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OSX Self Repair?

C

Craigy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 14, 2003
403
48
New Zealand
Question?

I have heard that if you leave OSX on overnight it carries out some kind of 'Self Repair' function?

If this is so - should I still consider a Disk utility - and if so which one you you reccomend.. Norton, Drive, Disk Warrior etc..

I'm a newbe so please be gentle!

Cheers
 
Dont know about the self repair, but I have used Norton alot and I find it to be a good disk utility for the Mac.
 
I have been using Norton System works 2 on OSX for a while now. I just seems a bit flaky... Whenever I check my drive on the powerbook it always seems to have lots of minor and quite often a major fault found..

This just makes me suspicious as I can't ever remeber having as many disk problems in OS 9.. am I alone?
 
Originally posted by Craigy
I have been using Norton System works 2 on OSX for a while now. I just seems a bit flaky... Whenever I check my drive on the powerbook it always seems to have lots of minor and quite often a major fault found..

This just makes me suspicious as I can't ever remeber having as many disk problems in OS 9.. am I alone?
Click to expand...

I also have Norton, but there are those around here that denounce it. :rolleyes: As for the nightly self diagnostic, they are just Unix scripts executed at 5:00 A.M. if the computer is on. Check out http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=10491&db=mac This application allows you to run these scripts without leaving the computer on.

As for Norton, it finds more problems than you really have when you use it in OS X. When you start up from the included CD it will find a lot less problems with your hard drive.
 
I have used Norton in 9 and X. I think Norton is still the best one out there. I never install it on my drive. I boot from the CD to find/repair problems.
 
If you actually want to repair your HD, I recommend getting Discwarrior, Norton has been proven to cause more problems .

If I wasn't using Discwarrior, I'd be using Tech Tool Pro, both of these apps are making there way to OSX very soon....

But Discwarrior is golden, use it
 
It's not a self repair exactly, and if you put your mac to sleep it won't run. I would get macjanitor (just search for it on google), which allows you to run the various things manually.
 
don't get norton. at odd hours of the morning, the system will run maintainence scripts, like rotating log files, rebuilding databases, etc. (if your computer is on that late). every time your computer starts up, it automatically runs a filesystem check (fsck) which is the equivalent of running disk repair from apple's disk utility. unless you are having serious disk issues, i would not recomend a repair utility. if you are just going to buy one because "it's good practice to run a disk repair every two weeks or so", you are wasting your money, mac os x is a modern os and does not need too much maintainence.
 
Originally posted by Catfish_Man
It's not a self repair exactly, and if you put your mac to sleep it won't run. I would get macjanitor (just search for it on google), which allows you to run the various things manually.
Click to expand...

I already posted the link for it a couple of posts above you.
 
Norton should only be used to recover deleted files and to repair the file/catalog structure, when it's needed.

The actual file repair stuff (when it checks all the files) gets you in more trouble than it's worth (too big a chance to make a good file bad).
 
there are three scripts that run, one daily, one weekly and one monthly at around 3 in the morning by your system clock - these can be edited if you have a little unix know-how (or failing that a good book - I recommend OSX - the missing manual by David Pogue) so for example mine now runs the commandline software update app, and downloads and installs all new updates at system startup, all in the background.
 
Yes everytime you boot up, fsck -y is run to check for errors. Other then permissions, you don't need to run a repair app unless something is wrong. This isn't 9 and things don't get quirky as often. And I WOULD NOT use Norton. I have seen/read too many negative experiences with Norton's not to warn you guys against using it.

DiscWarrior is the #1 option if running fsck -y and permission repair doesn't solve the issue.
 
Norton has some serious problems at the moment. It can cause some very serious disk problems. After trying to use System Works 2.0 for a couple weeks I ended up selling and wished I had never bought it.

The worst thing about Norton is currently during a normal installation it will modify the system kernel this will very likely lead to serious crashes because it leaves the kernel prone to crashes by Norton. Normally if a program crashes it has no effect on the system in general but in this case it can with some very serious consequences. Also you can't just run Norton off of the disk this is due to the updates Symantec has made to make Norton compatible with the later systems 10.2.x. Without these it will definitely cause more problems then good.

I recommend Disk Warrior. It is the only program out there that in my opinion was written by a Mac guy with some knowledge of Apple's systems.

Oh, and MacJanitor is the progam you want to run the nightly and weekly system clean up tasks that you were asking about.
 
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