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loren s · Oct 18, 2003, 08:56 AM

I am having two OS9 iMacs with the blinking question mark and folder .
I tried the zap pram, rebuild desktop, run disc repair, reinstall. Nothing worked.

So I read that norton utilites would work. But I also read that it can do harm to .

What should I do. Should I use norton. Or is there anything better. When I boot from cd I see no hard drive. So their is nothing to disc repair.

Sophus · Oct 18, 2003, 09:30 AM

Originally posted by loren s:
I am having two OS9 iMacs with the blinking question mark and folder .
I tried the zap pram, rebuild desktop, run disc repair, reinstall. Nothing worked.

So I read that norton utilites would work. But I also read that it can do harm to .

What should I do. Should I use norton. Or is there anything better. When I boot from cd I see no hard drive. So their is nothing to disc repair.

In my experience, both from PCs and Macs using Norton Utilities, NU creates more problems than it solves.

loren s · Oct 18, 2003, 09:57 AM

Originally posted by Sophus:
In my experience, both from PCs and Macs using Norton Utilities, NU creates more problems than it solves.

huh. The why do they still sell it ? Oh well I will take your advise on the scale

Mr. Blur · Oct 18, 2003, 11:23 AM

try searching this forum on "norton" - there have been *numerous* threads about this already, mostly of bad experiences.

sandsl · Oct 18, 2003, 11:41 AM

It tends to mess up OS X alot but if your just using it with OS9 you should be alright - its not the best solution though, DiskWarrior rules the disk utilities.

nobitacu · Oct 18, 2003, 12:42 PM

Works really well with a PC, but as for Mac, it's a nightmare. Stay away from it.

Ming

Grrr · Oct 18, 2003, 12:57 PM

I must admit, older copies of Norton for OS 8/9 I always thought were pretty good. Got me out of many a nasty situation without issue.
But ugh, Norton for OS X was another matter entirely, and as some other people here have said, it really did cause more problems than it fixed.
There is a new version out now however, and maybe this is better? I don't yet know. I've only used it to de-frag my HD's so far. And for this at least, it's been fine.

CharlesS · Oct 18, 2003, 01:25 PM

So far for me, Norton has completely hosed a perfectly working hard drive once.

Also, it has made one damaged hard drive even worse, requiring a reformat once.

DiskWarrior has never done this to me, and it was even able to recover the hard disk that worked fine before Norton hosed it. In addition, DiskWarrior lets you preview the new directory before you replace the old one, so that you can make sure it will work before giving the go-ahead. It also lists *all* changes it will make to a directory before it makes a single one, unlike Norton which only alerts you as it goes.

I recommend DiskWarrior over Norton, any day of the week.

n8x · Oct 18, 2003, 01:31 PM

Norton saved my hard drive countless times back in the day, but I tried it recently and it killed my hard drive! That disk doctor is a quack, I tell you..

Jerommeke · Oct 18, 2003, 02:02 PM

NO. It has done nothing well, and when I will reformat this beastie when 10.3 comes, I will get rid of the most sucking app ever programmed.

It is even bad on Windows scale.

loren s · Oct 18, 2003, 02:17 PM

Yikes!
Well I found a version 7 on the net Soooo I guess that one will be alright. I could not find a version 6 yet.
All I need to do is get the hard drive back so I can get the files off of them and then install Panther in 7 days.

we'll see. I will try it tommorow.

Mac Write · Oct 18, 2003, 06:05 PM

Originally posted by loren s:
Yikes!
Well I found a version 7 on the net Soooo I guess that one will be alright. I could not find a version 6 yet.
All I need to do is get the hard drive back so I can get the files off of them and then install Panther in 7 days.

we'll see. I will try it tommorow.

A couple tricks I did when I got that 5 times in a month (March 2001 running PB) was book from the OS X CD and it fixed the problem) or boot from he OS 9 CD a couple times and it will appear.

Also use the "Hardware Test CD" That came with your Mac.

Millennium · Oct 18, 2003, 06:35 PM

Originally posted by loren s:
huh. The why do they still sell it ? Oh well I will take your advise on the scale

Norton used to be very good, a must have for any Mac technical person's toolbox.

Unfortunately, their more recent versions have been subpar at best, and some are actually harmful. Most of Norton's continued sales are, at the moment, riding on the reputation garnered from their older releases.

However, it is still better for OS9 than it is for OSX.

BoulderDash · Oct 18, 2003, 07:25 PM

I'm always reading about how *bad* Norton is... can someone point me to some solid documentation about what it does (that's confirmed) that's so terrible?

I use Norton Utilities 8.0 and have found it to find and correct errors well when booting from the Norton Utilities CD. Am I being fooled? Is it causing damage when it says it's fixing things? Where's the evidence... if it's there and duplicated by several users with examples, I'll believe it. But I just think it's people harping on it right now. Like when people complain about CompUSA. They're okay, I've never had a problem. Maybe you got a bad clerk... doesn't mean that all CompUSA's blow.

Again, I'm open to learning that Norton causes harm, but where's the proof?

Thanks,
BD

CharlesS · Oct 19, 2003, 02:16 AM

Originally posted by BoulderDash:
I'm always reading about how *bad* Norton is... can someone point me to some solid documentation about what it does (that's confirmed) that's so terrible?

I use Norton Utilities 8.0 and have found it to find and correct errors well when booting from the Norton Utilities CD. Am I being fooled? Is it causing damage when it says it's fixing things? Where's the evidence... if it's there and duplicated by several users with examples, I'll believe it. But I just think it's people harping on it right now. Like when people complain about CompUSA. They're okay, I've never had a problem. Maybe you got a bad clerk... doesn't mean that all CompUSA's blow.

Again, I'm open to learning that Norton causes harm, but where's the proof?

Thanks,
BD

What does Norton do that's so terrible? Here's what it is: Instead of working the way both DiskWarrior and TechTool Pro/Drive10 do, scanning the entire disk first, then listing all the changes it's going to make, then building a brand-new directory rather than patching the old one, and then letting you examine the new directory before writing it to disk to make sure it is valid, Norton just scans the disk and asks you to fix errors as it finds them. If you choose to fix an error, it patches the disk and then continues scanning. The trouble is, if Norton decides to report an error that isn't there, as it is sometimes prone to do, it will keep reporting the same error over and over. If you 'fix' these nonexistent errors, chances are you are going to end up with an unmountable drive.

Again, I've had it happen to me. Numerous other people on here have had the same experience. If there weren't a problem, there wouldn't be so many of us with Norton-destroyed hard drives. If you don't believe us, and want to continue to trust Norton, that's your prerogative, I guess. But it's a little like deciding to go for a swim even though numerous people have warned you that the water is shark-infested...

If you want some links describing the differences between the way the two utilities work, here you go:

http://www.mymac.com/archives/may_99/disk_warrior.shtml
http://www.macworld.com/1999/04/reviews/diskwarrior/
http://www.macaddict.com/issues/0209/rev.norton2.html

BoulderDash · 01:37 PM

Hey there CharlesS et. al,
Here's a link for you to look at (again, just trying to state what I feel is an incorrect perception of Norton):

Shootout at the Disk Repair Corral

A truly well-written and in-depth article comparing/contrasting Norton Disk Doctor tool in Symantec's Norton Utilities 8.0 ($100), Alsoft's DiskWarrior 3.0 ($80), Micromat's Drive 10 1.1.4 ($70), SubRosaSoft's DiskGuardian 2.2 ($70), and Apple's Disk Utility (free).

Hope it helps,
BD

* P.S. If you find the article informative, don't forget to think about David's PayBITS.

neilw · Nov 26, 2003, 03:00 PM

That is a good comparison by someone who knows what he is talking about. It does, of course, come to the commonly accepted (around here, anyway) conclusion that DiskWarrior is best.

However, the good performance of Norton in the tests does not negate the fact that many, many people in these forums have reported severe problems as a result of using it. Clearly, the reviewer did not encounter any such cases, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Reports of DiskWarrior screwing up in such a manner are extremely rare.

That all adds up to more than enough reason, for me anyway, to stick with DiskWarrior and eschew Norton Utilities.

BoulderDash · Nov 26, 2003, 03:08 PM

neilw,
I'm all about that way of thinking: people choosing as they see fit. And I'll be looking into DiskWarrior as well (hey, why not use both?

). I just wanted to point out that reports and advice telling people (some maybe new to Mac OS) how "practically guaranteed awful" Norton is/was, are misrepresenting the job that it does do. No doubt people have had problems with it in the past (as with anything) - I just don't believe they are as wide-spread and duplicable as people say. I'm not vouching for every Norton ever (and I'm not a partner or anything [man that would be great]), I'm just pointing to the fact that Norton Utilities 8.0 looks like a winner.

See ya,
BD

thePurpleGiant · Nov 26, 2003, 06:12 PM

Originally posted by BoulderDash:
neilw,
I'm all about that way of thinking: people choosing as they see fit. And I'll be looking into DiskWarrior as well (hey, why not use both? ). I just wanted to point out that reports and advice telling people (some maybe new to Mac OS) how "practically guaranteed awful" Norton is/was, are misrepresenting the job that it does do. No doubt people have had problems with it in the past (as with anything) - I just don't believe they are as wide-spread and duplicable as people say. I'm not vouching for every Norton ever (and I'm not a partner or anything [man that would be great]), I'm just pointing to the fact that Norton Utilities 8.0 looks like a winner.

See ya,
BD

Sorry but I really have to disagree. If you insist on buying both, please please only use Diskwarrior unless you find something it can't fix. I have never had any problem (and I've had major ones) that Diskwarrior hasn't fixed.

On the other hand, I have had smallish problems before and used Norton and made my drive unrecoverable.

However, in the days of OS 7 - 8, Norton was da bomb. pity.