Hard Drive Utility programs |
October, 02, 2003 2:58 PM |
Sojourner09 |
Hello there everyone: My primary hard drive (Seagate STN 18Gb) is so badly fragmented that it drags down nearly every thing on my computer (a PowerMac 9500/Powerlogx G4/450MHz/1.06GB RAM). I have tried to defragment and optimize the drive and others on the SCSI chain with several different utility programs but to no avail. Norton System Works 2.0 would defragment the drives but only under the Classic environment but then it does something to the Internet Connect program under Mac OS X (Jaguar) that I am no longer able to connect to the Internet. Neither DiskWarrior nor one other software, whose name I seem to have conveniently forgotten, seems to have done me any good. Now, Symantec has a new upgrade to their SystemWorks (v. 3.0) at about $80.00 (discounted) and they claim that it would work but has been tested only on Apple-supported machines. So my inquiry is this: does any one know of any good and safe utility that I can obtain to help me resolve this perennial issue of mine, or does disk fragmentation an inherent trait of OS X. I do recall that when I had a NeXTSTATION Turbo Color I never defragmented the hard drive in the 4 years that I ran the computer 24/7. If you have any suggestions, please let me have it and I shall be indebted to you for ever. or, should I just leave the hard drive just as it is and hope for the best. Thank you. Sojourner09 |
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RE: Hard Drive Utility programs |
October, 05, 2003 3:06 AM |
marcush |
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I just had a painful 36 hours. My 9.2.2 partition became very corrupted on Thursday night and not even Disk Warrior could fix it. The volume header block was bad. I went through trying Disk Warrior, Tech Tool Pro 2.5.3, Norton System Works 1.0 (installed on another partition), and lastly Disk First Aid (I never expected it to work). I was about to give up this morning and format the partition when I decided to try System Works again from the install CD. For some reason it worked this time. I got my volume back and ran it three more times until the errors were gone. The to add a finishing touch I ran Disk Warrior on it again and it repaired still more damage. Everything is back to normal now. I guess it goes to show that you should never rely on one utility alone but should have several at your disposal. |
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RE: Hard Drive Utility programs |
October, 03, 2003 6:21 PM |
marcush |
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I have not seen any benefit from defragmenting an OSX drive. That's with using both Norton Speed Disk and Plus Optimizer. I stopped bothering. The best thing you can do is run periodic disk maintenance with the utility of your choice (read Disk Warrior) and leave it at that. |
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RE: Hard Drive Utility programs |
October, 03, 2003 3:37 PM |
powderhaus |
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The reason system works tells you it is so fraged is that it was not written to defrag a unix volume. OSX will put everything where it wants it when it installs, if you install on a clean drive your drive will not start to frag untill you put stuff on it and delete some things... Nortan is not worth the risk, there is a third party utility to repair drives that it screws up (for systemworks 1 and 2) but still, they could not even write the software themselfs and includ it in an update, I can't see ever getting nortan again, not for a while, not until Micromat does something stupid. |
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RE: Hard Drive Utility programs |
October, 03, 2003 1:52 PM |
Sojourner09 |
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I am inclined to believe you, mjoecups358. However, doesn't the severe fragmentation eventually slow down the system so much so that it becomes useless? I have tried nearly all of those programs, Norton SW 2.0, DW, Drive 10, but not TTP4. Maybe I should just leave the system just as it is for the time being till I am able to upgrade those utilities to their current versions. Symantec once told me that OS X's evolution is outpacing their ability to keep up. Hopefully they would have caught up by then. Thanks everybody for your help. Henry. |
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RE: Hard Drive Utility programs |
October, 03, 2003 12:51 PM |
mjoecups358 |
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what rpjallan is describing as the "badly fragmented" new OSX install, is actually the way the drive is supposed to be set up. Don't be surprised if defraging destroys your system, or at very least damages it's performance. Marty PS If you don't believe me, go do some research about UNIX systems. |
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RE: Hard Drive Utility programs |
October, 03, 2003 8:20 AM |
jseibyl |
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Love DW, run it from CD, slow BUT solid....saved my butt a few times. |
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RE: Hard Drive Utility programs |
October, 03, 2003 3:12 AM |
rpjallan |
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Installing OS X will result in a badly fragmented drive every time. The worst thing about this is directories are fragmented. I have used Norton Utilities for over 5 years & it has never failed to fix a problem for me. I am still using SystemWorks 1. I have never had a problem defragging a disk but I would never do it without backing up first. Norton themselves recommend this. Retrospect is part of SystemWorks. You do need to boot in OS 9 from a different drive to optimise. My 80GB drive takes just a couple of hours to optimise. The only problem with older versions is a lack of profiles for OS X. I am going to upgrade to SystemWorks 3 shortly. I think Nortons upgrades are quite good value (compared to some other software makers). After the initial optimisation you really only need to optimise again every few months. |
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RE: Hard Drive Utility programs |
October, 02, 2003 10:02 PM |
powderhaus |
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drive 10 is real fast with defraging, the drive was in fair condition but it defraged my 120GB drive within 2hours, in OS9 with TTP3 it took a day! a day being 24hours. there have been way to many reports of notan messing up drives that i could never buy the program. when they came back to mac they started to stink, they used to be good in the old mac plus days, but now micromat's TTP and alsoft's diskwarrior blow it away, and their reputation is only good, unlike nortan. |
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RE: Hard Drive Utility programs |
October, 02, 2003 8:54 PM |
fixitjc |
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I have used Speed Disk form both Norton SystemWorks 2 and 3 and have defragmented all my drives and have had no problems with either. Of course I have to boot from a different drive to defrag my main OSX drive but I have a CC clone of it that I boot from. It has taken all night on occation to DF the 47 gig drives but the smaller ones (9gig) take a reasonable amount of time. I have read of others having problems with Norton but I have not experienced any. |
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RE: Hard Drive Utility programs |
October, 02, 2003 7:47 PM |
mjoecups358 |
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I think defraging OSX drives is a BAD idea. Leave them alone, and if you need to do something use Carbon Copy cloner to duplicate the disk image to another drive... Marty |
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RE: Hard Drive Utility programs |
October, 02, 2003 6:38 PM |
powderhaus |
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Dirive 10 or TechTool Pro 4, both made by the same company (micromat) but TTP4 has more than just hard drive utilities, but i think they have a deal right now that if you buy Drive 10 now you get TTP4 free. TTP4 will work in OSX and OS9 (i think) so if you need to boot into 9 to do the tests you can, but you don't always have to boot into 9 to run it. |
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RE: Hard Drive Utility programs |
October, 02, 2003 3:31 PM |
gchron |
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How about Drive 10 from a differenct OS X drive, I havent tried it but I think that it does its work |
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Plus Optimizer |
October, 02, 2003 3:06 PM |
naturist |
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Alsoft, makers of Disk Warrior sell a defrag utility called Plus Optimizer. It was bundled with DW 2.x, but not with 3.0. It only runs under OS 9 and before, but this machine will boot nicely into OS 9. I have used Plus Optimizer under OS 9 and it safely defrags both HFS and HFS+ drives. It is OS X safe. That said, it isn't especially speedy, but it is safe and effective. If you have the older version 2 of Disk Warrior, look on the CD. In fact, boot from the CD and optimize away. If you drive is really badly fragged, and fairly full, you might want to run it overnight. |