Alsoft on Tuesday released a free software updater that will let users create a Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard-compatible startup CD for its DiskWarrior 4 Version 4.1 directory repair utility. The CD is a universal startup disc for PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs.
Of course, Alsoft’s word “universal” here is a bit constrained.
Please note that the new startup CD will start up the same set of Macs as your current DiskWarrior CD. Your new CD will not start up any Mac that your current DiskWarrior CD can not.
What does this mean?
According to the company, DiskWarrior supports Mac OS Standard (HFS) or Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus) formatted drives including “RAID volumes, journaled disks, case-sensitive disks, FileVaults, Time Machine backups and iPods.” Version 4.1 lets users repair damaged “directory hard links” as well as directory loops. These hard links are a feature of Leopard’s Time Machine backups.
However, the updated startup CD doesn’t yet support the latest Mac models, including the 2008 Mac Pro and Xserves, the MacBook Air, and the refreshed MacBook and MacBook Pros.
Still, the updater released today is progress and something Leopard owners have been awaiting. The problem surrounded DiskWarrior issues when repairing a Leopard volume from a Tiger boot. Several features found when booting into Leopard are unavailable.
If you want or need to run DiskWarrior 4 version 4.1 from Mac OS X 10.4 or earlier, there are two features of DiskWarrior that are not available for a Mac OS X 10.5 startup disk. First, you cannot repair the permissions of a Mac OS X 10.5 startup disk.
Second, you cannot rebuild a FileVault that was created under Mac OS X 10.5. You will be able to rebuild a FileVault that was created on a startup disk that was later upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5. Your DiskWarrior CD may start up in Mac OS X 10.4 and would therefore have these features disabled for a Mac OS X 10.5 startup disk.
