Discussion:
No repair tools for APFS?
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-hh
2023-03-22 20:53:42 UTC
Permalink
Ran into a glitch with a RAID4 formatted for APFS which got corrupted (possible line surge). Interesting part was that it couldn't rebuild (couldn't even remount to start the rebuild).

Learned that Disk Warrior only works on HFS at this time, which means that other than MacOS's Disk Utility App, there reportedly are no 3rd party repair tools for APFS.

Did a wipe/reformat and restoring from Time Machine ... its currently ~7hours running, so 2TB down, 1.4TB to go ... with it claiming 4 more hours to go.

This time though, passing on APFS and going back to HFS+ format, as that reportedly is recoverable from the SoftRAID software .. plus has 3rd party directory repair tools. Anything else I should be doing?

-hh
Alan
2023-03-22 21:10:34 UTC
Permalink
Post by -hh
Ran into a glitch with a RAID4 formatted for APFS which got corrupted (possible line surge). Interesting part was that it couldn't rebuild (couldn't even remount to start the rebuild).
Learned that Disk Warrior only works on HFS at this time, which means that other than MacOS's Disk Utility App, there reportedly are no 3rd party repair tools for APFS.
Did a wipe/reformat and restoring from Time Machine ... its currently ~7hours running, so 2TB down, 1.4TB to go ... with it claiming 4 more hours to go.
This time though, passing on APFS and going back to HFS+ format, as that reportedly is recoverable from the SoftRAID software .. plus has 3rd party directory repair tools. Anything else I should be doing?
-hh
Micromat's TechTool Pro says:

'Techtool Pro will test, rebuild, and repair damaged directories on
corrupted Mac OS Extended hard drives, and optimize the data directories
when they are repaired. Techtool Pro can also repair Apple's APFS file
system, standard Mac OS Extended volumes, as well as MS-DOS (FAT32) and
ExFAT formatted volumes. When rebuilding Mac OS Extended volumes, Volume
Rebuild will display a comparison chart before directory data is
replaced. Use Volume Rebuild to keep your drives operating at their peak
performance.'

<https://www.micromat.com/products/techtool-pro/>

Based on other things I've read...

...I still think it needs a grain of salt or two.
-hh
2023-03-23 11:00:04 UTC
Permalink
Post by Alan
Post by -hh
Ran into a glitch with a RAID4 formatted for APFS which got corrupted (possible line surge).
Interesting part was that it couldn't rebuild (couldn't even remount to start the rebuild).
Learned that Disk Warrior only works on HFS at this time, which means that other than MacOS's
Disk Utility App, there reportedly are no 3rd party repair tools for APFS.
Did a wipe/reformat and restoring from Time Machine ... its currently ~7 hours running, so 2TB down,
1.4TB to go ... with it claiming 4 more hours to go.
It ended up taking ~11:45, as the backup data hardware was the bottleneck: USB3 HDD.
Post by Alan
Post by -hh
This time though, passing on APFS and going back to HFS+ format, as that reportedly is
recoverable from the SoftRAID software .. plus has 3rd party directory repair tools.
Anything else I should be doing?
'Techtool Pro will test, rebuild, and repair damaged directories on
corrupted Mac OS Extended hard drives, and optimize the data directories
when they are repaired. Techtool Pro can also repair Apple's APFS file
system, standard Mac OS Extended volumes, as well as MS-DOS (FAT32) and
ExFAT formatted volumes. When rebuilding Mac OS Extended volumes, Volume
Rebuild will display a comparison chart before directory data is
replaced. Use Volume Rebuild to keep your drives operating at their peak
performance.'
<https://www.micromat.com/products/techtool-pro/>
Based on other things I've read...
...I still think it needs a grain of salt or two.
Yeah, that "can also repair" phrasing for APFS isn't quite the same, since it passes
on claiming it can rebuild an APFS directory (changes the terminology to "system").
But I do have a very old TechTool license laying around that might be eligible for
upgrade pricing discount, so this might be an impetus to have it around as a contingency;
it is after all a bit irritating to spend extra for a NVMe-based SSD RAID which is designed
to be able to self-heal that then can't do that.

-hh
-hh
2023-03-23 21:09:14 UTC
Permalink
Post by Alan
Post by -hh
Ran into a glitch with a RAID4 formatted for APFS which got corrupted (possible line surge).
Interesting part was that it couldn't rebuild (couldn't even remount to start the rebuild).
Learned that Disk Warrior only works on HFS at this time, which means that other than MacOS's
Disk Utility App, there reportedly are no 3rd party repair tools for APFS.
Did a wipe/reformat and restoring from Time Machine ... its currently ~7 hours running, so 2TB down,
1.4TB to go ... with it claiming 4 more hours to go.
It ended up taking ~11:45, as the backup data hardware was the bottleneck: USB3 HDD.
Post by Alan
Post by -hh
This time though, passing on APFS and going back to HFS+ format, as that reportedly is
recoverable from the SoftRAID software .. plus has 3rd party directory repair tools.
Anything else I should be doing?
'Techtool Pro will test, rebuild, and repair damaged directories on
corrupted Mac OS Extended hard drives, and optimize the data directories
when they are repaired. Techtool Pro can also repair Apple's APFS file
system, standard Mac OS Extended volumes, as well as MS-DOS (FAT32) and
ExFAT formatted volumes. When rebuilding Mac OS Extended volumes, Volume
Rebuild will display a comparison chart before directory data is
replaced. Use Volume Rebuild to keep your drives operating at their peak
performance.'
<https://www.micromat.com/products/techtool-pro/>
Based on other things I've read...
...I still think it needs a grain of salt or two.
Yeah, that "can also repair" phrasing for APFS isn't quite the same, since it passes
on claiming it can rebuild an APFS directory (changes the terminology to "system").
But I do have a very old TechTool license laying around that might be eligible for
upgrade pricing discount, so this might be an impetus to have it around as a contingency;
it is after all a bit irritating to spend extra for a NVMe-based SSD RAID which is designed
to be able to self-heal that then can't do that.
FYI, a few updates:

1. After the restore, Photos wanted to 'rebuild' some sort of directory; went pretty quickly,
probably due to it being on a Thunderbolt SSD RAID (1200MB/s write; 2000MB/s read).

2. Upon launching Photos, it couldn't find its prior library. Told it where it was, kind of seemed
okay at first.

3. Found that iCloud Photo Stream was missing. Ditto no Shared Albums. TL;DR here
is that various settings had been set back to defaults(?). Between multiple crashes of
Photos, found & corrected:

/Preferences/General/ lacked "Use as System Photo Library" enabled. Enabled.
/Preferences/iCloud/ lacked checkmark on Shared Albums. Checked it.
/Preferences/iCloud/didn't have iCloud Photos checkmarked (good). Left unchecked.

Plus over on System Preferences/Apple ID/iCloud/ Photos was checked, but there were some
oddities on if it should be selected or not. De & Reselecting it returned an error that the Photos
library size was too large for the current iCloud Storage subscription (duh). Left it unchecked,
but upon returning later (after Photos/Preferences/iCloud changes?) it is now checked and
Photos (a) has Photo Stream, (b) has Shared Albums and (c) is no longer crashing. Done! (?).

-hh

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