Trouble Verifing Disk in Disk Utility

[joshwest]

I have a problem i tried to verify my disk so i can repair it. i do this regualary and it said there was a error. and now my 2.0 g5 imac is running kinda dodgy. Should i backup and reformat? ( if so whats the best software to copy my whole hd and apps over to and reinstall?). any help i hate to have my macs sick i want them running good all the time.

 

[Nickygoat]

I have a problem i tried to verify my disk so i can repair it. i do this regualary and it said there was a error. and now my 2.0 g5 imac is running kinda dodgy. Should i backup and reformat? ( if so whats the best software to copy my whole hd and apps over to and reinstall?). any help i hate to have my macs sick i want them running good all the time.

Easy Tiger.
What sort of problems are you having? You can only verify the boot HD from the Hardware Test DVD that came with your Mac, not running Disk Utility from the HD.
Repair permissions, run your cron jobs and restart.
And what does "kinda dodgy" mean?
Reformatting is a last resort.

 

[joshwest]

Well sorry that was just kind of a burst of information.

Dodgy= just beach balls and stuff, apps kinda running slow. I have 2 gigs of ram and its a 2.0 g5. my 1.5 g4 powerbook actually runs faster boots and runs apps faster. I only have about 75 gigs left for storage but that shouldnt matter. I try to run hardware test all the time and clean up but since ive noticed lag. I did this and its not helping. any advice? could it just be that the os update is starting to run slower cause advancement? ive been able to verify disk before on my g5's main hd.???

 

[~Shard~]

If you ultimately want to backup your system, SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner are the best apps out there, bar none, IMO.

But I wouldn't go that far just yet - try to isolate what the problem is first.

Have you verified the S.M.A.R.T. status of your drive?

 

[berg]

Hi josh ...

From Apple ...

"If the computer is started up from the Mac OS X hard disk (or disk partition) and Disk Utility finds errors on it, there is not necessarily anything wrong. Only when started up from the CD should Disk Utility reports of errors on the Mac OS X hard disk (or disk partition) be considered accurate."

Can Only Verify Disk Properly from CD
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106270

If you're slowing down I would do what Nickygoat said ..

Repair your disk, permissions, run cron scripts and clear your caches ..

You can repair permissions, run scripts and clear caches with Onyx .
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11582
Go to Automation Pane ..
Check all the boxes EXCEPT
1. Optimize the system
2. Hidden DS Store Files
3. Links between documents and applications

Also choose "Clear All" in the button box for caches. Then execute

Or you can do just the caches with something like
Cache Out X
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9538

Remember to close all other apps before running these programs and you will probably have a slow reboot the first time ..

Cheers! ....

 

[joshwest]

Thanks everyone will do when i get home from work today. its just its a g5 2.0 with 2 gigs of ram i would just expect it to be alittle more speedy than it is currently. also was going to ask me having the disk spanning doctor on and a monitor hookedup through the vga port would that slow my computer down at all? i know it devides my video card but would it cause any other lag?

 

[Nickygoat]

Well sorry that was just kind of a burst of information.

Dodgy= just beach balls and stuff, apps kinda running slow. I have 2 gigs of ram and its a 2.0 g5. my 1.5 g4 powerbook actually runs faster boots and runs apps faster. I only have about 75 gigs left for storage but that shouldnt matter. I try to run hardware test all the time and clean up but since ive noticed lag. I did this and its not helping. any advice? could it just be that the os update is starting to run slower cause advancement? ive been able to verify disk before on my g5's main hd.???

Ok. So you have repaired permissions? Run cron jobs? And restarted?
Boot from the Hardware Test DVD (insert disc, restart and hold down C when restarting. Choose from the drop down menu to verify and repair the HD. Note that you can't do this from OSX itself (ie. the installed one on your G5).
If that's clear then....
Are the apps slow to load when you first start, or after a while? Use Activity Monitor (Applications->Utilities) to see if there are any programmes taking up a load of memory.
75 gigs left on the HD shouldn't be a problem - it only affects you when it gets below 10% of HD space (roughly) - it starts to interfere with Virtual Memory, which should be less than 7 or 8Gb.
And what OS are you running? 10.4.6 I'm assuming. Everything else upto date?
EDIT: I type way too slowly. And shouldn't do it while preparing my dinner