[comp.sys.mac.system] NUM vs MacTools

rocek@max.physics.sunysb.edu (Martin Rocek) (04/23/91)

There have been many posts about how wonderful NUM is. I want to
report my experience and ask if this is an isolated incident.  I had
a floppy that was zapped during a crash.  The floppy contained only
one current file; other stuff on it had been dumped into the trash.
I made a couple of copies
with CopyIIMac, and tried to recover middle-length TexTures file with
text and pictures.  NUM found lots of files that it claimed could be
recovered, but they were mostly garbage. It didn't find my file.
MacTools found only one file that it could recover: the one I needed.
It saw unrecoverable scraps of other things, but let them be. 
Was this an exception, or have other people had similar experiences,
but are they too seduced by NUM's flashy interface to talk about it?
					Martin Rocek

ralph@cm.cf.ac.uk (Ralph Martin) (04/24/91)

Well, I can't say anything about MacTools, but I've certainly had problems 
with NUM - for example, a disk which NUM says is OK, and which Disk First Aid
reports it is unable to verify the status of.

Also, SUM has a nice feature NUM doesn't - if a disk goes bad, NUM will only
offer to recover files as individual files. SUM will try to recover all of the 
files in a given directory, which can be VERY useful if you know you have only
modified one directory since backup etc.

Ralph