From: ProSoft Engineering Average Rating: Binding: CD-ROM Format: DVD-ROM Label: ProSoft Engineering Model: 52100 Platform: Macintosh Release Date: February 10, 2008
Features:
Disk defrag - optimizes the drive, then combines all the empty free space together into one contiguous block. This in turn improves the overall speed and performance of the drive
Directory repair, repartition on-the-fly, device/volume cloning, integrity testing, benchmarking, secure erase and several other tools to help maintain your hard drive
Your hard drive should be defragged every 2 months or so. If you are working with smaller files (Microsoft Office, emails) you should run defrag every 3 to 4 months
OS X only optimizes files under 20MB. It also only optimizes the files not the drive, so even though the smaller files are optimized there can be empty space in between the files themselves. Drive Genius 2 has the ability to optimize the drive, by putting all pieces of the file together
Able to repartition your hard drive 'on-the-fly' (no need to reformat the hard drive) allowing you to add, delete, hide or expand partitions live.
Product Description: Is your Mac running slower? You probably need to defrag your drive. Although OS X optimizes the files in the Mac, it doesn't optimize the drive itself. Drive Genius 2 has the ability to defrag, directory repair and repartition on-the-fly. This is the same product used by Apple at the Genius Bar to defrag your drive (Part of the ProCare program offered by Apple). This software makes hard drive maintenance tasks painless, fast and easy. So prevent disaster by using Drive Genius 2 to maintain your computer.
Bootable DVD allows you to boot directly from the DVD Features - Partition, Shred, Details, Initialize, Duplicate, Integrity Check, Repair, Rebuild, Verify, Fix Permissions, S.M.A.R.T Status, Defragment, Benchtest, Surface Scan, Sector Editor (for expert users only).
System Requirements DVD drive Mac OS 10.4.9 or newer User interface animations require Quartz Extreme support (G4 or newer) 256mb RAM 1.0GHz processor minimum
Drive genius to boot I was incredulous to find that the original copy of Drive Genius 2 that I received would not boot up an Intel Mac. I contacted Prosoft and they sent me not one, but two copies of the new, improved disk, which does work on my computer. Make you get the new improved version if you have an Intel Mac.
Total waste I bought this for my 2.4 ghz Macbook Pro running Leopard. It simply doesn't work. I tried it on an older Macbook Pro. It simply doesn't work. I called Prosoft and they said they know it doesn't work. They'll tell you they will send an email in 2 weeks when the problem is fixed. That was 2 months ago. Now, I called them and they still say the same thing. They basically sell a disk maintenance program that does nothing but lock up your Mac. Stay away. Stay far away.
Oh yeah, they won't take back opened software unless you buy it directly from Prosoft. So by the time you find out that you bought garbage, you're screwed.
Drive Genius 2 A Great Tool My PowerBook G4 has been a very dependable laptop. It has never given me any problems. However, it is four years old, has a limited hard drive capacity, 60 GB, and is slow compared to the new Apple models. After installing Leopard it started taking a long time to boot and was running slow with some programs having a hard time just opening. When I started seeing more and more spinning beach balls I knew it was time to do something.
That something was to run it through a utility program, which found some problems but was unable to correct them as I didn't have enough contiguous space to save even a 200 MB file, and though the program could tell me what was wrong it could not fix it.
What to do? I have two utility programs that I run regularly to keep up with the maintenance of my computers but obviously neither program was doing the defragmenting that was needed.
While searching the internet for a solution I discovered Drive Genius 2 by Prosoft Engineering. Drive Genius 2 is designed for Mac OS X and is the disk utility Apple uses at their Genius Bar to defrag your drive. (Part of the ProCare program offered by Apple.)
Drive Genius 2 contains a collection of tools to maintain, manage and optimize your hard drive. Here are a few of the things Drive Genius 2 can do.
* Analyze, Repair and Rebuild OS X directory information. * Defragment OS X drives for optimum performance. * Create high-speed backup clones of most devices. * Securely erase drives. * Add, delete or resize partitions without reformatting. * Long range throughput tests for performance and diagnostics. * Benchtests for comparing drive performance. * Surface scanning to test for media faults. * Low level sector editing for the expert users.
Drive Genius 2 comes on a bootable DVD which allows you to boot from the DVD and work directly on your main hard drive. You can also install the application to work on other internal or external drives.
I began the maintenance and repair session by making a bootable backup of my hard drive just in case something went wrong. I next booted from the DVD. The Drive Genius 2 user interface consists of colorful icons that allow you to choose the specific tool you want to use including Disk Information, Defrag, Benchtest, Repair, Integrity Check and Scan. Proceeding to the next page there are more tool icons including Initialize, Repartition, Duplicate, Shred, and Sector Edit.
I chose the defragmenting tool, selected my hard drive and clicked on start. The user's manual cautions that it will take between 30 minutes and an entire day to complete this process depending on the amount of fragmentation and the speed of your processor. My laptop barely meets the minimum system requirements for this software and it took 48 hours to complete the defragging process. A graphic appears as you begin this process and shows the extent of fragmentation of the hard drive and then another appears when it is finished. Wow, what a difference, the empty spaces were in tiny bits and pieces spread throughout the drive when it began and ended with the filled and empty spaces, respectively, in tight individual sections.
I ran the other repair sequences. Some minor disk structure repairs were done. Then I rebuilt the directory, where some corrections were also made. I ran all the test and repair tools. The tests and comparisons all looked good.
The bottom line - my laptop is back to running smoothly with no more spinning beach balls and no loss of data.
Prosoft's customer service policy includes replacing a lost DVD or sending an updated DVD for a charge of just $5.00. They also offer unlimited free pre and post technical phone or email support.
There are some tools that are too advanced for me and I will probably never use in this collection of hard disk tools but the major maintenance and repair aspects of the software are well worth the investment. Prosoft suggests using this software to maintain and optimize your hard drive on a regular basis (every two to four months) to prevent major problems. I would recommend giving Drive Genius 2 a trial. A free demo is available to download [...]
Doesn't work on newer Mac Installed this product to defrag my HD on my MacBook Pro (OS-X 10), but it didn't work. Cannot boot it from the CD and ProSoft support told me it's Apple's fault because they haven't provided the files they need to make a boot disk. It also doesn't allow me to select HD and here is the work around ProSoft provided: "There is also a bug in the Leopard operating system that affects how it reads and writes data to a serial ATA drive, this is why you are seeing the red exclamation marks. That is a safeguard we had to put into Drive Genius to protect your data.
The current workaround for this issue would be to install Drive Genius onto a second Mac computer, connect the two computers together with a firewire cable, boot up the computer with the drive you are intending to manage into Target Disk Mode ( hold down the letter T at system power-on, and keep the T depressed until you see the firewire icon (a Y with a circle in the center) moving around on the screen ). Then you can run Drive Genius and select the drive in the Target Disk computer for management."
Since the product description didn't say I would need a SECOND computer to use this software, I think it's misrepresented. I'm returning this useless product...
Save your money Anyone as foolish as myself who bought Drive Idiot 1 will be glad to know that if you try to update it it will tell you you have to pay for Drive idiot 2 this is only 2 months after purchase of Drive idiot 1. Drive idiot 1 sucks and doesen't do anything only mess up your MAC HD. Use disk utility it has all the same options as this garnage software.
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