[yomacdaddy]

TTP has corrupted the data on my drives at least twice. Once when doing a defrag. The other was on general drive maintenance. I was doing the maintenance for no good reason. Just having too much time on my hands and being a bit OCD. All I can say is: don't mess with a drive that is running properly. Run Apple Disk Utility once a month (maybe) and sit back and relax. If you have a serious problem, take it to an Apple Store (if you have one) or use something else (Disk Warrior). I do not trust TTP.

[heisetax]

Apple had similiar shipping time table problemsjm with Mac OS 10.5. They told of the same features in 2 straight Developer's Conferences. Then they had more delays, then more delays that they blamed on the iPhone. Then when it was finally put on the market, many said that they thought it was not ready for prime time even with all of its delays. Tech Tool has done the same thing.

Apple has finally learned that one from itspast experience. MaybeMicromat will remember this programming problem & not say anything of shipping dates in the near future. microsoft had similiar problems with Office 2004 with Virtual PC & again with Office 2008. They actually admitted that the programming for Virtual PC was harder than they expected. With Office 2008they said it had to be delayed until Office 2007 shipped.

[rlav]

I think that DiskWarrior is a great tool, but you do have a point. For some reason I never heard about the most recent DiskWarrior DVD until I actually needed DW and found that the version I owned wouldn't work on my MacBook (not a unibody model), even though I had upgraded fairly recently. It took Alsoft 2 weeks to process my order and then another 2 weeks for the DVD to arrive. It wasn't expensive so I'm not complaining particularly. But your point that it takes too much effort to stay current, and that sometimes that isn't even possible, resonates.
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bq. I also don't think it's viable to require people to purchase new versions/media when apple changes hardware, or releases a new OS (which you'll have to do with the others). Of course, you'll be looking at a significant amount of time before the other makers have the updates available to you even for testing. We USED to use DW and TTP, but around the time 10.3 came out we had to stop. It took far too long for them to release updates for the new OS, and then there was the entire fiasco around 10.4 and the Intel chips... Then there's the problems when new systems come from apple requiring an updated version of the same release (like only booting from 10.5.5 or newer). If the OS on your booting media doesn't meet the requirement, it's useless. More disc burning, or paying for new media from the makers... NOT viable for corporations that need to be able to support user communities immediately. We can't go to them and say we can't fix their system because the tool maker is taking months to release an update, or ship media to us.

[Dan Frakes]

DownLowSturgen said:

Zapping PRAM - I forgot about that one!

Here's a great reference about OS X "voodoo":

http://daringfirebal.../2006/04/repairpermissionsvoodoo

Or there's our comprehensive reference on the topic:

http://www.macworld....ermissions.html

[bousozoku]

While I appreciate the hardware diagnostics within TTP 4.x, I found most of the other functions as dangerous as something from Symantec. Drive Genius is a far better set of tools for drive and volume maintenance.

[Grapho]

I think all this is subjective. I have Drive Genius and I like it. I have not ran it to optimize any of my drives out of fear of losing data, even thou I have a pretty good backups. But in reality, you can potentially lose data to any of these tools, so to be honest people will like the one that has not burned them, or you will like it until it fails.

I have had problems with Norton Disk Doctor (when it existed) and Tech Tool that Disk Warrior fixed, so yes, I am also not a fan of Tech Tool, but this version could be better, so I don't rush to judgment.

[Alec]

I've lost data with TechToolPro as well (an older version, three).
Just running the standard utilities to clear up some fragemented files on a hard drive that was otherwise fully operational. TechTool is all bling. And like Bling, TechToolPro is dangerous.
In my experience, DiskWarrior is the only one of the disk utilities who has an almost clean record of repairing disks without damaging them.