Diagnostic Tool For Mac

As Macs continue to gain market share, there is an increased likelihood that you will have to support them if you are a tech. And even if you aren’t a tech, it’s good to know which tools are the best to use when it comes time to repair your own. I have put together a list of what are, in my opinion, the ten best repair tools for troubleshooting, diagnosing, and repairing a Mac. Many of them are free or offer a free trial.

Mac Tools® Diagnostic line of products are capable of performing critical diagnostics, reprogramming and quick code information. Also, the tools found in Mac OS X’s Utilities folder don’t include extensive diagnostic tools. The limited capabilities of the tools that ship with Mac OS X can be augmented with a number of utilities offering advanced disk management, diagnostic, and repair capabilities. Top 10 Mac Repair Tools The best Mac disk repair diagnostic tools & more! As Macs continue to gain market share, there is an increased likelihood that you will have to support them if you are a tech.

OSx Sierra

Disk Warrior Trial

Free Mac Disk Repair Software

TechTool Protogo

TechTool Protogo is a Mac repair program suite which contains three of Micromat’s best Mac repair tools; TechTool Pro 8, TechTool Pro Classic, and DiskStudio. Protogo creates a bootable Mac repair toolbox with these tools as well as any of your own tools on a portable hard drive or flash drive. You can then boot from this drive, bypassing the OS, and run diagnostics on a computer to determine problems. Protogo also allows you to repair and recover data from problematic hard drives as well as defragment, optimize, and securely delete data.

Cost: $129.99

Memtest OS X

Memtest OS X is a memory testing program for Mac OS X. It is a command line utility so it can be ran in OS X or in Single-User Mode if your Mac will not boot. It is great for testing intermittent system problems when you are having trouble determining if it is a memory problem. If you prefer memtest with a GUI front-end, then be sure to check out Rember. Rember will run in OS X but will not work in Single-User Mode so Memtest OS X is the better option.

Cost: $1.39

Mac Disk Repair – DiskWarrior 4

Disk Repair for Macs – DiskWarrior utilizes a unique disk repair method for Macs

DiskWarrior is arguably one of the best hard drive repair programs for the Mac. It works differently than other data repair programs. Instead of trying to rebuild the damaged data itself, DiskWarrior builds replacement data based off of the original data. It then verifies the new data structure based on the original to make sure it is error free. You can also use DiskWarrior as a preventative maintenance utility for hard disks. When run, it rebuilds your directory eliminating any damage that you may not be aware of. It also optimizes the directory for better performance.

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Cost: $99.95

If it is more serious and your Mac’s hard drive has crashed, I have provided an extensive data recovery guide with a list of Hard Drive Recovery Tools in my article How to Recover Data from a Crashed Hard Drive.

OnyX

Onyx is a maintenance, optimization, and personalization utility for Mac OS X. It allows you to run hard drive diagnostics, run system maintenance tasks, delete caches, and configure tons of OS X hidden features. Even if you aren’t using it as a repair utility, it is a great application to help keep your Mac running in top shape.

Cost: Free!

Mac Data Rescue

Data Rescue is a data recovery program that focuses purely on recovering data from corrupt drives instead of hard drive repair. It scans the corrupt drive analyzing all of its contents and allows you to choose which data you would like to recover. It even scans for deleted files. Data Rescue II restores the data to a separate drive leaving the original data intact. It comes with an emergency boot CD that you can use to recover data when the computer will not boot and it also works on drives that won’t mount.

Cost: $99.00

AppCleaner

AppCleaner may not be classified as a repair tool but it can be used as one. When you are having trouble with an application in OS X, you can simply remove it by dragging it to the Trash. However, this still leaves behind the applications preferences, caches, and other files that could still cause the same problem after you reinstall it. AppCleaner will remove all of these files making sure that the app is completely gone before you attempt a reinstall.

Cost: Free!

Drive Genius

Drive Genius is a disk utility application for Macs. Its main features include defragmenting, running benchtests, directory repair, integrity checks, surface scans, repartitioning, cloning, shredding data, and more. This is actually the same program used to defrag Macs at the Genius Bar in Apple Stores. Drive Genius also comes on a bootable DVD so you can run it even when a Mac will not boot.

Cost: $99.00

Mac Backup – Carbon Copy Cloner

Carbon Copy Cloner is a simple yet very effective backup utility for the Mac. Like most other backup utilities, it can be scheduled to backup your Mac on a regular basis. The best part, however, is its ability to completely clone a hard drive with it still being bootable. This tool comes in very handy when you are replacing hard drives, setting up multiple Macs, or recovering from a system crash. Carbon Copy Cloner is donation-ware so you can download it for free without any restrictions. You can also check out SuperDuper which has more features but costs $27.95. However, if you just need a simple backup and cloning utility, Carbon Copy Cloner does a great job.

Cost: Free! (donation-ware)

Apple Mac Disk Repair – AppleJack

AppleJack is a troubleshooting utility for Mac OS X. It runs under Single-User Mode so it can be used even when OS X will not boot. AppleJack will repair disks, repair permissions, cleanup cache files, validate preference files, and remove swap files. You can select these tasks individually or have AppleJack run all of them and even reboot when finished. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this article, AppleJack is not yet compatible with Leopard but a new version is in the works. Be sure to check their page frequently for an update because this is an invaluable tool.

Cost: Free! (open-source)

Hardware Monitor

Hardware Monitor is a utility that allows you to view data from the hardware sensors in a Mac. It currently has support for temperature readings, battery data, voltage, current, fan speed, power and load, ambient light, as well as user-defined artificial sensors. It’s a great utility to use when simply trying to find out if your hardware is malfunctioning.

Cost: € 7.00 (can also be purchased with U.S. Dollars)

OSX disk repair -Leopard

This is kind of a nice segway into handy hardware tools and toolkits. Click on the following link if you want to see some great ideas on what I recommend for your Mac or PC Repair Toolkit.

As you may know, I believe your should support Macs in your Computer IT Consultant Business. I state my case here in my article on Why You Should Support Macs With Your IT Business.

Well if you were counting, that is 4 totally free Mac OSX disk repair utilities, and one so cheap it may as well be free! The best Mac repair disk software may well be a paid one depending on your exact needs, and I’ve shown you my pick for the best of those too.

Excellent Mac disk repair software is provided above, for you to consider and try if you like. What Mac OS X repair tools do you like? Is there another Mac Disk Repair utility you’d suggest? Please leave a comment to help others, or if the above tools have helped you. And as for hardware, click this link if you want to repair hard drive-Mac.

Macs include a Wireless Diagnostics tool that can help you speed up your Wi-Fi network and improve its signal strength. It also includes many additional tools for power users.

This tool is useful for everyone from Mac beginners to experts, but it’s a bit hidden. It requires digging through your list of installed apps or just holding down the Option key as you click a menu.

Opening Wireless Diagnostics

RELATED:Access Hidden Options and Information With Your Mac’s Option Key

To open this tool, hold the Option key down on your keyboard, click the Wi-fi icon on the bar at the top of your screen, and select Open Wireless Diagnostics. You can also press Command+Space and type Wireless Diagnostics to search for it.

Diagnose Wi-Fi Problems

By default, the tool opens to a simple wizard that helps you diagnose network problems. Select “Monitor my Wi-Fi connection” and click Continue to have the tool monitor your connection and attempt to detect any problems. You can also just select “Continue to summary” to see recommendations immediately.

The diagnostics tool will inform you about ways to improve your Wi-Fi signal. Click the information icon to see more information about the recommendations.

These recommendations will be most useful if you’re actually having Wi-Fi problems, but they could be helpful for improving speed and signal strength even if you’re not.

Access More Tools in the Window Menu

This may seem like all there is to the tool, but it isn’t. You can bring up a variety of other useful Wi-Fi tools by clicking the Window menu in the Wireless Diagnostics application and selecting one of the other integrated tools to open that tool’s window.

The “Assistant” option at the top of the menu is the wizard that appears when you open the tool. The other options are additional tools.

Seagate Diagnostic Tool For Mac

Info

The Info tool shows a variety of details about your network connection, Wi-Fi interface, and even Bluetooth status. This is where you can find details like your IP address, MAC address, and other network information.

You can also just hold down the Option key and click the Wi-Fi icon on your menu bar to view much of this information without opening the Wireless Diagnostics tool.

Logs

The Logs utility allows you to enable automatic background-logging of various network-related things, including Wi-Fi, 802.1X, DHCP, DNS, Open Directory, and Sharing. You can then close the Wireless Diagnostics tool and your Mac will continue collecting logs in the background.

This is useful if you need to monitor something, but you shouldn’t leave logging enabled all the time — it’s unnecessary and a waste of resources. Be sure to disable background-logging after you’re done using it if you actually need to enable this logging-feature. Remember, most people don’t.

Scan

The Scan toll will scan for nearby Wi-Fi networks and display a list of. You can see a list of nearby Wi-Fi networks along with their security, protocol, and signal details.

More usefully, it’ll inform you which Wi-Fi channels would be the best ones for your router. Change the Wi-Fi channel on your router to get a faster, more reliable wireless signal.

Performance

The Performance window shows you information about the Wi-Fi signal your Mac is receiving. This includes its transmit rate, signal-to-noise ratio over time (“quality”), and signal (“RSSI”) and noise measurements over time.

Assuming you have a Mac laptop, you can walk around with it to see how the signal strength and noise vary between different locations. This can help you find wireless dead zones — or just places with poor signal strength.

Sniffer

RELATED:How to Use Wireshark to Capture, Filter and Inspect Packets

The Sniffer utility allows you to “sniff” the Wi-Fi signal in the air, capturing nearby packets and logging them. It’ll capture the packets for as long as you want to monitor them and save a log of the captured packets to a .wcap file on your desktop.

You can open this .wcap file with a tool like Wireshark, as there’s no tool built into Mac OS X to analyze its contents easily. But you don’t need any special software to sniff packets and save them to a file on your Mac.

This too is deceptively powerful. For most people, it can be a quick way to get some recommendations for improving your Wi-Fi and fixing problems. For power users, it’s a great source of information and detailed statistics built right into the operating system so you don’t have to seek out third-party tools.

Image Credit: Paul Rysz on Flickr