Strange behavior from Disk Utility
 

Greetings,

I replaced my PowerBook's 60 GB drive with a 100 GB drive, using SD! to migrate everything. To do this, I used the slow, full copy, not Smart Update, on the initial backup to an external FireWire drive.

Following the replacement, the system started without issue, and seems to work, but when I ran Disk Utility, the results were different than before the migration.

Specifically, Disk Utility takes much longer to run and does not print its status strings as it runs, but only very quickly at the end of the run. No problems are found, but there is one line that contains nothing but a percent and right paren symbol (red added for emphasis):

...
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
%)
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
...

It ultimately passes verification. The question is: :eek: should I be worried?

Thanks,
Craig

Dave's out travelling and will not be able to respond as quickly as he usually does.

I do not think there's any reason for concern. Did you try running Disk Utility again? Same problem?

Best.
--
Jonas

Hi Jonas,

Yes, it still behaves the same. In fact, I reverted back to the backup last night to try it again. This time, I tested the external drive with Disk Utility, and it worked normally and did not report errors.

I then renamed the external drive to "Macintosh HD" and rebooted on it. When I tested it again, however, it behaved as the internal did: slow, %) characters, but the internal drive processed normally.

I went ahead and zeroed the internal, ensured the correct partition and started SD! to migrate back to the internal.

Long story short: the same behavior after rebooting. One observation, though: the drive upon which my G4 boots experiences the strange DU behavior. Whichever the other drive is, the DU behavior is normal.

Craig

That seems really bizarre, Craig. When this happens, do you see any error in the system.log or console.log?

Hi Dave,

The console.log shows the same information as the DU display window.

The system.log (/var/log/system.log) doesn't show anything disk or DU related.

However.... and this is interesting... the second time I ran "Verify Disk" (during the same "run" of DU), on the same disk (the internal), DU behavior was more normal. That is, the status lines ("Checking X...") printed in real time and the "Verifying volume" progress bar updated in real time. The "%)" characters still printed, though.

A third run of "Verify Disk" within the same session of DU was entirely well behaved (status lines, progress bar, no "%)" characters).

I agree with you: this is entirely bizarre.

Craig

Wow.

Um... I just don't know!