Customer Reviews

Drive Genius 3

5 star:		(80)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Just wanted to update the user community that the current shipping version of Drive Genius 3 will not boot from DVD with the newest Macs released after July 2009 including the i5 and i7 laptops. See the excerpt below straight from Prosoft's website. Drive Genius 3 is an excellent product. I have been using DG since version 2. However, much of the functionality is only available when booting from the DVD. Without this ability, the software is very limited. You can monitor your drives, but you can not repair them.

"...At this time, the current boot technology provided by Apple is based off the 10.5.8 operating system and is capable of booting machines released up to June of 2009. Apple has not released a new DDK to help support machines newer than June of 2009, which include i5 and i7 machines. This means the newest machines will be unable to boot from the current Drive Genius 3 DVD until Apple releases the new Disk Development Kit."

I upgraded from Mac Genius 2 to 3, after reading the review in Mac User (26:11).
I got a hard drive corruption warning, not picked up by either Mac Genius 2 or TechTool 5.
Attempts to restart the computer from DVD (either pressing C or ALT) failed, with Mac Genius 3, TechTool Pro 5, original Mac OS installation DVD and a replacement Mac OS DVD from Applecare.
Attempts to backup from Time Machine also failed.
Applecare (second call) recommended returning my iMac for a replacement hard drive.
David at Mac Genius customer service recommended connecting the poorly iMac to my MacBook Pro via firewire (new style, smaller connector), and restarting the iMac in Target disc mode (restart pressing T) and using Mac Genius 3, installed on the MacBook Pro, (Mac Genius 3 has a 3 user agreement), to repair the iMac hard disc.
I am very happy to report that this has worked and the computer runs perfectly, with no warnings.
David explained that the current disc development kit released by Apple, will only allow Macs released before June 2009, to boot from DVD. This issue applies to all developers who use Apple's boot disk technology to run their software, including Alsoft (DiskWarrior) and MicroMat (TechToolPro). Apple has simply mentioned that the latest disk development kit will be released soon, but they have not provided us a release date.
ProSoft Engineering (Mac Genius 3), have put me on the update list to receive the updated version of the DVD boot software as soon as Apple release it.
TechTool Pro 5 contains the option of an e-drive, to restart without using the DVD, however this option was not available because I also run BootCamp. You get an error message if you attempt to set up e-drive on a Mac also running BootCamp.
Applecare didn't appear to be aware of the DVD boot issue and it wasn't mentioned in the Mac User article.
I am very impressed with both this product (Mac Genius 3) and the level of customer service from ProSoft Engineering.

I used the new Drive Genius 3 to defrag my main Mac HD. Had a problem and their support people had it fixed with in hour. I have had Drive Genius for years and this new upgrade is very good and their support is excellent.

The reason for purchase of Drive Genius 3 was for the defrag capability and other utilities. I have an iMac with the Intel icore 5, 4 CPUs. Can't boot to the DG3 disk because of a known problem where Apple has not released to developers the code for the core 5 & 7 CPUs for writing a boot sector (according to the tech support at Prosoft). I booted to an external drive to run defrag for my boot drive. During the process of defrag, the internal drive became corrupt with no possible recovery other than a repartition, format of the drive. I run Superduper, a utility that backs up my internal boot drive to my external drive and also makes it bootable. It is a good thing that I had all the internal boot drive's content backed up on the external drive. I used Superduper to restore the internal boot drive. I discovered that this also defrags because the files are written sequentially. I tried to restore from Time Machine by calling Apple for help during my problem. It turns out that using the install DVD with OS X Snow Leopard boots but the Time Machine retore operation stops part way through the restore after rebooting to the internal boot drive. I suspect the reason is because there is no operating system on the internal hard drive during the restore process.

Bottom line, I feel the best way to defrag safely is to have a program like Superduper where erasing and reformat of the internal boot drive from the external back up drive and then a restore. That produces zero percent fragmentation.

I recently bought ProSoft's Data Backup and Drive Genius for the Mac.

I have been unhappy with Apple's Time Machine, since I could not find a way to use it to back up my external hard drive system. Data Backup is very easy and safe to use, as it makes quite clear which source drive is being backed up to which destination drive.

Drive Genius alerted me right away that the hard drive on my Mac Book Pro was so damaged that it should be repaired right away.

I leaned on Jeremy at the ProSoft support desk to email me the steps necessary to create a bootable clone of my broken HD on an external hard drive, erase the MacBook's confused HD completely, load a fresh copy of the OS and effortlessly transfer the cloned copy of all of my files, preferences, applications, libraries, etc. to the new clean drive. When I ran Drive Genius on the repaired drive, I saw that the reintroduced files still held 13% fragmentation, so I defragged the HD by booting up on the software disk. In the end I have a much faster and smooth-running machine with no fragmentation at all, no trips to an Apple Store or loss of my computer for repair--and no fee. Data Backup 3 By Prosoft Engineering]]Drive Genius 3. This took hours of time for all the copying and saves, but I am proud to have been able to fix my own computer!...thanks to the free phone/email support of Jeremy.Drive Genius 3Drive Genius 3

Have been using Drive Genius for several years and have always been very happy. But today, pulled the CD out of the case and found the serial number missing. Sent an email to customer support and within minutes Jeremy had emailed me back a number and I am going again.

If only all service issues were like this......

TechTools gave me a hard drive error of bad blocks on my MacBook Pro. Tried to fix with TechTools, but no go. Tried to SuperDuper a clone to protect myself before exchanging drives, but SuperDuper hung (first time I had a problem with that great program. Later contacted them, and got nothing but sarcasm, sadly.) Managed to clone with the updated Chronosync (also a great backup program), then got Drive Genius and Data Rescue from ProSoft. Used all their repair programs, and voila! saved thousands of my lost photos from the bad blocks. Re-cloned, this time successfully with SuperDuper, exchanged HDs, restored my clone to the new HD, and all is well. Now using Drive Genius instead of TechTools mostly.

Had some issues while overseas with Drive Genius ProPulse telling me my HD was bad (files and volumes) pretty much every week, usually due to a mismatch of volumes and files of only one or two of each, not really worth bothering with the thumb drive, rebooting, etc. Got quick service on a new build (free download), and no worries since. But several of my smaller questions remain unanswered. Maybe I'm a pest, maybe they're busy with more important stuff. Hard to say.

Either way, darn good product and worth every penny. As for complexity, I think its more due to confusing instructions on their website for simple things (like how to create a thumb drive in my case), some folks not wanting to take the time to learn the basics, and not having a policy to answer every single query within a contact, even when they seem simple. In general, being a very picky person regarding support, I give their support a good, not an excellent, but the program rates super.

Does a great job for most Hard Drive repair and diagnostic issues. It's easy to use and the customer support is quick to respond to any concern or problem.

Macs don't require much system management, but I seem to have friends who attract problems, and I fall into the occasional open manhole myself. I have a number of Mac systems that I keep running, and I need a reliable tool for fixing the occasional disk problem, cleaning up the system I've been using forever, and reconfiguring things when I upgrade something. Drive Genius 3 does everything I need with respect to disks and disk problems. I particularly appreciate the ability to repartition drives without erasing them, a capability that the previous tools I've owned have not provided.

The product is straight-forward to use, though it has a few quirks with keep me from giving it 5 stars. For example, when running an "off line" operation such as disk defragmenting of the system volume, the interface is very minimal. It gives an indication of its progress percentage, and you can stop it, but you cannot do anything else, and there's no estimate of the remaining time to complete the process.

I needed some help with Drive Genius when the DVD I had for some time wouldn't boot on my newly-purchased system. I had also misunderstood a message that appeared on the screen, and thought I could not do something that the product in fact does. I called customer support, and had a wonderful experience. The tech understood immediately what my problem was, explained clearly what I had not understood, and provided me with the download I needed to create a disk that boots on my new system. Further, he checked back with me a couple of times by email, to make sure I was good to go. I was, and I was delighted with the personal, knowledgeable, and attentive service. The service is five-star: the best I've gotten from any software vendor!

I was having trouble getting my computer to boot from the Drive Genius disk, so that I could defrag my hard drive. Over a few days of going back and forth with Michael in tech support, we were able to figure out that the problem was that I was working on an outdated version of Drive Genius, so Michael arranged to get me a discounted upgrade to Drive Genius 3, a new version which, as a bonus, no longer requires you to boot from the disk in order to defrag the hard drive. Very happy with the service and product!