Why doesn’t OS X update folder listings?

This is an OS X thing, which Apple will have to address I suppose. Basically all versions (just about) of OS X from 10 to 10.3.x is very slow at updating file views in folders, especially on network servers and shard volumes. All you can do is to close the folder window and reopen it again, to force it to update the list of files, of failing that, wait for it to pop up in the list with the new file or modified date.
There is a little trick I’ve discovered to force a file’s modified date to show up immediately, and that is to simply highlight the file by clicking on it, that’s it. It will auto-update half a second later.

Why won’t files copy to other disks?

Files can sometimes refuse to copy to other disks if the that disk is formatted in anything other than HFS Extended. HFS Extended supports long filenames, and special characters in filenames, which PC formatted disks do not like long filenames, nor does it like colon (:) and slash (/) characters. These characters are used to represent a file path, from hard disk separated with a colon, through folders, which are represented with the slash character, eg. HardDisk:MyDocs/ Movies/My Movie.mov. Only the colon (:) and slash (/) characters are NOT supported in HFS+ filenames.

Another reason is because the folder or disk you’re copying files into do not allow for writing things into it, or in other words you do not have permissions set for that folder/disk. This can be rectified by going into the Get Info window for that folder/disk, and change it to read/write, for you to access or group access if need be.

I have a SCSI controller, but my external SCSI hard disk doesn’t work when daisy chained to another device?

Sounds like a speed issue coupled with a daisy chain problem. Never put a hard disk in the middle or at the end of a chain, especially when it uses a faster SCSI standard than the previous chained device, instead put it at the beginning of the chain, closest to the controller. That way it will have maximum bandwidth without another drive, in front of it compromising it's data flow.

Always, and I mean, always put the fastest SCSI (SCSI3/Ultra) devices at the beginning of the chain with progressively less used and slower SCSI devices going out to the end of the chain. Eg: Mac - SCSI3 HD - SCSI2 Scanner - SCSI1 removable drive [end of chain].

What do I do if Disk Utility will not format the hard disk in OS X?

If it will not format the disk because it doesn't list the drive in the drive list on the side panel, then you will have to format it with another Mac, or in Classic OS 9 using Drive Setup. This will at least initially setup the disk for Disk Utility to play with, ie. update the driver, and switch Journalling on (if you wish), or to partition it.

If you don’t have to access to MacOS 9 or it still doesn’t see it in Classic mode using Drive Setup, then you will have to play around a bit with the hard drive’s connectors. You will have to try other USB or Firewire ports, and make sure the drive is powered up correctly and the appropriate lights are on the drive. Then wait a minute for Disk Utility to pick up the drives signal, so that it will show up as it’s list of devices.

How can I defrag and optimise the files on my hard disk?

Norton Utilities v7.03.& v8.02 - from Symantec, for use with MacOS X 10.1 to 10.3.x - no longer being developed, as of mid 2004 onwards.
SpeedTools from Intech Software (www.speedtools.com).

If Disk Utility can’t format a disk, what other disk formatting utilities can I buy/use?

Try any of these programs if Disk Utility fails to recognise your new drive:
• Anubis RAID from Charismac (www.charismac.com/Products/RAID/index.html)
• Drive Setup on MacOS 9.x, make sure the jumpers are set correctly to slave or master.
• RAID Toolbox from Charismac Engineering Inc. (www.charismac.com).
• RapidTrak from MacPeak (www.macpeak.com), for SCSI drives.
• Silverlining X from Lacie (www.lacie.com).
• SoftRAID from SoftRAID (www.softraid.com).
• Volume Works from Subrosa Soft (www.subrosasoft.com).

Why does the disk formatter only format upto 128GB instead of the whole hard disk?

This is to do with your disk controller on your Mac (this limitation effects ATA33 and 66 controllers), if you fitted an internal hard disk, it simply can’t handle disks bigger than 128GB (a built in limitation). To get round that, either buy a PCI ATA100 or better disk controller card, and attach the drive to that, or get an external USB/Firewire hard disk, which will be able to control the drive independently of the Mac’s controller. Or, you can format the drive upto the full capacity by installing the drive in an external unit. This will have it’s own controller in the unit, and hopefully it will allow you to format the drive.

You must have 10.2 of higher for an internal drive that’s bigger than 128gig (see Apple tech note 86178).

Can I delete some of the old invisible files left by OS 9 on my removable disks?

Sure you can, the only files required by OS X is ‘.Trash’ and ‘.DS_Store’ which handle icon positioning and files you send to the trashcan. All other invisible files you see on the root of the disk are extraneous and uneccessary, provided the disks are not going to be used in an OS 9 Mac at all. MacOS 9 usually puts these files and folders on the disk: Temporary Items [folder], Desktop DF & Desktop DB**, Icon, DesktopPrinters DB, OpenFoldersListDF and any files that a virus checker or Norton Utilities may put on it. Don’t worry if you mount the disk in MacOS 9, any invisible files it needs will be recreated again without a problem, assuming there is enough disk space to make them.

*Note that the TheVolumeSettingsFolder [folder] should only be deleted (by putting it in the trash, then unmounting the disk, then delete on the next mount) if it is causing a problem, otherwise you must leave it where it is.

**To a lesser degree this (deleting) also applies to the Desktop DF and Desktop DB files, as the only problem with these files is that they will grow very big, when in actual fact they only need to be very small in size, especially when there are only a few files on the disk. So deleting them would make sense if you wish to reclaim some disk space. To reclaim the disk space, put them in the trashcan and unmount the disk, then remount the same disk, and now empty the trashcan. OS 9 or X (Classic mode) will rebuild them for you again, the next time you run OS 9 or Classic mode.

What should I do if MacOS X crashes?

When you have to manually restart your Mac, the OS does not automatically check your disk’s integrity. So you are better off using Disk Utility and it’s Disk First Aid feature to repair or verify that the disk/partition is OK. Or, alternatively use a third party repair program, such as Disk Warrior 3 or 4.

If it has errors on it, make sure you boot off another bootable disk before repairing it, as OS X will not allow you to repair it’s own system disk while it is in use.

Do I need to do disk maintenance in MacOS X?

Yes you do. MacOS X is just as susceptible to disk errors as MacOS 9. I recommend that you use a decent third party disk repair program, eg. Drive 10 from Micromat, or OS X’s own Disk First Aid utility, which is incorporated into Disk Utility.

What disk repair programs are compatible with OS X, that I can buy?

There are 3 main utilities out at the moment, that you can buy:
• Disk Warrior v3.0, from Alsoft (www.alsoft.com).
• Disk Studio, from Micromat (www.micromat.com).
• DiskGuardian from SubRosa Software (www.subrosasoft.com/thestore/default.php). Checks your hard disk's integrity using the new(ish) SMART standard, built into most new hard disks. Also repairs disk corruption and errors. It can even do a system copy to another drive, and it's bootable.
• Drive 10 from Micromat (www.micromat.com), is a modest disk repair application until TechTool Pro v4 filled the gap.
• DriveTest from FWB (www.fwb.com). Tests your hard disk to see if it is about to fail, however it does not repair drives.
• Norton Utilities v8.0.2, this is the last ever version (no longer being developed). Note that Norton Utilities v7.0.x can be used with MacOS X 10.0 to 10.2.8 safely, however if you have v8, you must update it with Liveupdate to v8.02 to be compatible with 10.3.x.
• SpeedTools from Intech Software (www.speedtools.com) - not quite upto TechTool Pro, but it seems to be getting close to it - worth looking at!
• TechTool Pro v4 from Micromat (www.micromat.com), is one of the best all round Mac and disk repair and diagnosis utilities around, definitely a replacement for Norton Utilites as an all in one package.

Do I have to partition my hard disk?

You don’t have to, but if problems happen to a single partitioned drive, then all of your data is at risk. Besides, there are three distinct advantages to partitioning:
1) You can have a second bootable drive that can be accessed via the Boot Options screen, should the main system partition fail to boot – this is called ‘redundancy’.
2) Having your data on a separate partition, safe guard’s it from possible damage or inaccessibility by directory damage.
3) If you need to reinstall OS X because it refuses to boot anymore, it’s corrupted, or even downgrade the OS, then you will probably have to reformat/initialise the drive again. That means, your data will be erased as well.

I highly recommend that you partition the drive into at least two partitions of no less than 1gig each, so that X can be installed on one of them. Try some of these programs:
• Partition Toolkit from FWB (www.fwb.com) - MacOS 9.1-9.22 only.
• VolumeWorks from SubRosa Software (www.subrosasoft.com).

Should I use HFS Extended or UFS when formatting disks?

You should use HFS Extended, whenever possible, because MacOS files still use the Data and Resource forks. Even if you’re not sure which to use, use HFS Extended anyway. UFS does not support MacOS’s data forks and will render them useless if you’re not careful. Plus the fact, that there are very few, if any, disk repair applications out there that can fix UFS volumes.