From: werner@cs.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Apple's system utilities (was Re: Do you trust Disk First Aid 7.1?)
Date: 22 Jan 1993 11:47:03 -0600
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: dimebox.cs.utexas.edu

 Ralph.Martin@cm.cf.ac.uk (Ralph Martin) writes:
|
|| Do you trust Disk First Aid 7.1?
|
> No.
|
|| I checked the Frog using Disk First Aid 7.1. It found "invalid sibling"
|| I ran Disk First Aid ~10 times; [only sometimes did] it find a variety of
|| different problems (which I didn't allow it to fix).
|| Norton Utilities finds nothing wrong with the drive and it works just fine.
|
> I have had *exactly* the same symptoms with a Rodime disk with Rodime's
> own Cobra driver. Run DFA on it and it would give an error, and even
> without quitting DFA, run it again on the same disk and it would say it
> was OK. Norton finds nothing wrong. This has been going on for me since
> System 7.0 (perhaps even longer), and its not new to 7.1. In the end I
> have just learnt to ignore it. The disk itself seems OK.

	let's face it, Apple never made a credible effort (if any at all) to
	provide the customer with system maintenance and support utilities that
	"could make a software designer proud" - and SHAME ON THEM for that!

	Most support utilities we have seen released by Apple, quite likely,
	were efforts by well-meaning individual engineers (working on it more
	or less on their own time) which were recognized to perform a useful
	function; too useful to not pass on to others, but never polished
	and maintained to conform with the software standards (interface and
	user-friendliness) that Apple claims to be setting in the industry
	(and calls for in the software of their certified developers) and
	which, I think, we have a (customer) right to expect!

	That said (and one should probably encourage everyone to let Apple
	hear about such sentiments - and repeatedly and via a variety of
	different channels... so that they don't go wrong when they continue
	on their planned path to replace Microsoft as the premier OS software
	company ;-) it seems possible that the problem might just as well be
	with the driver software of those disks not behaving in conformance
	with some assumed "standard" expected by DFA (something never published,
	maybe?  or something completely silly - just as much a possibility),
	something which NU either is unaware of (or not checking for?)....

	Be it as it may, a lot of poor driver software has been developed,
	DFA and NU have had their share of problems, and problems in SCSI
	cables, connectors, soft and firmware are also frequent cause of grey
	hair and nervous breakdowns...  to single out DFA as "particularly
	untrustworthy" seems, to me, uncalled for.  I basically trust it over
	Norton Utilities, for example - though I often wonder why their
	features and capabilities are not better documented, in a manner
	that would allow a person so inclined to study and evaluate and
	compare what it is exactly that they are doing on the users behalf.

	well, you got me started on one of my favorite <grumbles> ...
-- 
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