Maintenance on my laptop

[helenand daniel]

For many years I have used First Aid on the Disk utility app.(on several different laptops over many years) The last two times I used it, when it got to about 3 or 4 of the 108 snapshots the screen went black and I could not continue to observe what it was finding/cleaning up. I then shut everything down waited a few minutes, started it up again and then tried to use first aid with the same results. Is there a better maintenance program? Why would it be doing this now?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

Disk Utility First Aid doesn't find/fix all issues with your drive:

"Disk Utility can fix certain disk problems—for example, multiple apps quit unexpectedly, a file is corrupted, an external device doesn’t work properly, or your computer won’t start up. Disk Utility can’t detect or repair all problems that a disk may have.

If you run First Aid on a disk, Disk Utility checks the partition maps on the disk and performs some additional checks, and then checks each volume. If you run First Aid on a volume, Disk Utility verifies all the contents of that volume only."

It can take quite a while to run, depending on your drive size, especially in live mode. How long did you let it run?

There are third-party utilities like DiskWarrior, Drive Genius, and TechTool Pro that can fix more involved issues, and perform a full surface scan of the drive.

C

 

[helenand daniel]

Thank you. I normally run it until it says "done", but in the case of it slowing way down and seemingly stopping (maybe it hasn't stopped?) when the screen goes black, then as I said in my initial post, I turn the computer off and wait and then try again. I don't use Disk Utility to fix a specific problem, necessarily, but more as a general maintenance tool.

 

[Cory Cooper]

No worries...understood on your usage of Disk Utility/First Aid.

One of the other utilities I mentioned do a lot more and may be able to resolve issue that Disk Utility can't. However, they are all around $79-119 USD, which a lot of folks are hesitant to spend.

Honestly, since Disk Utility has been working for years, it may just be signaling the start of a hardware issue/failure. I would make sure you have a current Time Machine or other backup of your data, and see how it goes for now.

C

 

[helenand daniel]

Thanks, Cory. Good call on the hard drive. I sometimes forget to back up regularly because I move my laptop around so much but I am going to back it up right now!!