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70: Using Disk Utility

Disk Utility is an application offered by apple to help keep your computer running as smoothly and efficiently as possible. This application can compared to Disk Defragmenter in Microsoft Windows, but is not exactly the same. Disk Utility has many more functions.

To launch the Disk Utility application, locate the Macintosh HD icon on your desktop and double-click it. You should now see the Finder window.


Open the Applications folder. Locate the Utilities folder, within the Applications folder, and open it.


Next, find and launch the Disk Utility application.


There are 4 tabs across the top of the window: First Aid, Erase, RAID, and Restore.

For most Apple owners, the most commonly used function of Disk Utility is Disk Permissions. Therefore, Disk Permissions will be the primary focus of this Knowledge Base article.

Disk Permissions should be repaired weekly (after each and every software update). Select the First Aid tab on the top of the window.

Next, on the left hand side of the Disk Utility window, select the Macintosh HD disk. Next, click on Repair Disk Permissions. The Disk Utility application will now verify and repair all permissions on this volume. Once the process is finished, the dialogue window will read "Permissions Repair Complete," in bold print. If you are finished, you may now quit the application.

Some of the other functions of the Disk Utility application:

Disk Repair:

Disk Repair allows the user to repair the hard disk on an external device (such as another apple computer). A machine cannot run Disk Repair on itself. Disk Utility can only run Disk Repiar on an external device. To run Disk Repair, mount and external device and simply follow the same steps as you did for Disk Permissions, but click the button that reads "Repair Disk," rather than "Repair Disk Permissions."

Erase:

Erasing a disk deletes all the volumes and files on the disk. Erasing a volume deletes all the files on that volume, but does not affect other volumes. Erasing a recordable disc, such as a CD-RW or DVD-RW disc, creates a blank disc with no formatting.

Usually when you erase a disk or volume, Disk Utility erases only the information used to access the files on the disk, not the actual files. Because of this, the erased files can be recovered. If you want to erase a disk so that the files cannot be recovered, you can select security options to write zeros over the disk space.

RAID:

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) lets you determine how your data is stored to best meet your requirements. You can set up a RAID set to store mission critical data on several disks. This can improve performance or provide data redundancy.

Restore:

If you back up of your essential software and files to a disk or disk image, you can use it to restore the files if you have a problem with your computer or you unintentionally delete files you meant to keep.

When you restore the files, the disk or disk image becomes the “source.” You specify where the information should be restored by selecting a “destination” disk or volume. The selected destination will receive an exact copy of the disk image contents.

You can choose to erase the destination disk and then have the disk image copied to it. Alternatively, you can choose not to erase the disk and add the disk image information to the current contents of the destination disk.

These are the basics of the Disk Utility application.

This article was last edited on Feb-06-2007 3:25 pm
This article can be referenced by its article number: 70 or by any of the following keywords: Disk Utility Defragment Clean Organize