File system journaling won't prevent all disk damage

Jan 16, '04 10:28:00AM

Contributed by: gmachen

Today I discovered that just because one has file system Journaling enabled, that doesn't mean one still shouldn't check such HDs from time to time with a disk repair utility, or that a Journaled HD cannot get directory damage from means not protected by Journaling (such as an app run amuck or a power surge or cosmic rays corrupting RAM).

I had a disk that barely mounted, making horrible grinding "seek" noises. So I ran Apple Disk Utility's Disk First Aid and it reported that its second partition had "minor volume bitmap damage." This was *not* the spurious report of damage associated with Journaling (the first partition reported no errors) as reported in Apple's fsck Reports Benign Errors When Journaling Is Turned On.

But Disk Utility refused to affect a repair because journaling was enabled. So I disabled journaling in Cocktail, then went back and ran the repair. Success! All is well now.

Then I turned journaling back on, and I'll still always use it, for it's safer than not doing so, but a word to the wise.

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