Disk First Aid

Last updated
Disk First Aid
Developer(s) Apple Inc.
Stable release
8.6.1 / May 3, 2001;21 years ago (2001-05-03)
Operating system Classic Mac OS
Type software utility
Website support.apple.com/kb/TA26794

Disk First Aid is a free software utility made by Apple Inc. that was bundled with all computers running the classic Mac OS. [1] This tool verifies and repairs a limited number of directory structure problems on any HFS or HFS Plus hard disk or volume. [2]

Contents

Disk First Aid is a very simple tool, with it only being able to detect and repair directory damage [3] and many books are critical of its sometimes inaccurate reporting of errors, and often suggest to run the tool more than once to ensure a consistent result. [3] [4] [5] Disk First Aid is located in Applications:Utilities:Disk First Aid. [4] The classic Mac OS provides an option to run Disk First Aid on startup, although it has been reported that it provides little gain and sometimes can amplify a problem. [4]

Its capabilities were incorporated into Disk Utility in macOS.

Situations to use the tool

One source suggests that disk utility should be used when there are:

as well as for general maintenance every 6 months. [6]

Analysis

Disk First Aid has built-in capabilities to check for damage to:

After analyzing the disk directory, Disk First Aid determines whether it is able to repair any damage that was detected. The utility can commonly only fix problems associated with the catalog/extents files and the volume bitmap. [4] Commonly, the program reports that there is an error, but cannot fix it. [3]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Watson, Andrew (2008-02-07). "Disk First Aid Utility in Mac". Archived from the original on July 8, 2008. Retrieved 2009-01-12.
  2. ↑ Stauffer, Todd (2004). How to Do Everything with Your iMac. McGraw-Hill Professional. p. 456. ISBN   0-07-223188-2 . Retrieved 2008-01-12.
  3. 1 2 3 Breen, Christopher (2002). Mac 911. Peachpit Press. pp.  104–5. ISBN   0-201-77339-2 . Retrieved 2008-01-12.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Landau, Ted (2000). Sad Macs, Bombs, and Other Disasters: And what to Do about Them. Peachpit Press. pp.  805–11. ISBN   0-201-69963-X . Retrieved 2008-01-12.
  5. 1 2 "In OS X, what is First Aid, and when and how should I use it?". University Information Technology Services Knowledge Base. Indiana University. 2008-12-18. Retrieved 2009-01-12.
  6. ↑ "Disk First Aid for Macintosh". IT Service Desk (8help). Ohio State University. 1999-06-04. Archived from the original on 2009-03-17. Retrieved 2009-01-12.
  7. ↑ "Mac OS 9 - How to Use Disk First Aid". Computing@UW-MADISON KnowledgeBase. University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2001-02-09. Retrieved 2009-01-12.

Related Research Articles

Hierarchical File System (HFS) is a proprietary file system developed by Apple Inc. for use in computer systems running Mac OS. Originally designed for use on floppy and hard disks, it can also be found on read-only media such as CD-ROMs. HFS is also referred to as Mac OS Standard, while its successor, HFS Plus, is also called Mac OS Extended.

fsck System tool for checking the consistency of a file system

The system utility fsck is a tool for checking the consistency of a file system in Unix and Unix-like operating systems, such as Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD. A similar command, CHKDSK, exists in Microsoft Windows and its predecessor, MS-DOS.

The resource fork is a fork or section of a file on Apple's classic Mac OS operating system, which was also carried over to the modern macOS for compatibility, used to store structured data along with the unstructured data stored within the data fork.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Defragmentation</span> Rearrangement of sectors on a hard disk into contiguous units

In the maintenance of file systems, defragmentation is a process that reduces the degree of fragmentation. It does this by physically organizing the contents of the mass storage device used to store files into the smallest number of contiguous regions. It also attempts to create larger regions of free space using compaction to impede the return of fragmentation. Some defragmentation utilities try to keep smaller files within a single directory together, as they are often accessed in sequence.

HFS Plus or HFS+ is a journaling file system developed by Apple Inc. It replaced the Hierarchical File System (HFS) as the primary file system of Apple computers with the 1998 release of Mac OS 8.1. HFS+ continued as the primary Mac OS X file system until it was itself replaced with the Apple File System (APFS), released with macOS High Sierra in 2017. HFS+ is also one of the formats supported by the iPod digital music player.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">File system</span> Format or program for storing files and directories

In computing, a file system or filesystem is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one large body of data with no way to tell where one piece of data stopped and the next began, or where any piece of data was located when it was time to retrieve it. By separating the data into pieces and giving each piece a name, the data are easily isolated and identified. Taking its name from the way a paper-based data management system is named, each group of data is called a "file". The structure and logic rules used to manage the groups of data and their names is called a "file system."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norton Utilities</span> Computer utility software

Norton Utilities is a utility software suite designed to help analyze, configure, optimize and maintain a computer. The latest version of the original series of Norton Utilities is Norton Utilities 16 for Windows XP/Vista/7/8 was released 26 October 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CHKDSK</span> System tool in DOS, OS/2 and Windows

In computing, CHKDSK is a system tool and command in DOS, Digital Research FlexOS, IBM/Toshiba 4690 OS, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows and related operating systems. It verifies the file system integrity of a volume and attempts to fix logical file system errors. It is similar to the fsck command in Unix and similar to Microsoft ScanDisk, which co-existed with CHKDSK in Windows 9x and MS-DOS 6.x.

In computing, data recovery is a process of retrieving deleted, inaccessible, lost, corrupted, damaged, or formatted data from secondary storage, removable media or files, when the data stored in them cannot be accessed in a usual way. The data is most often salvaged from storage media such as internal or external hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), USB flash drives, magnetic tapes, CDs, DVDs, RAID subsystems, and other electronic devices. Recovery may be required due to physical damage to the storage devices or logical damage to the file system that prevents it from being mounted by the host operating system (OS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disk Utility</span> Software for Apple macOS

Disk Utility is a system utility for performing disk and disk volume-related tasks on the macOS operating system by Apple Inc.

Repairing disk permissions is a troubleshooting activity commonly associated with the macOS operating system by Apple. The efficacy of repairing permissions to troubleshoot application errors has been debated.

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of file systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Time Machine (macOS)</span> Backup software application developed by Apple and distributed as part of macOS

Time Machine is the backup mechanism of macOS, the desktop operating system developed by Apple. The software is designed to work with both local storage devices and network-attached disks, and is most commonly used with external disk drives connected using either USB or Thunderbolt. It was first introduced in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, which appeared in October 2007 and incrementally refined in subsequent releases of macOS. Time Machine was revamped in macOS 11 Big Sur to support APFS, thereby enabling "faster, more compact, and more reliable backups" than were possible previously.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">File system fragmentation</span> Condition where a segmented file system is used inefficiently

In computing, file system fragmentation, sometimes called file system aging, is the tendency of a file system to lay out the contents of files non-continuously to allow in-place modification of their contents. It is a special case of data fragmentation. File system fragmentation negatively impacts seek time in spinning storage media, which is known to hinder throughput. Fragmentation can be remedied by re-organizing files and free space back into contiguous areas, a process called defragmentation.

A sparse image is a type of disk image file used on macOS that grows in size as the user adds data to the image, taking up only as much disk space as stored in it. Encrypted sparse image files are used to secure a user's home directory by the FileVault feature in Mac OS X Snow Leopard and earlier. Sparse images can be created using Disk Utility.

Amiga support and maintenance software performs service functions such as formatting media for a specific filesystem, diagnosing failures that occur on formatted media, data recovery after media failure, and installation of new software for the Amiga family of personal computers—as opposed to application software, which performs business, education, and recreation functions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apple Disk Image</span> Disk image file format developed by Apple and commonly used by macOS

AppleDisk Image is a disk image format commonly used by the macOS operating system. When opened, an Apple Disk Image is mounted as a volume within the Finder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Classic Mac OS</span> Original operating system of Apple Mac (1984–2001)

Mac OS is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The Macintosh operating system is credited with having popularized the graphical user interface concept. It was included with every Macintosh that was sold during the era in which it was developed, and many updates to the system software were done in conjunction with the introduction of new Macintosh systems.

Apple File System (APFS) is a proprietary file system developed and deployed by Apple Inc. for macOS Sierra (10.12.4) and later, iOS 10.3 and later, tvOS 10.2 and later, watchOS 3.2 and later, and all versions of iPadOS. It aims to fix core problems of HFS+, APFS's predecessor on these operating systems. APFS is optimized for solid-state drive storage and supports encryption, snapshots, and increased data integrity, among other capabilities.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.