Tag: Apple

Two Possible Mac Data Loss Issues Still Unadressed by Apple

Paul

leopardbsodicon2.jpgAlthough no official word has been released by Apple, there appears to be two serious data loss issues that could affect MacBook owners and users of Mac OS X Leopard. According to blogger Tom Karpik, Leopard’s Finder has a bug in its directory-moving code that can result in massive data loss when transferring large files—regardless of the type of destination drive. Apparently, this flaw has been around since the days of Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, so it could represent an ongoing problem that Apple has failed to address.

The other issue involves a flaw in certain 2.5-inch Segate SATA drives with a firmware version 7.01. As mentioned last week on Giz, the flaw causes read/write heads to fail and scratch up the drive. Again, these issues are not official, but you may want to take steps to back up your data just to be on the safe side. [TomKarpik via AppleInsider]

I guess they still have problems with the mac OSX just like Windows. I do hope they fix the problems!!

Enable Leopard’s Off-By-Default Firewall

Paul

leopard-firewall.png
Computer security firm publication Heise criticizes Mac OS X Leopard for shipping without its firewall enabled by default like Windows Vista and advises users to turn it on. To do so, in System Preferences’ Security area either block all incoming connections or set explicit exceptions for services that can communicate through the firewall, like file or screen sharing, as shown. (More on that in an upcoming post.)

Holes in Leopard’s firewall [CNET]
Does anyone remember XP lauch having the firewall off. Hmm, sounds almost like a windows problem!!! Haha, just shows that not even apple is perfect!!

Leopard Disk Utility Format Issue Screws With Time Machine (But There’s An Easy Fix)

Paul

Disk_Erase_Failed.jpgThe bad news is, we have discovered a Leopard-related issue that may very well throw a monkey wrench into your Time Machine. Anyone trying to use Time Machine with a previously PC-formatted drive could be at risk. The good news is, there is an easy—albeit none-too-obvious—fix. Here’s the dilly-o:

After I upgraded my MacBook Pro to OS X Leopard, the first thing I did was grab a brand-new Maxtor USB drive and format it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using Disk Utility, just like I had countless times before. As soon as I erased the disk, Time Machine popped up as promised, and asked if it could use the disk for backup. I said yes, and was on my merry way. Only I wasn’t.

Time Machine ran for a bit, and then crapped out after about 10GB. I went into Disk Utility and saw that although the partition was formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled), the volume itself still said FAT32. I clicked Erase to reformat the drive, and got the format failure error you see above.

I tried this with FAT-formatted drives from Seagate, Iomega and HP as well. Each time I saw the same thing. I could reformat the partition to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and Time Machine would recognize it. Get Info would say that it was formatted correctly. But Disk Utility showed that the volume was formatted for PC. Inevitably, if the Time Machine backup was greater than 10GB, there were problems. Worst of all, if I dared try to format the volume for Mac, I would get the dreaded error, and the disk would be temporarily unmountable.

Go read the full story to find out how to fix the problem. I thought it was funny because Windows does that to!!

Leopard hacked for Intel PC consumption

Paul

We’ve come to expect our Apple-related hacks early and user friendly these days, but we’ve still got mad respect for the folks at OSx86 Scene who’ve managed to get Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard up and running on Intel PCs on launch day — the day before if you felt like being a bit less upright about it. The hack requires a minimum of trickery on your part: just a burnable DVD, USB thumb drive and a bit of luck. Not everything’s super tested just yet, and OSx86 Scene will be expanding support and simplifying the process as time goes on, but this is sure a promising start.

[Via dailyApps, image courtesy of mac.nub]

Hmm, Wonder if that will work on a Dual Core system? Might try it later!!