Some Mac Hacks

Journaling

File system journaling is the default with Panther, but not a lot of people know that journaling has been present on client Macs since OS 10.2.2; server versions provided the option to enable it from the user interface, but you can still turn it on from the command line:

You should really fsck it first, just to be on the safe side:

All of this is switched on without reformatting the disk, although I believe you need to reboot. There are some complaints that journaling degrades performance; undoubtedly it does, but whether you'll actually notice is another matter. It certainly wasn't apparent to me, and in any event I would take a small hit to save the hassle of file checking on every crash, not to mention recovering corrupt file systems, an all-too common problem on Macs. Do yourself a favour and turn it on.