DiskWarrior 3.0.3: Clarification on CD formats; Problems booting from burned CD; Some RAID arrays not recognized

Last week we noted a problem where users who upgraded to DiskWarrior 3.0.3 are not able to boot various Mac models with the upgraded startup CDs.

For clarification, the free downloadable update of DiskWarrior 3.0.3, for use by customers who already have a DiskWarrior CD, only updates the DiskWarrior application itself on a newly burned startup CD. In other words, if your old DiskWarrior CD would not boot your Mac model, a new startup CD upgraded with the downloadable DiskWarrior 3.0.3 update will not either.

In order to obtain a new CD that will boot your Mac model if your current revision will not, you will need to buy an updated version from Alsoft. The current revision, numbered 38, will boot all Mac models introduced as of 05/03/2005 meeting the requirements for DiskWarrior. This includes the new Power Mac G5 models introduced on 04/27/2005 and the new iMac models introduced on 05/03/2005.

For existing DiskWarrior 3 customers, update CDs can be purchased for $12.95 plus $7.95 shipping and handling to all locations (all prices USD).

Note that if you have a separate volume (an external FireWire drive for instance), you can install a version of Mac OS X capable of booting your system on it and then add the DiskWarrior 3.0.3 application. Start up from the extra volume and run DiskWarrior on your normal startup drive.

The actual issue that was addressed last week and has since been confirmed by a number of readers, involves a situation where the users are able to boot their Macs with startup CDs containing DiskWarrior 3.0.2, but are no longer able to use those same discs to boot the same Macs after applying the DiskWarrior 3.0.3 update. Either a kernel panic occurs, or the system cannot find a valid startup volume.

One reader writes:

"Recently downloaded DiskWarrior 3.0.3 upgrade successfully. It would not boot up from the new startup CD. However, when I set the startup disk in System Preferences to start with the DiskWarrior CD instead of holding down the 'C' key on startup it worked perfectly."

Oddly, Julian Smith reports the opposite -- that holding the option key at startup to select a startup volume, rather than selecting the drive in the "Startup Disk" pane of System Preferences allow proper booting from the updated DiskWarrior CD.

Julian writes:

"The only way I can run DiskWarrior from the CD I made using the 3.0.3 upgrade is to select it with the option key at startup. If I select it in the Startup control panel or try to run it from another startup drive, I get a message that the directory can't be rebuilt because the disk is still in use, which it quite obviously isn't."

Some RAID arrays not recognized Meanwhile, Pete Jacobsen notes a separate issue where his internal RAID array is not recognized by DiskWarrior 3.0.3 when the system is started from the burned startup disc.

Pete writes:

"I have upgraded my (DiskWarrior) CD to 3.0.3 and it boots my Dual G5 1.8GHz fine, but it does not recognize the internal RAID formatted as Mac OS Extended containing a fresh Tiger install. When I boot from the internal disk, DiskWarrior does find the disk but of course cannot fix it being the startup volume. Alsoft is aware of the problem."

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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