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Product

DiskWarrior

Question

I am running Mac OS X 10.5.x (Leopard). What is the compatibility of DiskWarrior?

Answer

DiskWarrior 4 version 4.1 is available for complete compatibility with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Version 4.1 offers additional repair capabilities including the ability to repair damaged directory hard links (a new feature of Leopard for Time Machine backups). DiskWarrior 4 version 4.1 is the only utility that can repair damaged links, directory loops and other problems that can happen with directory hard links.

Older versions of DiskWarrior 4 are not completely compatible with Mac OS X 10.5. DiskWarrior 4 version 4.0 will successfully rebuild a disk that has Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard installed or a disk that has been attached to a computer running Leopard.

However, some operating system functionality has changed within Leopard itself. As such, there are some compatibility issues when running an installed copy of DiskWarrior 4 version 4.0 while started up from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Alsoft currently recommends that you do not run DiskWarrior 4 version 4.0 while the computer is started from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Instead, to run DiskWarrior, you should start up the computer from either:

1) A DiskWarrior 4 version 4.0 CD.

2) Any disk that starts up in 10.4.x and then run DiskWarrior 4 version 4.0.

What you can expect when running DiskWarrior 4 version 4.0 under Mac OS X 10.4.x and rebuilding a Leopard disk.

All features work as expected with two exceptions:

1) You should not use any utility to repair permissions of a Leopard start up disk while started from Mac OS X 10.4.x or earlier. Permissions will either not be be repaired or will be repaired improperly. This is true whether you repair permissions with Apple's Disk Utility, DiskWarrior, or any other third-party utility. Regardless of which utility you use, the same service within Mac OS X is used to perform the actual permissions repair so the behavior is always the same.

To repair permissions of a Leopard startup disk, be sure you've always started your Mac from Leopard. Alsoft also recommends using only the Disk Utility included with Leopard to repair permissions until you’ve obtained an updated version of DiskWarrior.

Note: If you have used any utility to repair permissions of a Leopard startup disk while started from Mac OS X 10.4 or earlier, Alsoft recommends that you perform an upgrade install of Leopard over your existing Leopard install. This will restore any changed permissions to their original values without altering your data.

2) FileVaults created while started from Leopard are not visible to DiskWarrior 4 version 4.0 and cannot be rebuilt (repaired).

What you can expect when running DiskWarrior 4 version 4.0 under Mac OS X 10.5 and rebuilding a Leopard disk.

While not recommended (and discouraged), if you do run DiskWarrior 4 version 4.0 while started from Mac OS X 10.5 you might encounter some problems such as:

1) You cannot rebuild FileVaults or disk images.

2) In step 9 (comparing directories) of a rebuild, the progress bar might get to 100% even though the comparison step is not finished and will continue to execute.

3) When performing Check All Files and Folders the progress bar might get to 100% even though the check is not finished and will continue to execute.

4) After rebuilding a disk, DiskWarrior may report that some files or folders have had their permissions changed. This is inaccurate and the permissions have not been changed.

To repeat, an updated version of DiskWarrior that has complete Leopard compatibility is available as a free download for existing owners of DiskWarrior 4 version 4.0.





Should this information fail to resolve your issue, please contact Alsoft Technical Support.

 

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