[tomburton56]

My two cents: A few months ago, during a routine call to Apple Support to recover my keychain (a magic restart did the trick), we found that a "node error" prevented my MacbookPro from starting in safe mode. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gifApple Support doubted that Disk Utility would repair it. (They were right./forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif) I said "What about DiskWarrior?" They said it's not out for Intel yet, and recommended a full reinstall. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif I wrote Alsoft, who suggested that I hang in there. I did (backing up daily as usual), with no problems, until DW4 repaired the disk. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gifTurns out that the node error was in a region used by some Unix freeware I had installed, and not in my OS or user files, which may explain why I was able to wait.

[Bruce8]

responding to the question does DiskWarrior do defragmentation, and which apps do that --
As far as I know, DiskWarrior does not do HD defragmentation of files. Though, years ago, my older copy of DiskWarrior came with their Disk Optimizer, but I don't think they have updated DO in years.
The tools I do have that do disk defragmentation are: Drive Genius and TechTool Pro -- both have defragmenters along with the other disk repair funtions. I believe there is also another tool or tool set called iDegrag and iPartition that do defragmentation.
I agree that a comparison of these heavy duty disk repair tools (and perhaps with defragmenting as a side bar) would be a great feature for MacWorld to run.
So that is my request to MacWorld editorial staff - please run a comparison of DiskWarrior, Drive Genius, TechTool Pro (at least) and possibly a few others (as iDefrag, etc). Feature set comparison at minimum, comparative performance would be better.

[mwheeler]

I just purchased Prosoft Engineering's Data Rescue II and Drive Genius bundle and I have v3 of DiskWarrior after seeing the positive comments on DW 4 I'll be upgrading to v4 soon as well.
I also would like to see a head-to-head comparison of these disk tools as well as the others that have been mentioned here such as TTP v4.5, iDefrag and iPartition.
I bought Norton System Works years ago and it was pure junk and I will never buy another Norton product again if I can help it. So there is no need whatsoever to review anything from Symantec/Norton as far as I'm concerned.

[deemery]

A very pleasant surprise: DW now handles FileVault encrypted home directories, too!!!
MacWorld hands out very few "5 mouse" scores, this one earned it...

(* apologies to Steve Jobs...)

[deemery]

But the OS X version is free...
I do admit OS X RAID could use a lot of improvements, though.
dave

[aporcini]

Quote:

---

...a comparison of these heavy duty disk repair tools (and perhaps with defragmenting as a side bar) would be a great feature for MacWorld to run.
So that is my request to MacWorld editorial staff - please run a comparison of DiskWarrior, Drive Genius, TechTool Pro (at least) and possibly a few others (as iDefrag, etc). Feature set comparison at minimum, comparative performance would be better.

---

Dear editors, If it makes any difference, let me add my voice requsting a clear comparison.
I've always kept copies of both DW and TTP because each seems to be able to fix things the other can't. E.g., TTP just fixed a corrupt directory on my Quicksilver that DW couldn't. But I always wonder, as I upgrade, if I'll ever be able to rely on just one.

[hinkelman]

I was disappointed with Diskwarrior 3 because when it recovered my hard disk, all 100,000 files were separated from the folders they were in. Impossible to clean up. Has version 4 fixed this major problem? Otherwise it is unusuable for me.

[whitedog]

DiskWarrior is certainly the best at what it does, though most of its functions can be duplicated in TechTool Pro and Drive Genius. I have them all, plus Data Rescue, and keep them up to date. As far as speed goes, DiskWarrior 4 is, in my experience, significantly faster than earlier versions. Recent updates to TechTool Pro have also improved performance.
I have had mixed results adjusting partitions with Drive Genius. It does fine most of the time but when it fails, as it sometimes does, in the middle of an operation, you can loose a drive or partition. In which case, Data Rescue can help; though you loose file names, it can recover the data. While it can be convenient to reorganize your drive partitions, I recommend in the strongest possible terms that you back up your data before doing so. Of course, if your partitions are backed up on another drive, you can reformat the volume you want to adjust and then restore the data to it - thus avoiding using Drive Genius altogether for this procedure.
Each product has its strengths; besides being very effective, DiskWarrior has the most user friendly interface. TechTool Pro is the most complex while Data Rescue and Drive Genius suffer from a relatively poor interface design.
If you only have one computer to look after buying all these utilities may look like prohibitively expensive overkill. But if you are responsible for more than one machine, you will find a reason to use each of them sooner or later.
As for defragmenting hard drives, on a desktop Mac the drive may be big enough that optimizing it is rarely called for. But with the growing dominance of laptop computers, which have smaller drives that fill up much more easily, defragmenting the drive regularly can be very important. While file fragmentation may not significantly affect performance, it is vital to consolidate available free space so that OS X will have sufficient room for virtual memory to work efficiently. Fragmented free space on a crowded laptop hard drive can definitely impair performance. And some applications, like Adobe Photoshop, have their own virtual memory requirements which also benefit from an abundance of unoccupied space.

[jedi228]

I have nothing bad to say about the software itself. I've used DW for years and vouch for the quality of the software. My complaints are that I ordered the software about a month ago and they haven't shipped it yet. They don't send out any email notification or receipt. I called them and they said it was normal to take 4-6 weeks for delivery. (Their office is 20 minutes from my house) This is ridiculous.

[kindall]

Here is a review I wrote of version 3 which explains the only real flaw in the program: versiontracker
Is the new version any improvement? Or does DiskWarrior still want you to manually compare every folder in the rebuilt directory to the corresponding folder in the original to try to figure out what files or folders were lost or recovered?
It's the best disk utility out there, and when I get an Intel Mac I'll definitely upgrade, but it doesn't deserve the highest rating with that flaw.

[macnuke]

it only asks if you want to.
you do not have to if you don't want to ( version 3 )
so if there is a flaw, it's only cause you choose to compare.. also known as operator error.
you can cancel the comparison at anytime.

[longofest]

Quote:

---

Is there a nice application to compliment Disk Warrior that does disk defragmentation?

---

I have found Coriolis System's iDefrag to be very good. http://coriolis-syst...com/iDefrag.php
As for DiskWarrior. I actually have to say that I have actually had multiple times where DiskWarrior has failed to repair my disk. Granted, no other utility could repair the disk either, so I would always have to do an initialization and re-install. I have suspected that these times have been related to heavy-fragmentation, because ever since I began using iDefrag, I have not had an unrepairable problem.

[macnuke]

it's called maintenance for a reason /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
I run it routinely on my drives.
and so far, I have not had to re-install an OS on a Mac since they started putting hard drives in them.
as far as fragmentation.
iDefrag is tops.
but also know that OS X defrags files that are <20M on the fly.
if you are a heavy A/V work, you really should have a separate scratch disk for that.
a startup disk for a normal users disk stands little chance of crossing 2% fragmentation during it's lifetime....took me ~7 years on a G3 to hit 2%.
now the directory is a different matter..... hence... the need for maintenance...... i.e. DiskWarror/TTP/Drive Genius.

[Ilgaz]

I always wonder something and I have even asked in Versiontracker getting no replies.
Back in old days, a disk utility, commercial one would find problems on your disk which system's built in free one had no clue about, saying "disk is OK".
Is Diskwarrior one of these types of utilities?