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Welcome to Techsurvivors => Tech => Topic started by: chriskleeman on October 06, 2011, 09:58:19 PM

Title: Prosoft Drive Genius
Post by: chriskleeman on October 06, 2011, 09:58:19 PM
Just curious...

Anyone have any experience with Prosoft Drive Genius? I'm about to buy an external notebook sized drive from OWC, and they're offering Drive Genius as a bonus offer.

Thanks,

Chris  Thinking.gif
Title: Prosoft Drive Genius
Post by: Xairbusdriver on October 07, 2011, 08:48:01 AM
I have it (v. 3.0.2), but your question caused me to check my new machine. Sure enough, I have not installed it! I'm sure I ran it, at least to see what it offered, but I couldn't tell you what I found! blush-anim-cl.gif I bought it through the same method you're seeing, I'm just a sucker for inexpensive apps! laughhard.gif I can't even remember what the price was but I guess I'd have to say I haven't recovered the cost by finding/correcting anything it would have found. Might as well re-install it. Of course, it is also a bootable disk and may not even boot on this machine. dntknw.gif

How's that for a ringing recommendation?!! WOW.gif

BTW, I assume that you are looking for a "notebook sized" drive so it would be easier to carry? Most of those 2.5 inch drives are slower than their 'adult' brethren. dntknw.gif

UPDATE: I inserted the disk and finally got a request for the serial number...which is on the disk inside the drive, of course.. A previous dialog gave me a choice to install the app or use it on the DVD. The text said that if I chose the DVD it would have to be in the drive "anytime I used the app." I assume that means when I'm using the app from the disk. doh.gif But if that text is an example of the interface, I'm not too encouraged... All this disk grinding started just after the original post and the drive is still grinding away after I clicked the "Quit" button. I have no idea what it is doing since it should simply be sitting there waiting for me to eject it!? Weird! wacko.gif Of course Finder won't eject the disk as it is still doing something with it...maybe Spotlight Indexing (which I thought I had turned off for DVDs). dntknw.gif Hmn, no such option in Spotlight, you must select specific items, not a generic drive/disk. Another useless feature of Spotlight...must find a way of completely disabling/removing that thing... sad.gif
Title: Prosoft Drive Genius
Post by: jchuzi on October 07, 2011, 09:11:50 AM
See if any of the links at this MacWorld page have some useful information. I haven't used DG myself so I can't comment from personal experience.
Title: Prosoft Drive Genius
Post by: TuleTrooper on October 08, 2011, 10:11:15 PM
I have had Drive Genius in my arsenal of disk utilities for several years. I keep it on a minimal install of Snow Leopard along with DiskWarrior, Data Rescue, SuperDuper and of course Disk Utility. Up until recently I mostly used it for it's Scan feature to check for bad blocks as DiskWarrior and Disk Utility have fixed most every problem I have ran into. That is until couple of weeks ago. If it wasn't for Drive Genius I would have lost 3.5 TB of data. This included my main hard drive in my laptop along with both backups of that drive on two separate external hard drives. It is kind of a long story but if you are interested in the details you can read them here: Mac OS Hints Forum
Yes after that experience I would highly recommend Drive Genius. I was able to get all of my data back intact when even DiskWarrior wasn't able to.
Title: Prosoft Drive Genius
Post by: chriskleeman on October 10, 2011, 01:11:34 PM
Great info TuleTrooper!

Thanks for the link to the whole story, much appreciated!

That's just the kind of information I was looking for to make a decision about whether to take the heavily discounted price on it which is bundled with the OWC backup drive. I'm going to be doing a fair amount of software upgrades and changes on my MBP pretty soon, and I wanted to have something around other than the light version of TTP which is included with my AppleCare.

Plus, the drive in my MBP is approaching 3 years of fairly heavy use, you never know...

Thanks so much! salute.gif

Chris  thanx.gif
Title: Prosoft Drive Genius
Post by: Xairbusdriver on October 10, 2011, 03:46:10 PM
QUOTE
you never know...
Oh, you know...it's the WHEN that you don't know... rolleyes.gif Guess I might as well throw DG onto that external boot drive.
Title: Prosoft Drive Genius
Post by: gunug on October 10, 2011, 06:34:01 PM
I don't have a new enough version of Drive Genius (1.?) but it didn't seem useful enough to upgrade.  I have used Diskwarrior a lot and have updated/upgraded it on my own dime several times!
Title: Prosoft Drive Genius
Post by: Paddy on October 11, 2011, 11:56:11 AM
It does seem to have some mixed reviews from users, Chris:

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20018603-263.html

(see last user comments)

I've been happy with my backups (minimum of 3 at any one time) and DiskWarrior. I've never encountered a problem like TuleTrooper has, though. eek2.gif