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City of Glass

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 21, 2003
58
0
Northern California
I've been encountering troubles with Alsoft, makers of the HIGHLY esteemed DiskWarrior product series.

Here's my quagmire:

I went to purchase 3.0 today, but could not find it. First clerk explanation: "Alsoft is a VERY small company, us bigger retail outlets don't like dealing with such direct sales."

Okay. On to the next Big Retail Store. Same explanation.

Third store -- the Apple Store -- and this is the explanation I get:

"Ah, yes. You'll have to use DiskWarrior 2.1.1 for now, it's the only one available. . . just boot up in OS 9, run DiskWarrior 2, and it will clean whatever volume you need repaired. Then go back into OSX mode and it should be fine. Or go onto an OS9-native computer, swap your FireWire ports with the external drive that isn't mounting, and do a repair job on that sucker. It's a real lengthy solution, but that's all we can do until Alsoft releases DiskWarrior 3.0 . . . "

Hmmmmmm.

When the hickleberry do they plan on that?

Next year?

I have very, very crucial data which has been inaccessible to me for 3 days now. The LaCie people themselves recommended DiskWarrior, and only DiskWarrior. That's all I'm going to use. The electronic Apple Store has a photo of the "X" version, but in their physical store it's the old blue/red box, with "2.1.1" stamped on the front.

This is the kind of crapola that sets me on edge.

City

of

Glass
 

melchior

macrumors 65816
Nov 17, 2002
1,237
115
it's true, DiskWarrior 3.0 has been a long time in the coming...

i feel however that it's worth it and i can trust the work they do to excel my expectations. this is the only company still with only old-skool software that i can feel this way. quark will probably suck, if it is ever released. nisus isn't much better though they did FINALLY after several broken dates and a few months release a beta =P

oh yeah, DW. it's great. i think maybe if you buy DW 2 now you get the free upgrade to DW3 when it is finished, not sure.

good luck. whatever you do, don't use norton!!!
 

gopher

macrumors 65816
Mar 31, 2002
1,475
0
Maryland, USA
Disk Warrior is set for 7 to 10 day shipping at the Apple Store. For more info on 3.0 here's what you need:

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/diskwarrior3info.html

Secondly, I've heard some good things about the data recover capabilities of Prosoft Data Rescue. It supposedly was able to recover something Disk Warrior couldn't. And it comes with Mac OS X bootable CDs. You do need though a hard drive to be attached that you can recover the data to.

Finally, this is prime reason why you should have a backup. If you don't make at least two backups of all your data, you aren't doing enough to keep your data safe. Backup first, fix with Disk Warrior second, and if it doesn't work, recover your backup.
 

mangoman

macrumors 6502a
Nov 27, 2002
929
60
Second Floor
AlSoft says...

Just called AlSoft yesterday. They said that DW 3 is shipping, officially.

So... Is THIS the best utility out there (at least this month!)?
 

Kid Red

macrumors 65816
Dec 14, 2001
1,428
157
No it is the best utility for X, period. Last year, this year, next year, every year. There is no equal. Period.
 

melchior

macrumors 65816
Nov 17, 2002
1,237
115
Originally posted by Kid Red
No it is the best utility for X, period. Last year, this year, next year, every year. There is no equal. Period.

DiskWarrior IS quintessentially, inexorably and irrevocably THE disk recovery software. there is no contest.

norton will do more harm than good. norton is the devil.

if you ever have a disk problem, you will wish you had diskwarrior!
 

wsteineker

macrumors 6502a
Jul 17, 2001
727
0
Montgomery, AL
What about the soon to be released Tech Tool Pro 4? It incorporates all of the good stuff from TTP3 and Drive 10, right? It seems like a solid program. What are the reasons that one should purchase DW3 instead of TTP4?
 

melchior

macrumors 65816
Nov 17, 2002
1,237
115
i would put TTP as a second to DW. i don't know anything about TTP4 though. i think TTP is a better utility in terms of prevenative measures...
 

wsteineker

macrumors 6502a
Jul 17, 2001
727
0
Montgomery, AL
Originally posted by melchior
i would put TTP as a second to DW. i don't know anything about TTP4 though. i think TTP is a better utility in terms of prevenative measures...
So you're saying that some sort of combination of both of them would be a good idea, eh?
 

melchior

macrumors 65816
Nov 17, 2002
1,237
115
well DW is a disk/data recovery tool. just that. it doesn't do much in the way or prevention. it does very little in fact... what it does do however is recover your data. every time. i've had a lot of scares in my time but disk warrior was always the solution and apart from that one incident with FAT32, i have never lost any data on a mac.

i just went and checked and TTP4 "protection" is the same as DW's... ha. TTP licenses some stuff from DW. comparing the two's spec sheets i don't see anything significantly impressive about TTP. it has a few extra usability features and a pretty interface.

i think they are probably equal in the real world since they probably use the same core... alsoft has proven itself with DW 2.0 TTP, in it's recent revisions incorporated DW features.

i guess it comes down to a question of brand recognition.
 
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