  [Version 2.x of DW included another Alsoft application just for
defragmenting HFS Plus disks called PlusOptimizer (which only works under OS
9), but the new version of DW 3.0 does not yet come with an OS X-native
version of PlusOptimizer.]  However, I don't know enough about computers to
determine what this means.  In other words, what exactly does the Directory
contain?  Does the Directory contain the OS, applications, fonts, databases,
the desktop, the whole Home?  What files are not included in the Directory?
I'd love to learn from any of you iBook Listers what is and what is not
contained in the Directory.

Anyway, DiskWarrior 3.0 is really an impressive utility -- one that I
consider to be indispensable.  For instance, a few days ago I did an Erase
and Install of Panther on my 366 iBook SE and my wife's 800 TiBook, and
after installing the OS and all applications, repairing permissions, running
the maintenance scripts and cleaning the caches, both computers ran
sluggishly.  I ran the Graph function of DiskWarrior and both computers'
Directories were fragmented at around 30%!  I then ran DiskWarrior from its
startup CD, and I discovered that (in addition to the fragmentation) several
files were damaged, so I replaced the Directories with rebuilt ones, and
voila -- everything ran beautifully and has continued to do so.