Journaled Mac File System in Mac OS X

Journaling is a concept  that protects system integrity. It protects Mac from data loss due to its  accidentally shut down. This concept was first introduced with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther (non server).   According to which, the file system which are journaling enabled itself keep record of changes made  there in file system. It actually maintain a Journal of the changes made in file system which is used to maintain the integrity of file system whenever it crashes down accidentally .  During the startup, OS will simply read this journal and restore the consistency of the file system.

If Mac has been accidentally restarted while working and if the drives are  journaling enabled then  it will not take very less time to mount all files because it  need not to check whole Mac for consistency. It only perform consistency check on the particular file or folder and return to consistent state however all the data that was present in buffer at that time will be lost.

However it is up to the user he/she can either enable or disable the journaling feature on the disk. Changing disk Journaling feature is just two step task:
1 . Choose disk in the drop-down menu.
2 . Click the disable / enable button.

So integrity of Mac after Panther has increased to much.  No doubt Journaling enable drive started creating journals and tracking each and every change in file system but  What in the case of  file system corruption, which is very common in Mac. Talking about the most common scenario of file system corruption for internal drive is accidental shut down due to any reason for example power failure or others.  In the same way for external drive it could be due to error occurred while connecting it to Mac or dis connection of connection wire when at the time of data transfer. If you facing this disaster, one and only solution that will work for you is Mac data recovery software.  So make sure you have one of the trusted  recovery software such as Stellar Phoenix Mac data recovery software within the reach of you, before moving forward.

If file system error occur in  drive it will go in unmounted state and while trying to mount it using disk utility an error message appears “mount Failed”! This error basically means the Mac is facing some hardware issues. The software which I used to repair and verify my hard drive was Stellar Volume Repair though we can also do it with disk utility. Why I used this party tool is because of my previous experience (Read my Personal Experience:  What if Drive disappears From your Mac ) with disk utility was not good. 

Stellar Volume repair will repair and rebuilt the hard drive and this made the drive visible in the mounted state. Now what reinitialize the hard drive with Mac supported file systems (Journaled).  During the initialization process you will lost the data but don't worry you can recover whole data using effective mac data recovery software such as Stellar Phoenix easily after having Mac support file system.

How to create backup of the Mac that refuses to boot?

Many of us are not that much technical to troubleshoot the critical Mac issues and sometimes this may happen with techies that they got feeling that installing new Mac OS is much more easier than troubleshooting. Tech gurus always suggested to take proper backup of hard drive or at least backup the data to minimize the loss. But what if Mac refuses to boot? You can reinstall the OS X but you can not save data loss, right?

If you are thinking so then, wait fact is you can create backup. Yes, even if Mac fails to boot. What you all need is one working external drive such as external USB formatted in Mac readable file system. Make sure this external drive is in working condition & Mac verified. Make sure these tips is going to work only when your Mac is not booting due to software trouble.

Boot System in TDM: Using Target disk Mode, user can target any of the drive to boot the Mac. For this, boot the Mac while holding “T” key until the firwire symbol appears on your Mac. Connect one end of the fireWire with your Mac and Connect second Mac on the other end of the firewire. This second Mac can be used for backup purpose but if it is desirable to take backup in external hard drive then connect external hard drive with second Mac.

What is happening now is that we are going to boot Mac using another Mac connected through the firewire with our Mac. In this case this second Mac will work as external boot drive for our Mac. We can access all the files folder of present in our Mac and can perform any operation on them as our system is working as external hard drive for second system. Now it is not hard to take backup of our Mac. You can also put this backup in external drive connected with second Mac .

Making sure that everything is fine in backup you can go for wipe the hard disk of your Mac. You can use disk utility or any third party tool such as Stellar Wipe for wiping the hard drive. Wipe will make your drive as new just reinstall Mac OS X and your Mac is ready to use!

This is an ideal case when other Mac or external hard drive is working well. As the matter of fact, “everything every time is not go smooth” Just imagine, Your Mac fails to mount to the other Mac even after connecting it through firewire. There may be wirefire issue or may be file system error occurred. Then there is no way out, none but Mac data recovery software can save you form data loss. You can use target disk mode but you can not access the data in that case. To access data in that case you need to verify the disk permissions. Disk utility or any third party tool can help you in this. Using disk utility check “verify“ to verify the file system of the drive and then “repair” if any problem found if problem persist you need to follow all the steps in what if drive disappears from your Mac

Reducing the Chances of Data Loss

It is always better to avoid the way where chances of facing troubles are maximum. Most troublesum situation for techies of today is when they face data loss. Worst part of it is that they are  not cent percent sucessful in avoiding such loss till today. Data loss is one of many frquent problems irrespective to operating system they are using. A survey says the most common reason of data loss is human mistakes however some other reasons behind are virus or malware attack, hard drive failure. Mac OS tried best to handle such situation but still cannot do anything for human mistakes so the problem of data loss is still a big problem!! try to avoid it and here are  some cool & efficient tips to avoid data loss.

Organized Storage

The cases are seen where users delete the file thinking of no use but they realise its importance when  in need. To avoid this:

• Classify & organize your folders on the basis of the data you handle.

• Specify appropriate & unique names to the files 

• When editing or creating new files store it in separate folder and copy to specific folder once you finalized 

Move to Trash 

Reputation of Trash is to contain the files if deleted anywhere from Mac. Trash has limited storage capacity and if tried to store more and more files in trash all the files after that capacity will be lost. So it is not good idea to use trash as a folder to store those files may use later.   It may happen most of the case when we see trash has been filled we just “right click” and “empty trash”, its a human habit so hard to get rid of it. 

Backup to External Media

 While creating backup to external drive, if Mac shut down accidentally or connection wire disconnected or there could be many other reasons which are enough for data loss.  So it is always advisable to take proper backup before moving files to external media. Mac provides time machine to handle the situation you can set backup time with every boot.  So that if Mac crashes down accidentally at least one copy of data will present in backup drive. 

Manage Backup

Manage all the backup in such a manner that you can remember, making achieve folder for the files of older month backup is also a good idea.  Make sure that data is coming to backup store regularly. Whether the software you choose is working fine?

If in case still you face data loss due to any reasons just thanks to data recovery software professionals & reputed software such Stellar Phoenix Mac data recovery software.  Only limitation in using such software is that not to use the hard drive for any read or write operations soon after you realize the data loss. Special attention should be taken during monsoon seasons (when humidity is more) because humidity can affect your data directly. So it is always suggested not to open media in open environment. “Prevention is always better than cure” First try to prevent data from loss else go for data recovery cure, no other way out!!

Rectifying Finder Error 36 – You May Need Mac Data Recovery Software

Have your Mac ever shown warning message starting from “Error 36”. Periodically, this warning message flashes while trying to copy or move files to the finder.

Error 36 Means: Apple described Error 36 under “File System Errors” section as “I/O error (bummers)”. It means you do not have “read and write” permissions for that particular files.

Perhaps this the most generic error message which almost all Mac users face! While dragging and dropping the file sometime before starting copy or sometime in between copying it stops with warning message starting with“Error 36:...”

What if you get this message:

   1. Check the file permissions: Go to that file first and check for the permissions for user name, the file group and all. Check whether your account has read access of that file or not.

   2. Delete the extended attributes: Try to remove the extended attributes ( name:value pairs associated permanently with files and directories, similar to the environment strings associated with a process ). Actually they are good for OS X, but for other os, file systems, & transfer protocols they may conflict. To remove the extended attributes of the file: Goto Terminal window and type "xattr-d" followed by single space. Drag the target file in terminal window as the full path then press ENTER

   3. Remount external volumes: If you are using external drive this error may occur due to error in external media or connection is not stable. Try ejecting the drive and connecting again in another port, if available. For networked drive try alternate methods of connection such as wi-fi.

   4.  Try moving using other option: Since during the file transfer there are number of checks done lots of extended attributes are tested to ensure successful transfer of the file. And if error occurs in any check finder will through that “Error:36” message. So its worthy to try other option: Open Terminal -> Type “mv” followed by single space. Now Drag the target file in terminal window as the full path then press ENTER. When terminal return to command prompt check the destination that file must be present there. Note that you will no see process bar while using this option for large file wait terminal return till command prompt then check the file.

What if still not find file at destination?

Problem still persists, blame hard drive for errors. Try to verify the hard drive errors. It is good idea to take proper backup of the data using using time machine utility or any third party utility such as Stellar drive clone because we are performing actions on the hard drive directly, any single mistake can result data loss. Now only option remains is none other than drive re-initialization!! Initialize the hard drive in the journalized HFS+ format. Get your data back from backup taken before.

Mac Data Recovery Software to keep check on data loss

Hard disk is one the most important part of any system. It is actually data warehouse for any computer system. Can you imagine what could happen if the hard drive of the systems crashes out accidentally or the data present there become inaccessible? Imagine if this happens a night before  annual report presentation day....... Stop, just relax!! Here is one way out.

Lets discuss some of the Leading causes of Data loss

Natural Disasters          0-1.00%
Software Corruption     15.00%
Viruses                          25.00%
Hardware Issues           20.00%
Human Mistakes          39.00%

Hence the Two major causes of data loss are:

Virus Attack:  This is  common cause of hard disk crash. Some viruses are made so strong that it can effect the file even after anti virus protection. These virus simply deletes some files and that file become inaccessible.

So one of the best solution is to make copy of important data  such as business presentation, annual reports to an external hard drive.

Human Mistakes: In most of the cases data is lost due to human mistakes. Humans generally forget to take backup of the data regularly and when the data is accidentally deleted problem occurs.

There are lots of data recovery softwares available in the market to recover lost data from most of the data loss cases. Mac OS X, has time machine application to take backup of data automatically but under certain restrictions. But still Mac OS X is not cent percent free from data loss. So best solution to keep your data is to have data recovery software with you always. But problem is there are n numbers of data recovery products present in the market. To whom should believe?

Importance of right Data recovery software:

If you are a computer geek chances are very bright that you might have noticed that from last few years data recovery softwares are becoming very popular. But before choosing any mac data recovery software inquire about it very well. If possible use “demo version” first and then go for download full version.

Catalog file corruption in Mac OSX causes data loss

Catalog files are files used by file manager to save information about file hierarchy on mac volume, these files are stored in such a way to form B-tree, a B-tree contains index nodes, Leaf nodes and a header node, hence these files are of critical importance.

These files are quiet susceptible to corruption due to many reasons like,
• Virus attack
• Volume header corruption
• Operating System corruption
• Master directory block corruption
• Accidental disk formatting
• Disk initialization
• Partition table corruption

when corruption occurs in these files then all the data in mac drive becomes inaccessible and the following error message is displayed-

“*.* file not found”

If we go deep in the file systems of Mac, the file systems include HFS Wrapper, HFS, HFS+ ( Where HFS is Hierarchical file system). Mac also includes lots of data structures like MBR or master boot record, Boot loader and catalog files, among them catalog files are most important.

As mentioned above Catalogue files are stored in the form of Btree allocation. Block no. of first file extent in catalogue file is stored in MDB  and when Mac hard disk is mount. The information is copied in mac volume and now from header node , node number of root node can be obtained and from there entire files are obtained by file manager. When catalogue corruption occurs, file manager fails to find files stored in the mac volume and data becomes inaccessible.

To fix these problem first of all what we should do is to keep the updated back up of all the files and even if the backup is not available or if it is not updated then the need of third party data recovery software for mac arrives.

In this particular case of node corruption, what you have to do is to search mac data recovery software like stellar phoenix mac, that have functionality to recover data from corrupted catalog files .

Recovering Mac data when volume goes missing

A hard drive in a Mac Operating System based Machine is divided into various partitions to make the OS perform better, These different partitions/volumes can be used for storing different kinds of data in the drive. However, sometimes when you try to access one of the drives, you fail to access it. The error message states that the volume/drive is missing, but it happens because of the fact that the disk drive has been damaged and inaccessible. This condition leads to a serious instance of data inaccessibility or loss .

One error message that depicts such a scenario as mentioned above is -

“No such volume; volume not found”

After facing such an error, you may find yourself in a helpless state. All the data in the hard drive becomes inaccessible and you need to take the help of a Mac undelete software to resume your work back to normalcy.

The above mentioned error occurs due to a possible damage in the hard drive structure. In Mac, Disk Utility is an inbuilt repairing tool that detects and repairs hard drive errors. Here, when you run Disk Utility, you get another error mesage as below:

“Error starting disk utility back ground process”

Another error message that follows the previous one may be:

“Disk Utility started, but a background process needed in disk utility didn't start properly. Please quit and restart disk utility.”

These error messages are the outcome of a serious damage to the hard drive volume or its file system. This may happen due to several reasons like, abrupt system shutdown, operating system malfunction, virus/malware attack etc. Whatever be the reason, the only solution to this issue is to format the hard drive and install a fresh copy of the Mac OS X. This of course leads to complete erasing of data from the drive and a Mac undelete files software can help you recover all your formatted data back.

These specially designed software help you to undelete mac files from any HFS plus, HFS, HFS wrapper and FAT file system based volumes.  With these useful utilities, you can recover your data from any Mac OS X based media, including external/internal hard drive, USB drive, memory cards etc.