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Disk Warrior 3 -- Finally?

tools for the job

Howdy neighbors...
I think the important thing to remember here is the end use of each of the programs listed-
Disk warrior is HANDS DOWN the best utility for repairing directories ( It doesnt actually repair them. It locates their info and constructs a new Optimized directory and plops the info into it) - HOWEVER- it does nothing for file repair ( Nortons does this very well) and nothing for hardware diagnosis other than SMART ( Version 3) - Tech tool is essential for testing for hardware dysfunction ( Even better in some cases than apples own utilities that they provide us with for warranty diagnosis)
IMHO- If you are a home user with some power user tendencies , buy disk warrior. You will love it and probably never need to use anything else- If you are a true power user( not a geek-someone whose files are his/her livelihood), buy nortons as well for file repair if you have issues along those lines- If you are a paid technician, buy everything. Its your job- Nortons, Disk warrior,Drive 10,techtool, Recovery programs, the whole works-
Ps- To anyone worried about nortons screwing up their machine, just use the installer to uninstall and then only run it from CD- No troubles there generally- (systemworks 2 if you are using os X)

As always- My 2 cents-
 
Re: tools for the job

Originally posted by humantech
Howdy neighbors...
I think the important thing to remember here is the end use of each of the programs listed-
Disk warrior is HANDS DOWN the best utility for repairing directories ( It doesnt actually repair them. It locates their info and constructs a new Optimized directory and plops the info into it) - HOWEVER- it does nothing for file repair ( Nortons does this very well) and nothing for hardware diagnosis other than SMART ( Version 3) - Tech tool is essential for testing for hardware dysfunction ( Even better in some cases than apples own utilities that they provide us with for warranty diagnosis)
IMHO- If you are a home user with some power user tendencies , buy disk warrior. You will love it and probably never need to use anything else- If you are a true power user( not a geek-someone whose files are his/her livelihood), buy nortons as well for file repair if you have issues along those lines- If you are a paid technician, buy everything. Its your job- Nortons, Disk warrior,Drive 10,techtool, Recovery programs, the whole works-
Ps- To anyone worried about nortons screwing up their machine, just use the installer to uninstall and then only run it from CD- No troubles there generally- (systemworks 2 if you are using os X)

As always- My 2 cents-
Click to expand...

I am a technician and know enough technicians who got burnt by Norton to stay clear of it. Including David Coursey:

http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2862263,00.html

I will say this again, Norton Disk Doctor is Disk Kevorkian, and I challange anyone to recover a drive that Norton has corrupted by using Norton again. I've seen hundreds of drives corrupted by Norton, and it just is not the tool to use, and hasn't been since Mac OS 8.1. Norton Anti-Virus is one thing, but Disk Doctor is just as bad as it comes. It is so invasive of the disk directory it requires Disk Warrior to fix it most of the time. On rare occasions it can't repair Norton's damage, but the point being having disk utilities is fine if you don't want to waste time recovering from backup as it frequently takes less time. But don't forget to backup with Retrospect Express or Carbon Copy Cloner. It is more important to have a mirror backup of your data when using Mac OS X than having any other utility. You may save time with another utility, but if it fails, you still want to have your backup to turn to.
 
Good points gopher but....

Gopher-
I also am a technician , warranty certified, Apple specialist store owner and consultant- I can only speak from experience, but I do have quite a bit of that-
I agree nortons directory repair portions are not good ( Having said that,on the the thousands of machines I and my service staff have repaired, we personally have had ZERO problems with it corrupting anything- Others have not been so lucky <g>) -
By simply using nortons to repair damaged files ( Doesnt mess with the directories or partitions at all) you have a tool other utilities do not have-
As I said for a power user who may need to make sure date and time stamping on his/her files are accurate, Or repair damage to individual files, nortons works great-
I do agree with all the points you've made- I just think you are overlooking an important feature that nortons has that nothing else offers currently-
The real key is to not install nortons and have it install filesaver data-
"Disk Kevorkian" LOL :)
Also- Good point on reminding to back up- If I had a dollar for every minute I've spent recovering peoples data... ( Oh wait! I do!) <he-he>
Again- my 2 cents-
 
I've seen most corrupt files either corrupt simply because the Finder has no application associated with it, or the directory itself needs repair. Of course there is now the extra layer of permissions corruption that happens within X. Thank goodness Repair Privileges and Repair Permissions became possible starting with 10.1.5. The few times I've found files that are corrupted beyond repair, something else was wrong, either a hard drive nearing death which a close listening can usually tell you about, or something on the computer itself was wrong like bad RAM. I've seen people use Norton to repair files and still damage their directory. It just is a royal mess. And then when I go to ask them for their backup, they tell me: "What backup?" So there must be something about how people use Norton to repair damaged files that is safe but in reality I'm quite skeptical. I've seen enough drives damaged by Disk Doctor and enough flashing ? disks to wonder, when will people ever learn? And I'm glad you agree on the backup principle. Backup first, and foremost, worry about tinkering with utilities later. That's been my motto.
 
backup- think about it- then backup again!

G-
I always Have to shake my head in amazement- I had a client with 500 GB's of ESSENTIAL information ( this company loses $7500 per hour with downtime) that had a drive failure in a 4 drive hardware raid ( 2 drives striped for performace, 2 others mirrored to the first two) - they had no backup- the data recovery cost for fast turnaround was $24,750 through drive savers ( AFTER our 10% discount ) I was able to repair and rebuild and get it back to him in 1/2 day through luck, skills and good looks- He STILL doesnt have a backup solution - His reasoning? Its "TOO expensive to buy a real rotary tape backup system" - These guys lose like $56,000 per DAY ( not to mention they go out of business if they lose everything) and they still resist backups- Funny ( but not in the HA-HA way) :)
One thing cool about diskwarrior 3 is it uses a smart test to do a hardware test on most new drives to determine quickly if its real damage or directory or file damage....
 
Re: backup- think about it- then backup again!

Originally posted by humantech
G-
I always Have to shake my head in amazement- I had a client with 500 GB's of ESSENTIAL information ( this company loses $7500 per hour with downtime) that had a drive failure in a 4 drive hardware raid ( 2 drives striped for performace, 2 others mirrored to the first two) - they had no backup- the data recovery cost for fast turnaround was $24,750 through drive savers ( AFTER our 10% discount ) I was able to repair and rebuild and get it back to him in 1/2 day through luck, skills and good looks- He STILL doesnt have a backup solution - His reasoning? Its "TOO expensive to buy a real rotary tape backup system" - These guys lose like $56,000 per DAY ( not to mention they go out of business if they lose everything) and they still resist backups- Funny ( but not in the HA-HA way) :)
One thing cool about diskwarrior 3 is it uses a smart test to do a hardware test on most new drives to determine quickly if its real damage or directory or file damage....
Click to expand...

Unbelievable, and a 2 drive 500 GB Xserve raid system costs $6000. He could have saved 2/3rds his costs in recovery by buying an Apple RAID system as a redundant backup!
 
Your preaching to the saved....

G-
Yep-
You are preaching to the converted- They are trying to skimp on the raid, and dont want to put in a backup system-
They also at some point, let someone sell them a "dual Xeon, top of the line, Gigabit ethernet server" which causes nothing but stress and slowdowns--- bummer for them--- They had MUCH better luck with a dual 800 PMac running os X server 10.1 --- Ah well- I'll keep pluggin away at them---
Nice chatting with you!
 
Data Rescue

Another utility which is definitely worth mentioning:
Data Rescue (here )

A gr8 little app designed to copy the data of crashed disks. It really is superb! I have been able to rescue all the data from 3 out of the 3 crashed disks at work with it since I got it!

I always use an iBook (Dual USB) running OS X, with Disk Warrior 3, Data Rescue, and Carbon Copy Cloner on it. Make the "to be rescued" Mac boot in Target mode, while attached to the iBook via FireWire.
A must have for the IT department.

Or make a bootable CD (with BootCD) with all these utils on it... very handy.
 
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