Norton Speed Disk works incorrectly

[James0098]

I can't get my Norton Speed Disk to work correctly, it gets past the first checking bits, but when it gets to optimising, it crashes, can i get it for X?
I have tryed it in Classic mode but that doesn't work, i think i have re installed it to, and i don't think it's the prefs.
I know it doesn't work in 10.1.2 (why i upgraded i dont quite know), it did work in 10.1.1.

Can anyone help? :confused:

[hschickel]

Assuming you're using Norton Utilities 6.03 (part of Norton Systemworks 1) I would try the following:

1. Boot into OS 9 - Norton will not work from X or Classic.
2. Run Disk First Aid 8.6.1 or better on the partitions you want to optimize.
3. Run Norton Disk Doctor 6.03 on the paritions you want to optimize.
4. Check the memory on Norton Speed Disk - Norton Systemworks Folder/Norton Utilities Folder/Norton Tools/Speed Disk - I keep mine set at 300000 but anything over 100000 should be fine.
5. Run Norton Speed Disk.

After I run Norton Speed Disk I use Tech Tool 3 to delete and rebuild the desktop then I boot into X and update the prebinding with Xoptimize.

Running this series once every month or two seems to dramatically speed up my system.

Hugh

[James0098]

ok, it was at under 2MB for the memory, but have bummped it up to 300000 prefered, so lets see now.

Ill be back, after a bit of optimising ...

[ehparis]

Do not use Tech Tools Pro 3.05 on an OSX volume. There is no support for OS X with TTP.

Disk Warrior 2.1 is fully supported for an OS X volume and is recommended for general maintenance.

Speed Disk 6.03, not earlier, may be used on a MacOS X volume but do not under any circumstances run the default profile. There are other profiles available and assorted mac.com sites have custom OS X profiles available.

Use of TTP 3.05 or Speed Disk 6.03 in a manner not as described will cause loss of data on a OSX volume. Guaranteed. :(

[oeyvind]

DO NOT use Disk Warrior on your Mac OS X volume if you have folder/file name in Unicode (i.e. Chinese, Korean, Japanese), if not DW will definately loose the info!

[Chas]

Please don't use Classic disk utilities like Norton Speed Disk on MacOS X volumes! (Sorry, had to try the VBcode gadgetry).

Unix isn't like MacOS 9, if you have disk problems, boot into single-user mode and run fsck. You do not need to optimize MacOS X disk volumes. Unix disk systems don't mind being fragmented, they're optimized to work well under fragmented conditions.

If you run fsck and still have problems, boot into Classic and run Disk First Aid. That's about as far as you can go safely without native MacOS X utils.

[ehparis]

I quite agree with your comment about Unicode and should have qualified my comment....maybe. As a generalization, since most users are not going to be Unicode I don't see that as an issue. Alsoft is supposed to already have that fixed and ready for the OS X version when it ships. That's about the only change made in the "OS9" vs. OS X version.

As for not running "OS9" utilities with Unix, with all due respect Speed Disk 6.03, if properly used, is compatible with OSX, one of the reasons it was last upgraded. There is a caveat in the upgrade about not using the default setting. No one apparently reads it based on the problems I've read about. I have a couple of profiles for OS X. The one I like best was written by Donna Ainsworth (sp?), a regular on MacFixIt and an Apple Genius in one of their retail stores.

Disk Warrior 2.1 will shortly be released as Disk Warrior X with virtually no modifications. DW is not dependant on the low level disk routines that were finally supposed to have been firmed up by Apple with 10.1.2. That's why we're going to soon (hopefully) have a Retrospect 5.

Unix, Linux, and assorted *nix geeks are most welcome to the Macintosh platform, included those of us who have been running *nix servers for Mac sites for more than a few years. However, with all due respect, DW 2.1 and Speed Disk 6.03 are fully compatible with OS X if used properly, and the last thing IMHO we need to be telling Mac users, more than 80% of the present established base, is to launch Terminal and start typing fsk, sudo, de or whatever. 1/2 of them are staying away from X now because they're afraid of Unix. These two long time Mac utilities are compatible and there's no reason why the average user needs to find out about the command line just to do routine maintenance.

This is indeed a philosophical thing, but all the assorted geeks, and I include myself, who wish to brush off the average Mac user who has not converted for one reason or another doesn't need the command line. That user needs utilities like MacJanitor or Super Get Info more than they need to know how to type in sudo sh /etc/monthly.

I would much rather see the average user using DW 2.1 on a regular basis than typing in sudo update_prebinding -root / or they can find a freeware util that does their prebinding without ever opening Terminal.

"Mac users" now consist of two different worlds. They need to meet. They need to understand the needs each has.

Getting down off my soap box......dusting myself off......

:)

[hschickel]

A couple of followups:

1. Norton Utilities (Disk Doctor / Speed Disk) 6.03 absolutely work on X volumes. In fact - they work wonders.

2. I should have noted (as many folks have pointed out) that one needs to choose the right profile to optimize with speed disk. Speed Disk for X (you need to download it) or 3.2 both work fine.

3. Deleting and rebuilding the desktop with Tech Tool 3 is perfectly safe and will help out your Classic performance.

4. Most users of X are working on an HFS+ file system. As such, they will need to regularly defrag their drives for optimum performance. (This is one area where we do not get the benefits of Unix yet. We'll have to move on to a new filesystem which is probably a couple of years down the road yet for most users.)

Hugh

Edit - spelling correction.

[Chas]

Seriously guys, I benchmarked this. I had a heavily fragmented MacOS X boot drive, I defragged and optimized it so it had gigs of contiguous free space, and disk performance was exactly the same. The old MacOS 9 drivers are not driving these disk volumes, they are HFS+ vols but accessed through Unix HFS+ drivers. The new drivers are very efficient even in heavily fragged conditions. Go ahead and try it but I saw a 0% increase in performance, even on my high speed U2W SCSI system with 10k rpm drives.

Anyway, I don't get the paranoia about using the command line. There's really nothing to doing fsck, you just hit Y when it asks you if you want to repair things. And you do want to repair things.

[Elessar]

Where can one obtain the custom Speed Disk profiles?

[lerkfish]

Chas: its not clear to me from your posts whether you have a unix-formatted (UFS) OSX partition/drive or a mac HFS+ formatted one.

As I understand it, If you've installed OSX on a HFS+ drive, the latest version of speed disk using the profile of "speed disk 3.2" will work safely, and in fact I can verify my use of it without problems thus far. I can even detect a perceptible speed increase when used occasionally (though this could also be placebo effect).

but, I also run fsk every once in a while to be sure.

[lerkfish]

Originally posted by Elessar
Where can one obtain the custom Speed Disk profiles?

I downloaded one from a now forgotten source, but in truth, I saw no difference between using it and using the factory included "speed disk 3.2" profile.

[hschickel]

I'll post an X version of the Speed Disk profile on my iDisk. You can type www.hschickel.com to get it. As mentioned, 3.2 seems to work just fine though.

Hugh

[Phil St. Romain]

I've also had no trouble with Norton Utilities 6 and OS X (HFS +). Speed Disk and Disk Doctor have both helped keep things running smooth and snappy.

I would also recommend Xoptimize, a freeware utility which can be run in OS X. Use it after a software install. Note, it doesn't defrag; only does prebinding optimizing.

Phil

[James0098]

ive done what people have said

here's how it went

0.5: increased memory to norton speed disk
1: ran disk doctor(5), made some hidden files appear by pressing the wrong thing (DOH!)
2: ran speed disk (from a zip as i can't find the cd) it crashed 1 3rd of the way through
3: all things working, except for the hidden files, logged in as root to see if i could fix some files from there ... couldn't
4: decided to reinstall (custom install, there should be more options and you shuld be able to boot from it!) 10.1 (dont say i didnt need to!) for safety's sake
5: got back on, hidden files had gone (happy), re-downloaded updates from the apple update program
6: im happy again, except for the optimisation bit, but it can wait since the unix can cope!

[Spiff]

as a counterweight to the positive comments re: Speed Disk and X

I did the same under OS 9.

Seemed to work fine.

Rebooted under X and permissions and whatnot were totally outta whack. Had to reinstall to get the system functional again.

Data was not lost, its just that access privileges were nicely hosed.

[dennisbest]

Thanks for the excellent discussion. I was using the speed disk X profile and disk doctor from my classic partition about once a week, more if I remembered before going to bed.

I think it had a psychological effect on me to see all the contiguous space in speed disk, but I now wonder if the performance was enhanced. Considering the time to reboot and check the disk before optimizing, it probably wasted time.

I still don't understand how any operating system "can handle a fragmented disk well"?? Isn't the basic idea that the arm or needle or whatever has to physically move all around the disk to get to stuff and that optimizing puts stuff in some sort of order and/or closer together?

I really want to believe that stuff about unix handling fragmented disks well.... but it defies logic... Forgive my ignorance.

[iGreg]

Originally posted by hschickel
I'll post an X version of the Speed Disk profile on my iDisk. You can type www.hschickel.com to get it. As mentioned, 3.2 seems to work just fine though.

Hugh
---
I have been using the default General profile with Speed Disk 6.03 on OS 10.1.2.

I see the 3.2 profile but know zip about it. Is it specifically meant to be used on OS X? If so, why didn't they label it as such?