Tried to use DiskWarrior on 2 Macs...both kept restarting...worked fine on mine

[LABachlr]

In the past two days, I've tried to help two people fix their Mac issues with DiskWarrior, and with both Macs, when they tried to boot from the CD, the Mac would just restart, and no matter how many times we tried this, that's what happened.

Then I tried it on my Mac, and I was successful. So I'm wondering what it could be.

I'm using version DW v. 4.1.

Here are the specs of each system:

Mine:
Black Macbook
2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM
Mac OS X 10.6.7

The two Macs that kept restarting when trying to boot from the DiskWarrior CD:

White Macbook
2.1GHz
1GB RAM DDR2
Mac OS X 10.5
Reason I was using DiskWarrior on it in the first place: It was super slow

iMac (bought new 1 year ago)
CPU: not sure
4GB RAM
Mac OS X 10.6.7
Reason I was using DiskWarrior on it in the first place: Often times, when you tried to shut down the system, all icons on the desktop would go away, as well as the Dock, but the background image would stay and it would not shut down. We would need to hold down the power button for over 4 seconds to turn it off.

And when we would restart it after that, it would just go to a blank gray screen, and would not even bring up the Apple logo. We would then turn it off again, unplug the power cord from behind the computer, and then plug it back in. Then it would boot up again.

Took it to the Apple Store and they could not replicate the problem. There is a G-Drive external hard drive plugged into it, but she said this problem most likely started before she bought that, but she's not sure. One of the Apple geniuses said this may be causing it. I doubt that, but what do you guys think?

 

[Satcomer]

Well with Disk Warrior they have that darn updater that can make a new Update disk for newer versions of point upgrades of 10.6.x OS X. Were these people using the latest version or the original disk?

From Alsoft's Support site says:

skWarrior 4 version 4.3 is now available on DiskWarrior DVD revision 1102. This DVD is a universal startup DVD that can start up both PowerPC and Intel Macs. All Mac models meeting the system requirements for DiskWarrior except the new MacBook Pros (introduced February 24, 2011) and the new iMacs (introduced May 3, 2011) can be started from the DVD. The current iMac Core i3, i5 and i7 models cannot start up from a DVD when using a wireless keyboard to type the "C" or "option" key to select the DVD at startup. To start up from the DiskWarrior DVD or any other DVD, you will need an Apple wired keyboard. Click here to learn how to repair the directory of a disk in a Mac model that cannot be started from the DiskWarrior DVD.

This might be the reason to the problem. This why I just made a clone from My Mac to a cheap firewire drive and boot from that to use Disk Warrior on the affected Mac.

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Yep, what Satcomer said.

Just as a little more information: you cannot start up a Mac computer with a version of OS X that is older than the version of OS X that shipped with the computer. If my Mac shipped with OS X version 10.6.4 on it, and I try to boot it with an OS X Install/Restore CD/DVD that has OS X version 10.6.2 on it, it won't work. The computer will refuse to boot from that disc.

So, the version of OS X that your DiskWarrior disk was "built" with may be older than the version of OS X that shipped on those computers that refuse to boot from your DiskWarrior CD.

If this is the case, then there is nothing you can do other than creating or obtaining a DiskWarrior disc that has a newer version of OS X on it.

 

[djackmac]

It should have worked with the white macbook so I would assume the white macbook has a bad optical drive on top of whatever other problems it has. The iMac is way too new for that version of DW.