In this information age, data is increasingly important to all computer users. Crashes and freezes can reek havoc with anyone depending on their computer in any capacity. With Mac OS, the number one cause of crashes, frequent freezes, and flat-out OS failure is directory damage. People spend hours, days, and weeks trying to retrieve data that is often times lost when it shouldn't be.

Have you ever had to initialize your hard drive or perform a clean install of the OS after a major crash? Have you ever lost data that you couldn't really afford to, but you just couldn't get to because your computer ceased to work? If so, you might want to check out Disk Warrior...It probably would have saved your butt.

Sure, Disk First Aid comes with your computer, Norton's Utilities is the popular favorite, and Tech Tool Pro has more bells and whistles, but simply put, none of them come close to Disk Warrior.

Why is Disk Warrior so good?
To find out why, you should understand some things about its competitors. The following is a rap sheet of their problems:

Disk First Aid
It's pretty good at detecting directory damage, but it's horrid at doing anything about it. Often times, if you have a problem with your directory, DFA will return an error along the lines of problems were found with the hard drive but Disk First Aid cannot repair them. Hey thanks...Appreciate it! While Disk First Aid is ample for minor problems, it will not save you when you need help most.

Norton's Utilities
This perennial favorite's biggest flaw is that it patches your directory, rather than building you a new one. Often times, said patching compounds problems and causes much worse, system-wide issues. Installing Norton's on your machine is a mistake...Crashguard actually causes crashes and more often than not, extension conflicts often follow an install of Norton's...Simply put, it's best run from CD. The one saving grace for Norton's is Speed Disk. Speed Disk is by far the best defragmentation utility for the Macintosh. However, Mac OS by nature doesn't really have issues with fragmentation unless you do a lot of heavy duty audio and video editing.

Tech Tool Pro
I can't really knock Tech Tool Pro. It's not too far behind Disk Warrior in it's thoroughness at fixing the directory. It often times will do just as good a job as Disk Warrior except for cases where severe damage has been suffered. Tech Tool Pro has some handy features that are more ostentatious than functional, but in this age of consumerism, people like that. One drawback is that it is a bit pricier than Disk Warrior.

So what does Disk Warrior do that the others don't?
Simply put, it looks at what you have, detects any problems in your directory, then builds you a brand spanking new directory with all the same data minus the damage. Disk Warrior can detect drives that can't be mounted by anything else. It can, more often than not, fix drives that other utilities can't even see. It also does a lot of "behind the scenes" diagnostics and repairs that other utilities don't do...The best part is it does all this in mere seconds. Furthermore, you can install the Disk Warrior extension (a single extension, not a set of them), which will promote ongoing directory health and let you know when problems have occurred (very rare).

The current distribution of Disk Warrior is bundled with Disk Optimizer, Alsoft's defragmentation utility, which will get the job done nicely.

Who would take advantage of Disk Warrior?
If you're a Macintosh support person, Disk Warrior is a must. It has saved my butt numerous times. I have seen but one instance in probably 500 or so cases in which there was such extensive damage Disk Warrior couldn't help...Not a bad success rate at all. More often than not, if other utilities and methods can't fix the problem, it's Disk Warrior to the rescue.

If you're an advanced user, I would certainly recommend Disk Warrior. It is a bit pricey (~$70), but one time of saving your butt (and all your data) will quickly return you that money and save you A LOT of headaches.

If you're a novice user and don't really do that much on the computer; well, you don't really need to spend the money...The risk of directory damage is still there; however, you can always call people like me to come and fix it when you get in a jam! :-)



Recommended: Yes