OS X and Norton Utilities 7
Ok,here is the deal. I got the bright idea today to buy Symantec's Norton Utilities 7.0 for OS X.
I applied all patches as soon as it was installed like they tell you to.
I ran the check disk and it says my disk is severly fragmented. so I start the speed disk, all is going good than I get an error so I startup Disk doctor like it tells me to.
Well Disk Doctor finds the error and tells me that I need to start off the boot disk to fix this MAJOR problem as they put it. They say the error has some thing to do with how the system locates files and letting the problem go unfixed could cause the system to not be able to locate files.
I bought this off the Symantec store with the pay and download option. So I don't have no boot disk.
I have read many many times that OS X doesn't need to be defragmented and that OS X checks for errors during bootup.
Now my question is if OS X does all this why is it saying my HD is severly fragmented and that I have an error. If I did have an error OS X would have tried to fix it right? I guess I am just trying to figure out if I actually have a problem.
My computer is not running like it is severly fragmented I used windows for 10+ years and this HD runs nothing like a severly fragmented windows system.
Any help or input on this issue would be great thanks guys!!!
I applied all patches as soon as it was installed like they tell you to.
I ran the check disk and it says my disk is severly fragmented. so I start the speed disk, all is going good than I get an error so I startup Disk doctor like it tells me to.
Well Disk Doctor finds the error and tells me that I need to start off the boot disk to fix this MAJOR problem as they put it. They say the error has some thing to do with how the system locates files and letting the problem go unfixed could cause the system to not be able to locate files.
I bought this off the Symantec store with the pay and download option. So I don't have no boot disk.
I have read many many times that OS X doesn't need to be defragmented and that OS X checks for errors during bootup.
Now my question is if OS X does all this why is it saying my HD is severly fragmented and that I have an error. If I did have an error OS X would have tried to fix it right? I guess I am just trying to figure out if I actually have a problem.
My computer is not running like it is severly fragmented I used windows for 10+ years and this HD runs nothing like a severly fragmented windows system.
Any help or input on this issue would be great thanks guys!!!
Comments
Anyway, I'm using Norton Utilities 7.0 on my iBook and PowerMac with Jaguar 10.2.1, and yes, it regularly says something's happened to my catalog, and recommends I fix it. Since I've built a Firewire startup drive for backups with Retrospect, I took the opportunity to install NUM on it as well. Then, I boot from it, run NUM's Disk Doctor, THEN Speed Disk to tune the partitions on my iBook and PowerMac.
MacOS X DOES get VERY fragmented. The question is how important is that? I also haven't noticed much in the way of a performance hit even when it says the fragmentation is moderate, but I still run it every couple of weeks to keep it clean anyway. I sleep better knowing my free space is pretty much all together, and my files are similarly cleanly consolidated, but I'm not sure the OS cares much.
If you don't have multiple partitions on your HD to create a separate startup volume, I'd suggest booting from your MacOS X startup disk. It will automatically startup the install app, but just quit from that, then run the Disk Utility on the CD to check your Mac's HD. Its repairs are not as robust, but if anything seriously is wrong, it will probably find and fix it. Also, when you have booted from your HD, I'd suggest running Disk Utility from there as well (it's in your Applications/Utilities directory), and clicking on the Repair Permissions button (this must be run from/on the booted volume, otherwise it will report all the permissions are wrong). That seems to keep some apps from seeming to crash when they hang because a permission on a key file has gone awry.
Finally, if you really want to regularly use NUM, you need to find a way to boot up from a drive other than your MacOS primary startup partition. You can't make important repairs on the startup volume. The easiest/cheapest way is to simply rebuild your single hard drive into multiple partitions, then create one with MacOS 9.2.2 (for Classic) and one for you primary MacOS X use. NUM will also run from MacOS 9 and check your OS X partition. You can also create a third partition and install a minimal OS X with only your utilities apps, and perform maintenance from that partition.
I hope this helps.
[ 10-09-2002: Message edited by: Dave Marsh ]</p>
Update: Thank god for Backup... lol I got my favorites back from it.
[ 10-09-2002: Message edited by: BrianMacOS ]</p>
<strong>Recently I noticed it was taking slightly longer to log in to OS X (Jaguar), and that it seemed to be hitting the hard drive quite a bit. So I started up in single user mode and ran fsck -y and rebooted. After that login was lightning quick just like it used to be, and it's still quick. So I'd say just run fsck and see if it helps. I'm still not convinced Norton knows what they're doing with OS X.</strong><hr></blockquote>
mind repeating that in english? <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> i get most of it except single user mode... whats that? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">
OS X doesn't need to be defragmented, it's UNIX.
Norton 7 totally hosed my 10.1.5 system once. I ran disk doctor, then optimized it. Afterwards I had to erase, format, and reinstall to get the system back up. I don't think Norton has a handle on OS X yet.
Drive 10 reportedly hoses people's systems on a regular basis as well.
I ask you this: If OS X needed to be defragged, why wouldn't there be a free, open source defragging utility for Darwin? Think about it....UNIX geeks would write their own defragger if any UNIX system needed one. But they haven't.
- reboot holding the apple and 's' keys
- at the prompt, enter this command:
- If you get a message saying **** FILESYSTEM WAS MODIFIED ****, then run it again. Repeat until it says your disk is okay.
- enter this command:
Done!/sbin/fsck -y
reboot
Norton 7 I borrowed from a friend--it's the latest one, with speed disk, and the Disk Doctor feature kept reporting weird errors and just generally feeling...sketchy. Had trouble rebooting once.
I still have it, Stuffed and archived, but I doubt I'll be using it.
Instead I boot into 9, from my 9 partition or my iPod, then use the Speed Disk and Disk Doctor utilities. Works great, no problems rebooting. Make certain you have fully upgraded with all of updates to 6 before you try this, as I believe earlier versions don't work.
i also have DiskWarrior, which I also recommend highly, which usually only comes out when I have hit the skids with a big problem.
For me, I just don't trust ANY of the OSX native disk utilities yet. I use X for everything else, but until I lose the ability to boot into 9 (and that won't be until a new machine) I like sticking with what works.
Your milage may definitely vary.
<strong>"fsck" instructions:
- reboot holding the apple and 's' keys
- at the prompt, enter this command:
- If you get a message saying **** FILESYSTEM WAS MODIFIED ****, then run it again. Repeat until it says your disk is okay.
- enter this command:
Done!</strong><hr></blockquote>/sbin/fsck -y
reboot
Thanks, Brad!
It was very empowering to fsck my computer for the first time. It looks like it regained about 1GB of my hard drive... Is that what it does? (I do a lot of downloading and deleting)