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weric · Feb 22, 2002, 12:22 AM

i am considering upgrading my norton to the new version for os x. but i want to know if it's worth it. is drive 10 better for x? or is their a third tool for general system health that i'm unaware of?

-e

Don Pickett · Feb 22, 2002, 01:32 AM

I have no experience with X utilities, but I haven't used Norton on any OS 9 machine for a while - I stick to TechToolPro.

I intend to stay away from Norton stuff for X, as well. They seem to have lost it sometime in the last few years.

Sam Venning · Feb 22, 2002, 01:44 AM

Errr. I think Drive 10 and Norton Utilities perform completely different tasks.

Drive 10 is a hard drive formatting tool. Norton Utilities checks already formatted hard drives for defective media (damage to the physical surface of the disc), damage/errors to the directory and damage/errors with files meta information (icons, modification dates etc).

Sam Venning · Feb 22, 2002, 01:50 AM

Errr. I think Drive 10 and Norton Utilities perform completely different tasks.

Drive 10 is a hard drive formatting tool. Norton Utilities checks already formatted hard drives for defective media (damage to the physical surface of the disc), damage/errors to the directory and damage/errors with files meta information (icons, modification dates etc).

weric · Feb 22, 2002, 01:51 AM

Drive 10 is a hard drive formatting tool.

not true. drive 10 is a diagnostic tool - like norton it checks the file system and unlike norton, it'll check hardware. i just don't know how good it is at - if all.

Don Pickett · Feb 22, 2002, 02:30 AM

Originally posted by weric:


not true. drive 10 is a diagnostic tool - like norton it checks the file system and unlike norton, it'll check hardware. i just don't know how good it is at - if all.

FWIW, my experience with MicroMat has been nothing but positive, and I trust them to do a good job. Can't say the same for Norton. They seemed to lose it about the time Apple went to HFS+.

maroma · Feb 22, 2002, 02:45 AM

It's a good idea to check out versiontracker.com as well. They user reviews of the latest updates tend to paint a good picture. I use it quite often.

Sine · Feb 22, 2002, 03:03 AM

I just made a OS 9 boot disk with DiskWarrior on it and boot off of that.

KidRed · Feb 22, 2002, 05:01 AM

Diskwarrior is the best, no doubt. You need to boot from a disk but you do most time to repair a start up volume anyway. Drive 10 is fsck -y and disk first aid (pointless) and Norton screws up things from what I read. However, I've heard nothing but praise and have had excellent experience with Diskwarrior when I've had errors.

chris v · Feb 22, 2002, 10:44 AM

Yup, definitely Disk Warrior, in OS 9. Drive 10 apparently just doesn't do much, yet. And Norton's BETA! WARNING! BETA! new version has been causing problems. At least wait for a final version.

Tech Tool Pro does a few things Disk Warrior doesn't, but it's gotta run from 9 too.

CV

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Feb 22, 2002, 10:54 AM

Originally posted by chris v:
Yup, definitely Disk Warrior, in OS 9.
CV

In OS9 DiskWarrior is 100% awesome. It caused more problems then fixes when I use it on an OSX drive though. Things like removing the login panel icons and desktop pictures.

Right now I would have to say that Drive X is the safest.

xi_hyperon · Feb 22, 2002, 11:55 AM

I used Diskwarrior on my OS X drive and afterwards all icons had gone generic. Reluctantly I booted back into 9 once more but this time ran Norton. After booting back into X, all the icons had returned to their normal state- wierd.

Leonard · Feb 22, 2002, 12:17 PM

Why not buy Norton Systemworks 2.0... it has DiskWarrior and Norton Utilities, and my favourite utility Dantz Retropect Express Backup. I think a backup is more important then all these HD fix utilities.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Feb 22, 2002, 12:19 PM

Originally posted by xi_hyperon:
I used Diskwarrior on my OS X drive and afterwards all icons had gone generic. Reluctantly I booted back into 9 once more but this time ran Norton. After booting back into X, all the icons had returned to their normal state- wierd.

Ya, it kills some of my icons also. I don't trust it on OSX till an update comes out.

KidRed · Feb 22, 2002, 04:23 PM

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:


Ya, it kills some of my icons also. I don't trust it on OSX till an update comes out.

I just ran it on my X drive. There is an update for X drives. I had some funky crashes going on and DiskWarrior found like 8 errors and fixed them all. I had no icon problem booting back into X.

Resetting icons back to default isn't a deal breaker, tho I don't have that problem anyway.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Feb 22, 2002, 05:15 PM

Originally posted by KidRed:


I just ran it on my X drive. There is an update for X drives.

Really? Where? The 2.1.1. version makes no mention of OSX nor does it run in it.

Scrod · Feb 22, 2002, 05:23 PM

A lot of the time you've gotta boot from a separate disk to do any major repairs anyway, so it doesn't make sense to worry about not having an OS X-native version of your disk repair program.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Feb 22, 2002, 05:29 PM

Originally posted by Scrod:
A lot of the time you've gotta boot from a separate disk to do any major repairs anyway, so it doesn't make sense to worry about not having an OS X-native version of your disk repair program.

I'm more of a FireWire Target mode type.

Gregory · Feb 22, 2002, 05:52 PM

I wish ALSoft would explain just what this Disk Warrior bundled with SystemWorks is/is not because I'm sure it isn't the full program we're use to.

I don't boot into OS 9. I keep a copy of OS X on multiple drives (so I still have 10.1.2 in case 10.1.3 doesn't work). Just use Carboncopy Cloner, boot into the new system, update prebinding, repair the other volume.

You can also run fsck, even when booting to CD - it will verify/repair the system selected in the startup disk. What I don't like is that OS X can't be "run" from a CD. You need an emergency volume in X, that understands OS X, so you can run Disk Warrior X + Norton X or whatever. along with Disk Utility, and do backups from a CD. You can't even change the boot volume if you have an older G3 that lacks "option" selection.

I had a horrible experience (again) with Drive 10 1.04 and the system was rock solid and fine, just testing (on a backup of course).

Considering how LONG it takes to run these utilities, and you do need a backup BEFORE you hit the REPAIR button (or Software Update Install Agree), I timed how long to partition/erase a drive with Disk Utility), reboot (to be safe), then run CCC to clone 12GB to the new drive: 20 minutes. Compare that to Disk Warrior + Norton + SpeedDisk (the last, if you believe in such a need - I don't).

Save your $70-200 for all this stuff. But a good fast bootable drive.