HELP! My Data!!--How Disk Warrior and Cloning Saves You

Doctor X

Registered
The Good Doctor's Guide to Saving Your Butt

Introductory Pontifications:


It seems about once a month we get a "I CAN'T GET MY DATA" or "I can't find my HD," or "I can't find my iPhotos of my daughter's wedding and now she's in a coma after running into a garlic press!" question. I have pontificated on the use of Disk Warrior [DW--Ed.] and backing up your data with a bootable clone created by a program like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! I never used Time Machine since it does not make a clone you can actually boot off of. As the signature shows, I have a Macbook. If/when its Internal Hard Drive [Int-HD--Ed.] dies, I need to boot off of something so I can order the replacement, and continue ranting on the Interwebs.

Having answered and seen these questions answered numerous times, I felt I might as well document my very recent experience as a reference the next time a teary-eyed Newbie washes up on our somewhat fair shores.

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Back in the day, backing up data meant grabbing CDs or even
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floppy disks. So, when disaster happened, THE worst thing to hear was the smarmy "well, did you back up your data?"
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question that required you to punch the idiot in the face then bring out the garlic press.
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Reason for Ex-HD: With a cloning program, I am set.
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I just clone my Int-HD from my clone! Backing up to a clone with most programs takes about an hour for ~150 GB of data then less-than 10 minutes for updates.

Problems can happen at any time. I decided to compose this after having given this advice a day ago and then having a "problem" arise out of nowhere. Most of the time I have frelled my volume I have "done something stupid"--"I wonder what happens if I delete this folder. . . ."--or my Int-HD is failing. In this case, I was booted on a clone on an external hard drive [Ext-HD--Ed.]--to do some work where I did not want to save a bunch of crap on my smaller Int-HD. I had been using my Int-HD happily earlier in the day. During this time, I backed up my Int-HD to another Ext-HD clone in the background. When finished, I rebooted and . . .

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COULD NOT FIND MY INT-HD
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So I booted to the current clone Ex-HD of Pain. I could "see" my Int-HD [of Doom--Ed.] and the most recent clone, Ex-HD of Mean.

What do I do? How did things go wrong? Is my Int-HD failing? Why is there not more love in the world?


I Stop What You are Doing!
If your HD is failing, messing with it will only make things worse. You need to gather the following:

  • 1. Installation Disk[I-D--Ed.]
    2. And Ex-HD--go out and get one. Yes. "Now."
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    When you move further along the steps you are going to need "somewhere" to put your crap.

The I-D--usually gray--came with your computer. "BUT I DON'T HAVE ONE!" or "The Toothless Guy behind the bar who sold me this did not include it!"

Well . . . you need to get one!

WARNING: many a poor slob has gone to eBay, found a cheap "gray" disk, only to get a coaster. The IDs are machine specific. You either need a Retail version of the OS that came with your computer or higher--assuming your computer can run it--or you need to boot off a program that has it--TechTools is one I will discuss--or you need to boot off another Mac. The last I do not do--there are directions on how to do that on this site. You need to get to Disk Utility [DU--Ed.].

II Boot Off of I-D/Retail Disk and Go Run Disk Utility!

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Run Repair until the disk is repaired:

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When that happens, you are done.
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Now, start backing up your data and you will not have to go through this mess again!
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Note: that above screen capture was after I fixed everything following the directions below. I just wanted to show what success looks like with DU :)

But, as you can see, MY Int-HD is frelled beyond the repair of Disk Utility
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. Again, assuming you have not backed up your data. . . . .

III Get Disk Warrior!

I do not get kick-backs from them. I happened to have TechTools from a previous life. The only advantage is it creates a partition you can boot off of. However, I could not even see THAT partition. It will repair volumes DU will not. But DW will repair/find volumes TT will not. Importantly, BOTH will detect errors that DU does not. Hold that thought for a bit.

Further, assuming you are in the "I Don't Got No I-D, or Other Computer to Boot Off Of and My Girlfriend has Left Me for the Neighborhood Drunk" Camp, you can boot off of the DW DVD and try to fix things.

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If that works--and it usually does--
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--you are done. But in my case:

It does not work!
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Not only did DW not work, you can see both DU and TT told me "sod off, fat pig!"
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So now what? Give up? Become a PC user? Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!

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THAT--the Preview function--allows you to make a temporary "picture" of your HD. It is on your desk top:

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and you can start moving data. That iTunes folder? Those photos? The rare and highly illegal French tree fungus videos? Get them and move them to your Ex-HD. This is why you need an Ex-HD when you are doing this, particularly if your HD is failing.

Concluding Pontifications:

The moral of the story is, of course, do not enter unmarked vans even if the driver promises you candy . . . no, wait! The moral is to clone your primary drive. Whilst I composed this verbiage, I have been booted off the clone, and SuperDuper! has been recreating my Int-HD. I may need to get a new Int-HD . . . which I can do on Al Gore's Interwebs since I have a clone to boot off of!

Why bother with DW? Why not just clone your Int-HD frequently? I will give ANOTHER reason for having DW: recall I stated that my most recent--within an hour--clone did not show up as "bootable." Indeed, even in Start Up Disk it would not show up. I ran DU on it . . . NO ERRORS--but it was still not bootable. So cloning my Int-HD from it would have created a non-bootable Int-HD which is as useless as a facial to Geddy Lee. For laughs, I ran DW on it:

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not as many errors as my Int-HD, and it was repairable. Repair with DW made it "bootable." My point on that is you do not know when errors start, and if you are backing up your Int-HD, and it has errors, guess what you copy?

So I recommend confirming your clone before you transfer based off of it.

--J.D.
 
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After over five years what to add? I am almost embarrassed that I direct posters to obtain Installation Disks. Do Macs even have those anymore? The one I have now did not come with them!

What is There to Add: if I have not made it clear, the number one thing to do is to clone and clone frequently. Period. Full stop. I returned to this suggestion after testing some software updates on a clone. Since the clone--an Ex-HD--boots this laptop . . . and I did not dismount the Int-HD of the laptop, the updates not only updated on the Ex-HD they updated the software on the Int-HD. So what? Well, the updates were crap. I removed them which somehow removed the ability of my Int-HD to boot.

My computer could not boot.
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Here is the Point: Disk Utility, TechTools, and DiskWarrior stated that my volume on my Int-HD was fine. No boot. I feared my Int-HD has finally shuffled off this mortal coil and I would be forced to purchase that SSD that would speed up my Mac, make me attractive to the Homeless, and generally make my life complete.

I have more than one clone. Booting from that I could see and use all of the data on my Int-HD. That is the point. I have no idea what deleting craptacular updates did to make my Int-HD "not bootable." Having nothing better to do, booted on my second Ext-HD I decided to clone my Int-HD to my first Ext-HD I tested every thing on just to see what would happen . . . and MY SECOND Ext-HD NOW WOULD NOT BOOT!!

So repair and recovery software could not recognize nor fix the problem. Perhaps if I fresh installed the OS that would solve everything but . . .

. . . instead . . .

. . . I simply used my second clone from my second Ext-HD made prior to my testing to fix my Int-HD by cloning from it.

The Moral of the Story: Clone.

Clone often.

Clone always.

Have more than one.

Using various repair software now with cheap huge Ex-HD and fast cloning programs available is like using dial-up access to the internet. My "How To" above should be read as what to do if, for some reason, you forgot to clone and "something" bad happened.

--J.D.
 
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