Retina 13" disk maintenance?

[Laodah]

So, my late 2012 Retina 13" running 10.8 has no CD/DVD drive. I've never repaired the disk or rebuilt the directory like I did regularly on previous Macs, using DiskWarrior. The machine has reached that age when it's developing a few quirks (slow loading of Google Search, forced restarts to escape freezes...) and my impulse is... repair!

So how do I do that, with DiskWarrior no longer compliant and no way to boot from a CD? (I do have an external CD/DVD drive, if it's useful.)

I verify with Disk Utility regularly, but learned decades ago to distrust it; Apple's bundled repair apps will say "All clear!" right up to moment the whole system melts. And, as above... I can't boot from optical anyway, so I couldn't click "Repair" if I wanted to.

Sorry if this is much-asked question. I trawled around but didn't find a previous post on it.

 

[davidlv]

So, my late 2012 Retina 13" running 10.8 has no CD/DVD drive. I've never repaired the disk or rebuilt the directory like I did regularly on previous Macs, using DiskWarrior. The machine has reached that age when it's developing a few quirks (slow loading of Google Search, forced restarts to escape freezes...) and my impulse is... repair!

So how do I do that, with DiskWarrior no longer compliant and no way to boot from a CD? (I do have an external CD/DVD drive, if it's useful.)

I verify with Disk Utility regularly, but learned decades ago to distrust it; Apple's bundled repair apps will say "All clear!" right up to moment the whole system melts. And, as above... I can't boot from optical anyway, so I couldn't click "Repair" if I wanted to.

Sorry if this is much-asked question. I trawled around but didn't find a previous post on it.

Easy. Get a cheap USB external HD (SSD), partition it, clone your drive to the external (use Carbon Copy Cloner's free trail version (CCC)), and then reboot holding down the Option key. Select the external drive and run Disk Warrior from the external targeting the internal drive. Voila!

 

[Laodah]

Thanks! Does DW work with my system? I've seen posts (elsewhere) cautioning against using it on SSDs, and the DW site itself still says it won't work on recent Macs.

Easy. Get a cheap USB external HD (SSD), partition it, clone your drive to the external (use Carbon Copy Cloner's free trail version (CCC)), and then reboot holding down the Option key. Select the external drive and run Disk Warrior from the external targeting the internal drive. Voila!

 

[yjchua95]

So, my late 2012 Retina 13" running 10.8 has no CD/DVD drive. I've never repaired the disk or rebuilt the directory like I did regularly on previous Macs, using DiskWarrior. The machine has reached that age when it's developing a few quirks (slow loading of Google Search, forced restarts to escape freezes...) and my impulse is... repair!

So how do I do that, with DiskWarrior no longer compliant and no way to boot from a CD? (I do have an external CD/DVD drive, if it's useful.)

I verify with Disk Utility regularly, but learned decades ago to distrust it; Apple's bundled repair apps will say "All clear!" right up to moment the whole system melts. And, as above... I can't boot from optical anyway, so I couldn't click "Repair" if I wanted to.

Sorry if this is much-asked question. I trawled around but didn't find a previous post on it.

First, why are you even on Mountain Lion? There's a malware for it (XSLCmd), which isn't unlike its Windows counterpart. You should be Mavericks at least.

http://www.fireeye.com/blog/technic...ced-to-adapt-xslcmd-backdoor-now-on-os-x.html

Try doing a clean install of Mavericks first and see how it goes.

 

[Laodah]

I avoided upgrading to Mavericks because I read in the fora that it slugged some folks' whole system down to System 7 performance levels. Since ML was still working fine, I stayed put. Thoughts?

First, why are you even on Mountain Lion? There's a malware for it (XSLCmd), which isn't unlike its Windows counterpart. You should be Mavericks at least.

http://www.fireeye.com/blog/technic...ced-to-adapt-xslcmd-backdoor-now-on-os-x.html

Try doing a clean install of Mavericks first and see how it goes.

 

[davidlv]

Thanks! Does DW work with my system? I've seen posts (elsewhere) cautioning against using it on SSDs, and the DW site itself still says it won't work on recent Macs.

Disk Warrior works fine on SSDs. The DW site itself says the startup DVD won't work on recent Macs, DW itself works fine. If you purchase DW, get the download version, they will send you the latest DVD in the mail later. As you may know, you cannot use DW on the disk it is running from, so you need an external bootable disk, with Disk Warrior installed (simply copy the app to the external disk and have your serial number handy).
Many people on this forum have used DW on SSDs with no problems, and I have used it often, again with no issues. I have no financial relationship with Alsoft, the makers of DW, just a very satisfied customer.

 

[yjchua95]

I avoided upgrading to Mavericks because I read in the fora that it slugged some folks' whole system down to System 7 performance levels. Since ML was still working fine, I stayed put. Thoughts?

The problem is, you're putting yourself at a massive security risk by not upgrading. Like it or not, if you want to stay safe, you'll have to do it. Especially with XSLCmd in the wild.

If you have an SSD, you won't have to worry about slowdowns.

 

[Weaselboy]

I avoided upgrading to Mavericks because I read in the fora that it slugged some folks' whole system down to System 7 performance levels. Since ML was still working fine, I stayed put. Thoughts?

Just make a good Time Machine backup before you move to Mavericks and if it does not work out, you can easily use the TM backup to roll back.

Mavericks works just fine for the vast majority of users even with a hard drive. I installed Mavericks on my daughter's 2008 MBP with 4GB and 5400 RPM HDD and it works just fine. No slow downs at all. Your 2012 can easily run it.

Of course there will always be people that have troubles, and they will be the ones to come here and report that, buy most people are not having trouble.

 

[Laodah]

Thanks, both of you. I'll upgrade.

Just make a good Time Machine backup before you move to Mavericks and if it does not work out, you can easily use the TM backup to roll back.

Mavericks works just fine for the vast majority of users even with a hard drive. I installed Mavericks on my daughter's 2008 MBP with 4GB and 5400 RPM HDD and it works just fine. No slow downs at all. Your 2012 can easily run it.

Of course there will always be people that have troubles, and they will be the ones to come here and report that, buy most people are not having trouble.

 

[Laodah]

Actually, new question: what sort of external HD do you recommend for use as a TimeMachine backup? (Memory requirements, other stuff to look out for?)

Thanks.

Thanks, both of you. I'll upgrade.

 

[Weaselboy]

Actually, new question: what sort of external HD do you recommend for use as a TimeMachine backup? (Memory requirements, other stuff to look out for?)

Thanks.

I like the WD My Passport USB drives like this... but there really is not much difference among brand name drives like WD or Seagate. Just grab whatever USB3 drive you can find on sale.

Usually 1.5 to 2X the size of the data to be backed up is good to allow for Time Machine to save some file versions. So for example, if you have 200GB of data total on the drive a 300-400GB disk would do.

 

[Mac32]

Also you can download Mavericks, and install everything from scratch. I just did that with my 4.5 year old MacBook Air (core 2 duo), and it was like I got a new machine. Mavericks is my new favourite OSX version. It definitely needs 4gb of ram though, which shouldn't be an issue for you.

 

[Laodah]

Thanks again both!

I like the WD My Passport USB drives like this... but there really is not much difference among brand name drives like WD or Seagate. Just grab whatever USB3 drive you can find on sale.

Usually 1.5 to 2X the size of the data to be backed up is good to allow for Time Machine to save some file versions. So for example, if you have 200GB of data total on the drive a 300-400GB disk would do.