[Apple_John]

What are the regular maintenance? rebuild desktop, defragment HD..., when and how?

I don't want to buy the Norton products, any good and reliable utilities from the web or norton is worth the money now. ( I found norton 95 always slow down my pc and the anti-virus is useless...)

Should I format the HD once a while if I download too much junk form the web or a clean install will do the job?

Any suggestion?

[Shaman]

My idea !
make a partition only for MACOS (nothing else) and one only for VM + scratch (empty)
and the rest of the HDD for all other crap :-)
Try diskwarrior for defragment disks !

[mkuehn]

I agree with Shaman. I partition my drives like so:

1) MacOS (whatever is installed with an install of your system software)
2) Applications
3) Data

That way, it is easy to back up just what you need and keeps things logically organized.

But to get back to your question, I probably rebuild my desktops twice a month, and defragment just as often. I like to defragment simply because I like watching Speed Disk's graphic representation of the drive being defragmented. It also gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling to know that everything is in tip-top shape.

I also format the drives whenever it makes sense, like you said, perhaps when too much junk has been installed, or if I haven't formatted in a long time. I think it gets rid of whatever junk has built up, and again, gives me that warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from knowing everything is running as smoothly as possible.

As far as anti-virus software goes, I guess I don't really use any. Probably not smart, but I haven't had any problems with viruses since CDEF or WDEF (can't remember for sure) infected all the floppies at our high school. That doesn't mean I won't in the future, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed and taking some precautions to avoid viruses in the first place.

So, in short, it isn't going to hurt anything if you rebuild your desktop or defragment your drive quite frequently. Do it when you feel it needs it, or when you suspect that something isn't quite right and could be fixed by the above processes.

And, if you have any sources for free/shareware defragmenters for the Mac, please let me know. I always like to try out new things like that, to see how they compare to the ol' standby (Norton).

[exa]

I would buy diskwarrior and rebuild/optimize your drives once a month. Also, I would keep a fresh copy of the Finder and System and other system files fresh from install in a safe place... some times these files magically get modified and can mess your computer up; replace them whenever this happens (look at modification date).

[WDL]

Using two older Macs on OS 8.1 and an iMac on 9.0.4 - all three get the same regular maintenance:

Weekly:

Disk First Aid (several times if it reports any problems).
TechTool Pro - multi test/repair and rebuild directories.
Rebuild (replace) desktop thru Conflict Catcher.

Monthly:

As above - plus, optimize hard drive with TechTool Pro.

(Also have DiskWarrior and Plus Optimizer as a backup just in case.)

Quit Norton after years of use because it was forever reporting "btree"
problems on 2 of my Macs, even after it had "fixed" them.

Have stable, smooth ops with rarely a problem, and any that have arisen
were dealt with simply.

Browser (Netscape) cache placed on small RAM disk to ease wear and tear on the hard drive and so that any problems will not affect OS.

Works for me.

WDL

[This message has been edited by WDL (edited 11-01-2000).]

[This message has been edited by WDL (edited 11-01-2000).]