Apple will be releasing OS X Mountain Lion soon. There are a number of things you need to do to get ready for this new OS, including making a current backup of your data, and upgrading to Snow Leopard or Lion, if you haven't already.
One important task that is often overlooked is a hard drive checkup. Before you upgrade to a new OS, it's important to ensure that your drives are in good working order.
It's not uncommon to use a Mac day in and day out, and not be aware that the startup drive or data drive(s) have errors that can lead to trouble down the road. I always recommend testing drives for errors every now and then, even if you're not upgrading your OS.
There are a couple of ways to check your Mac for drive errors; the easiest is to use Disk Utility, which is included with the Mac OS. You can find step-by-step instructions in the following guide, which covers both how to check for drive errors and how to repair them.
Using Disk Utility to Repair Hard Drives and Disk Permissions
If your drive has errors that Disk Utility can't fix, you can try one of the many third-party applications available for testing and repairing a Mac's drives. The three most popular utilities for testing and repairing drives are:
Getting your drive in tip-top shape is a must before you install a new OS. Take the time now to test and repair your drives; you'll be glad you did.
Hi Tom,
Great Article! I was wondering if this might be why I’m having problems with iTunes Match reading the files on my external Hard Drive? iTunes Match always gets to the end of Step 1 and hangs. I left it running overnight, as well as for a couple of days, and it is still on step one! Should I try repairing disk permissions using disk utility? Thanks for the time!
Hi Michel,
It could very well be a file permissions problem, so using Disk Utility to repair disk permissions is a good idea. Even better, repairing disk permissions is one of those maintenance tasks that should be performed on a routine basis, but most of us forget to do it. It certainly won’t hurt give it a try. Even if it doesn’t fix the problem, you can check a routine maintenance task off your to-do list.
Let us know what happens.
Tom