[comp.sys.mac.misc] NUM Speed Disk Trashes Disk

ralph@computing-maths.cardiff.ac.uk (Ralph Martin) (08/06/90)

Be Warned!! I have just received NUM, and tried the Speed Disk option. It 
worked OK on one disk (a 140mb Rodime), but trashed another (a 210Mb Cobra)
saying an unknown error had occurred. The Norton Emergency Disk was brought
into play, and it found lots of errors - and most annoyingly, was unable
to fix them all. So, its back to my backup.
So, DO NOT BELEIVE THE NORTON ADVERTISING HYPE where they say that competitors
(SUM) are wimps when advising you to backup before doing anything risky.
Symantec may be wimps, but they may not be stupidly arrogant!
Ralph

cy@dbase.A-T.COM (Cy Shuster) (08/08/90)

Point well taken on marketing hype.

The safest way to run Speed Disk (after backing up, of course!) is to 
run Norton Disk Doctor first, letting it fix any errors encountered, 
and then run Speed Disk in its default Easy mode, which not only scans 
the entire disk for media defects, but also checks for things like 
cross-linked files that can prevent any disk optimizer from working.  

I sympathize with the problem you had, as I beta-tested the
utilities (Disclaimer Alert); however, I must applaud Peter Norton 
for resisting the temptation to ship NUM at the *last* MacWorld,
and instead working very hard to clean up exactly these problems.
It didn't ship until we couldn't crash it any more.

--Cy--    cy@dbase.a-t.com    My opinions only.