On Oct 29, 2005, at 3:32 PM, G-List wrote:
Subject: Re: [G] Norton SystemWorks 2.0
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 14:30:59 -0400
From: Yersinia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Al Poulin writes,
<In all the comments I've read on four or five Mac lists, it is Norton
Utilities to avoid like the plague.>
Including this list, apparently, as I've been following this thread and
seeing varous listers vehemently insisting that Norton Utilities is
worse
than bad news. Now, is this "Avoid Norton Utilities like the plague!"
advice solely for people running OS X (as the originator of this thread
does), or does it extend to OS 9.x and lower as well?
I ask because I used Norton Utilities Disk Doctor and Speed Disk for
YEARS (on hard drives running OS's 7.5.3 through 9.2.2) and never ONCE
had a problem with either. While in the last year or two maybe (can't
remember exactly when I first tried it), I've come to prefer the Tech
Tools Multitester over Disk Doctor (so I don't use Disk Doctor at all
anymore), I do still use Speed Disk. I just don't see what all this
anti-Norton ruckus is about -- so what exactly is so horrible about it
that other drive utilities aren't guilty of? Or is this just an OS X
thing?
When I made the plague comment, I was thinking primarily of OS X. But
this is not just OS X.
Frankly, like you, I used Norton Utilities with no problem on OS 7.1
through OS 9.1. I know of no problems created by Speed Disk, as long
as one gave it the free space it needed. But during that time, I had
been warned about one version of Disk Doctor that actually trashed hard
drives at first touch. If I recall correctly, this had to do with hard
drives that had been formatted in HFS+. This went on for months until
Symantec (or Norton's previous vendor) sent out a patch, with the
warning that the floppy drive that held the patch must be inserted to
the Mac before running Disk Doctor from CD or from a hard drive.
Beyond that, I remember reading anecdotes about Disk Doctor "fixing"
problems, and fixing the same problems over and over, somewhat like the
crooked automobile mechanic can "find" problems to fix. Other
anecdotes mentioned Disk Doctor not being able to fix real problems
which other utilities were able to handle.
Another knock on Norton Utilities in the older OSs referred
specifically to problems with using one of the little utilities that
ran in the background, "File Saver," or something like that. This was
supposed to make file recovery easier in case of a crash. I thought
Disk Light was a neat feature.
Anyway, the prevailing wisdom came to be not to load Norton Utilities
on the hard drive and to run it cautiously only from its CD.
If you make no big change to your software suite, I see no risk in you
continuing to use NUM, particularly Speed Disk.
Al Poulin
Anger, hate, and revenge are for the devil, forgiveness is for God,
proactive self-defense is for the rest of us.
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