I was not aware of this hidden extra feature. Thanks so much for sharing it with all of us!

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I never knew this. I could have used it even yesterday to help save a friend's system. Instead we wiped the disk and reinstalled. Thank you for the hint, but WTF did they hide this?

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Holy shit, I've been using Diskwarrior in a repair shop for the last three years and I never knew about this. That this is hidden behind a key is absurd, but still, I wish I had known about this a long time ago.

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/phil

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Seriously. Same here.

I don't even want to know how many times I probably could have used this in the last few years. Next time I can't recover a fragged drive because the directory is beyond repair I'll give this a shot.

Shouldn't be long.

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Is there any more detail has to how thorough this mode is and what it does exactly?

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www.macdynamix.com ---
:: Super Me I Am ::

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Here's another tip I accidentally discovered the other day: You know the Disk Warrior Preview window with the side-to-side directory comparison that you only seem to get while booted to the DW CD? Run DW while booted to a hard drive. Hit F6 (or Fn-F6 on a portable). Thank Alsoft for their incredible lack of documentation. The option key trick for Scavenge is in the manual but this is nowhere to be found. Been using the OSX version since it came out and have been wishing the preview thing was available on my diag HD ever since...

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Seriously, how useful is that preview? Am I supposed to check whether all of the 500 000 files on my drive are still there?

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No but if you see that there are serious errors found during the rebuild you can at least quickly navigate to critical folders and make sure they match up. A lot faster than opening up Finder windows, lining them up for comparison, and then switching between them to navigate to the same place. Besides, just because YOU don't find something useful doesn't mean someone won't...(insert argument and back and forth flames here)

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I am sorry. I have known for years about this. I guess I assumed everyone knew about that useful tidbit.

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You can go ahead and close the Best Hint contest for August too, we have a winner !

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There is a *lot* to DW that is undocumented...

I recently tried to help a client with a very dodgy G5. When booted from the DW CD, I got the message that the directory was too badly damaged to repair, but to contact Alsoft support for help with more options. Called them, got a message to leave my number and they would call back, which they did within a half hour (which impressed me as well, since the message said it could be several hours). I wish I had written down the details, but the tech had me do something like hold down cmd-option, and that resulted in a new menu item that generated a code. When I gave the code to the tech, he gave me back a password, and the program then generated something like a text file of the directory. I emailed that file to him, and the next day he was able to walk me through another code/password process that then allowed me to rebuild the directory. It was amazing! Don't ever again assume that things are hopeless before calling Alsoft Tech Support, or at least trying the hint above.

I will say though, that I don't believe the Scavenge command necessarily does something *more thorough* than a normal rebuild. I think it just allows you to take a chance on fixing a really bunged up directory that otherwise might not be fixable. Obviously, I'm not sure about this. Maybe we'll get lucky and someone from Alsoft will chime in with some background info!

Thanks for the great hint though.

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I think this is insane. Secret codes and passwords.

Are the tools just too dangerous for us to use without calling tech support?

Actually its probably just too complicated. At least now I know that I have one last thing to try before giving up.

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Well, don't know, but a bad directory might lead to lost data easily. If a repair program "makes the wrong decision" at the wrong time, you might get an empty drive - with no errors, but also no files left - Symantecs DiskDoctor was quite good at this. DW might have a kind of internal halt-procedure to hinder itself from repairing "too much" but leaves the user open to more complex decisions with help from the tech support before giving up.

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No word of a lie, I could have used this half an hour ago.

But I know now for next time. Thanks for the hint!

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The whatchamacallit has to be whatever or else the whosits will go hey-hey.
~ Dilbert

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While it's good to know about holding down the mouse button when booting, it's often better not change the startup disk in System Preferences at all. Holding down the C key when booting tells it to boot from CD. Then, when you're done, just reboot without holding anything down, and it'll boot from HD as normal.

The advantage of that is that if there's some sort of problem and you can't change the startup disk from DiskWarrior, you're not stuck with a machine you can't boot! (As happened to a friend of mine.)

One caveat: if your keyboard is wireless, then holding down keys at bootup probably won't work. So don't throw that old USB keyboard away; it's worth keeping handy for situations like this!

---
Andy/

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if your keyboard is wireless, then holding down keys at bootup probably won't work.

Should work fine with an Apple wireless keyboard on current Macs and older ones with firmware that has Bluetooth support. Originally input wasn't possible in single-user mode (and probably DiskWarrior) with the wireless keyboard on my iMac G5 but that's worked since 10.4.3. Check Apple Wireless Keyboard and Mouse: Frequently Asked Questions for more info.

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Just hold down option while rebooting and the Mac will give you a choice of startup volumes…

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But Disk Warrior is the only CD I can think of I've ever used that boots itself on restart ... unless you take measures (hold down mouse key, whatever.) Way annoying, because I always forget.

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The documentation (available by going to the help menu or delving into the DiskWarrior package) says this about the scavenge command:
What to Do If You Used Another Utility First
If you have used another utility before DiskWarrior and now have a directory that has no errors but is missing data, you can make DiskWarrior scavenge the directory to find the lost data if the other utility did not write over it. Hold down the Option key in step 6) Click the Rebuild button. The Rebuild button will change to Scavenge and when you press Scavenge, DiskWarrior will scavenge the directory.
Note: This is the same scavenge procedure DiskWarrior uses to recover your data when it finds directory errors, but it normally skips the scavenge procedure when the directory has no major errors. Therefore, you do not need to make DiskWarrior scavenge the directory except when DiskWarrior states "All file and folder data was easily located" in the DiskWarrior Report but you suspect that files and/or folders are still missing from the replacement directory.

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About 5 months ago my PowerBook died on me. I was in the middle of a huge paper(75 pages), I ran to the Apple store and begged for help. We tried everything and I bought a copy of DW to run overnight and try to get my paper back. My teacher was nice and gave me an extension because I had a 'doctors' note from an Apple Genius.

It was made worse because I hadn't backed up in almost a month, so I lost school work, 3 websites and probably 300 pictures. Plus all the other stuff you do on the computer.

Well I had been using that backup ever since, I saw this hint and tried it. Took DW 7 hours to do it, but I have ALL my stuff back.

You saved me between 1500-2500$ for data recovery. I had been putting it off(good thing too) until I really absolutely needed the data back for school and robotics next year. Best. Hint. Ever.

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