Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Diskwarrior no-refund policy
- Thread starter felipey
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The first sentence on the System Requirements page ( https://alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/requirements.html ) lists supported file systems, and then again later on the same page in the "Supported Files Systems". But anyway, I would definitely agree that a detail this important should be on the main page as well ( https://alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/index.html ).
My issue is also with their language. It says "Supported Files Systems Include", leading you to believe there are others not mentioned. If they wanted to be so difficult about any refunds, their policy should be perfect and say something like "only".
Yep, that sounds intentionally misleading.
The file systems it does support are clearly spelled out in several places. You can read what you like between the lines but I see nothing about it supporting exFAT, NTFS, etc. The fact that it does not support APFS in my opinion makes it a useless overpriced utility. And I do believe they should issue you a refund.
Did you purchase using a credit card? If so, if you honestly believe the terms of the sale were too vague or that DiskWarrior did not adequately describe the limitations, you could call the credit card company for the card you used. See if they would be willing to initiate a "not as described" chargeback on your behalf.
They may not be willing to and they may feel the software company did an adequate job, but it is worth a try if you legitimately feel they did not.
On their website, Diskwarrior’s System Requirements specifically state “DiskWarrior 5 supports any directly connected Mac OS Standard (HFS) or Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus) disk including Fusion Drives, RAID volumes, journaled disks, case-sensitive disks, FileVaults and Time Machine backups.” It mentions nothing about exFAT or NTFS drives. APFS support is not a trivial matter, and is promised in the near future by Alsoft. For what it does, Diskwarrior is an excellent product.
How long has APFS been deployed by Apple and how long has Alsoft been promising support for it? For a utility that one has to pay $119.95 for a single license (not upgrade) you would think the developers would do better than just promise.
And then, not offer a refund? Sorry, I can't share your opinion about it being an excellent product. It used to be an excellent product, that I will agree to.
AlSoft can’t offer APFS support until APFS is fully documented, which Apple has only recently done. But your gripe was about ExFAT, not APFS, and Diskwarrior has never supported anything other than Macs. I agree it would be nice of them to refund your purchase, but unfortunately that is their decision. I’m certain their reason is that DiskWarrior only covers a very rare and specific use case. Many people would buy it, fix their disk, and then ask for a refund. That sucks for you, sure, but you also should have recognized that DiskWarrior doesn’t support ExFAT before purchase.
Last edited:
Well, they can egg you on with all the bravado they want, it is really up to your credit card company to decide. They may ultimately be correct and the credit card company sided with them, but they may also be wrong.
You could also file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.
"Before You Buy - Alsoft:
Terms of Sale:
Terms of Sale:
- You may install and/or run the software on only one computer at a time but you may install and/or run the software on any computer owned by you. To install and/or run the software on more than one computer at a time, you will need a separately purchased copy of the software for each of those computers.
- You must accept the terms of the Alsoft License Agreement.
- All sales are final."
Have personal experience with how useless the BBB is and its rating system. Worked for a company in the 80's where the owner/founder was later imprisoned for fraud, among other things. But had a AAA+ rating with the BBB because he hired the former local head of the BBB to be their office manager. Mind you we were the 3rd complete crew in a year including office manager.
The BBB is only good for seeing if a company has complaints against it. The BBB is powerless to force any sort of resolution and membership is voluntary. More and more businesses are foregoing BBB membership.
Per the BBB page Alsoft is not a member.
https://www.bbb.org/us/tx/spring/profile/computer-software-developers/alsoft-inc-0915-22008475
That’s a sad state of affairs about the BBB, yet that story doesn’t surprise me. It was always a bit of a “toothless tiger,” but nowadays it seems even less than that.
Buy software, ask for refund, continue to use the now "free" software.
There should be a way for someone to try the software, maybe with crippled features, before buying it. In this case it could analyze the drive BUT not fix it. Want it fixed? Buy the software. No refunds.
Other software packages do this, why not Alsoft?
Maybe, but there's always a way to spin a trial version as a negative, too. "I downloaded the free version, but now I can't fix my disk without paying ransom!"
If we were talking about a car and a set of hand tools, would anyone argue that they should be able to try them free, or return them for refund after performing a repair?
There are a lot of people who can't wrap their heads around the idea that a tool is a tool, or a service is a service, whether you can hold a physical manifestation in your hand, or it's stored invisibly as bits and bytes on a hard drive.
People buy tools and parts for the most part because they intend to save money over the alternative - a professional repair. This gives the sellers of tools and parts a natural advantage when setting prices and sales terms - the alternative to accepting their terms may come at a much higher price.
MacOS can repair exfat disks.
from the man pages
The fact that Diskwarrior does not repair APFS file systems would seem to be a big reason not to buy at this point (at least until DW6 is released.)
(Ironically, my most recent catastrophic disk failure was probably associated with the HFS+ to APFS upgrade).
(full disclosure, I bought a very early version of diskwarrior-- possibly version 2-- and used it to good effect. Then Apple introduced some new filesystem innovation-- journalling or time machine or something else), and Alsoft wanted me to upgrade. I didn't take them up on their offer, and I didn't run into disk problems that Disk Utility didn't solve).
from the man pages
Disk Utility probably wraps this all up in a nice GUI. Try it.
The fact that Diskwarrior does not repair APFS file systems would seem to be a big reason not to buy at this point (at least until DW6 is released.)
(Ironically, my most recent catastrophic disk failure was probably associated with the HFS+ to APFS upgrade).
(full disclosure, I bought a very early version of diskwarrior-- possibly version 2-- and used it to good effect. Then Apple introduced some new filesystem innovation-- journalling or time machine or something else), and Alsoft wanted me to upgrade. I didn't take them up on their offer, and I didn't run into disk problems that Disk Utility didn't solve).
Last edited:
I'm surprised they would do that; even if they win they still have to spend time to do that and IIRC they get charged a fee by the card issuer even if they win. In addition, too many chargebacks can result in losing their merchant account and thus not be able to accept credit cards.