I backed up a whole bunch of DV files to a data DVD. But when I play those DV files from my external DVD drive, they hiccup and skip as if they’re missing frames. But when I copy the DV files back to my hard drive, they play just fine, with no dropped frames after all. Any ideas?

Answer after the jump.

Inspired by review editor Roman Loyola’s dogged insistence on every bit of technology lasting as long as physically possible, I’ve recently decided to resist the blandishments of all new gear and get my trusty PowerBook G4 to last as long technologically possible. Or, however long I can take it before I break down and yield to the KoolAid consumed in these regions every time Apple turns on the klieg lights.

Every columnist has written about their catastrophic hard-drive crash, so I won't bore you with the details of the one I had last week. Suffice it to say I'm doing fine, thanks for asking. I also won't harangue you about making (and testing!) regular backups - you know that already, right? (I bet Mac|Life senior editor Eugene Robinson still hasn't gotten over his loss.)

Instead, I'm going to tell you about something that could have saved my tuchus at the expense of ten minutes per month of (unattended!) Mac time. To wit: Disk Utility - it's included in Mac OS X, installed by default in /Applications/Utilities.