Switch from Norton Utilities to Diskwarrior?

dygysydygysy
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I have Norton Utilities, I went to defrag my hard drive and got a message that I wasn't able to defrag because my hard drive is damaged.



Everything actually seems to be working fine but I want to run a disk repairt utility to repair any damage.



I used OS X built in utility but I'm still getting the same message when trying to defrag.



So the question is, do I use Norton Disk Doctor or do I scrap it and get Disk Warrior which costs about $70.



From what I've read Norton gets mixed reviews and Disk Warrior only positive reviews.



Is it worth it to switch?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    Disk Warrior is absoluely the BEST disk repair software I have encountered on the Mac. I do not at all regret forking over the cash for it. It has saved drives that Norton couldn't even touch.



    You can try letting Norton fix the disk first, but I can't promise any results.



    And FYI, a big update for DW is purported to be released in December.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    antaisce1antaisce1 Posts: 10member
    [quote]Originally posted by Brad:

    <strong>Disk Warrior is absoluely the BEST disk repair software I have encountered on the Mac. I do not at all regret forking over the cash for it. It has saved drives that Norton couldn't even touch.



    You can try letting Norton fix the disk first, but I can't promise any results.



    And FYI, a big update for DW is purported to be released in December.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Agreed, but in OS X using Norton 7.02 is important as well as the freeware XOptimize.

    Run XOptimize and most or all of the major problems reported by Norton Disk Doctor will be gone. Afterwards defrag from another than the startup disk.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    If I recall correctly, all XOptimize did was update the app prebinding. In 10.2, that isn't necessary because the OS does it automatically whenever you launch the app and the prebinding info is old.



    If you think you are seeing an improvement in 10.2 after running XOptimize, you are experiencing a placebo effect and fooling yourself into believing that things are running better.



    update: don't believe me? Here it is <a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0100490/stories/2002/08/24/prebindingExplained.html"; target="_blank">from the horse's mouth</a>.



    [ 10-04-2002: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>
  • Reply 4 of 6
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
  • Reply 5 of 6
    jccbinjccbin Posts: 476member
    Agreed. If you are a power user or wanna be one, you actually need both DiskWarrior and Norton Utils - heck if we were just talking OS 9, I'd add Techtool to the list, but it has not come up to snuff under OS X - yet.



    Advantage of Diskwarrior is it will allow you to preview its changes before committing to them.



    Norton can uncover problems in multiple layers if you run it over and over until it find no errors....



    Standard advice to all my clients: Run Norton and/or Diskwarrior BEFORE you have problems, on a schedule, and then you'll be a very very happy Mac user.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    xaqtlyxaqtly Posts: 450member
    I love DiskWarrior. It doesn't do everything that Norton does, but what it does do, it does much better than Norton does. DW has fixed directory problems that Norton just gave up on.
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