Macs have a reputation for needing little maintenance compared to PCs but after a while, it's inevitable that any Mac owner will start to run into problems. Drive Genius is designed to repair damaged hard drives that may be causing problems or frequent crashes on your machine. However, it's also suitable for those that just want to keep their Mac hard drive in tip top condition catering for those that want to partition, defrag, and even copy the contents of their drive. If you need to test or benchmark your Mac, Drive Genius has a bench test and surface scan feature that allows you to scan for bad sectors that are causing problems. Finally, there's also a handy shredding tool for destroying files and documents that contain sensitive data. What attracts most users to Drive Genius is the fact that it's one of the few Mac utilities that will physically scan for bad sectors. That's also accompanied by one of the best interfaces I've seen on a maintenance program for the Mac since the arrival of Drive Genius has an animated user interface that's a little like cycling through albums in iTunes.
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Each of the functions such as Defrag, Benchtestand Scan animate when you select them. There's nothing complicated about executing each task either - just select the drive you want to scan along the left hand side and click Start. There is little to fault with Drive Genius. Those using slower machines may have problems with the animated menu but you can deactivate it via preferences. Other than to check for regular updates, there are virtually no other preferences though.
Drive Genius is an elegant and comprehensive maintenance tool that should be able to eliminate those bad sectors that have been causing your Mac grief. The system startup volume can now be defragmented without the need of a DVD or alternate startup volume ('live' defrag). DrivePulse™ verifies the preference files of the logged in user and the global preferences located on the startup volume. DrivePulse™ displays visual error and warning status hints in its menu. Up to one month of DrivePulse™ event history can be browsed.
Repartition offers the option to add HFSX volumes. UFS volume support has been removed as Apple is moving away from supporting UFS. ExFAT volume support. (10.6.5+ only) Drobo devices are officially not supported for most tools. Drobos are proprietary devices and due to the way they store and manipulate data on multiple physical drives, Drive Genius cannot safely manipulate that same data.
It is the decision of Data Robotics, Inc to not share the technical information necessary to safely support Drobo devices. Bug Fix: Possible spurious failures when defragging an 8TiB or larger volume. Bug Fix: Missing fragmentation information in the Defrag overview for volumes that contain a very large number of files (such as Time Machine volumes). Bug Fix: Stability improvements to DriveSlim™while searching and while slimming files.
Bug Fix: The DriveSlim™ Universal Binary slimming plan could spuriously fail. Bug Fix: If DriveSlim™ found an application that matched multiple slimming plans and one of the plans was Universal Binary slimming, only the Universal Binary plan would be run on the application. Changes. The system startup volume can now be defragmented without the need of a DVD or alternate startup volume ('live' defrag).
DrivePulse™ verifies the preference files of the logged in user and the global preferences located on the startup volume. DrivePulse™ displays visual error and warning status hints in its menu. Up to one month of DrivePulse™ event history can be browsed. Repartition offers the option to add HFSX volumes.
UFS volume support has been removed as Apple is moving away from supporting UFS. ExFAT volume support. (10.6.5+ only) Drobo devices are officially not supported for most tools. Drobos are proprietary devices and due to the way they store and manipulate data on multiple physical drives, Drive Genius cannot safely manipulate that same data. It is the decision of Data Robotics, Inc to not share the technical information necessary to safely support Drobo devices. Bug Fix: Possible spurious failures when defragging an 8TiB or larger volume. Mission impossible 3 free. Bug Fix: Missing fragmentation information in the Defrag overview for volumes that contain a very large number of files (such as Time Machine volumes).
Bug Fix: Stability improvements to DriveSlim™while searching and while slimming files. Bug Fix: The DriveSlim™ Universal Binary slimming plan could spuriously fail. Bug Fix: If DriveSlim™ found an application that matched multiple slimming plans and one of the plans was Universal Binary slimming, only the Universal Binary plan would be run on the application. Author's review. Get faster performance from your Mac while also protecting it with Drive Genius 4. The award-winning DrivePulse® feature alerts you to hard drive issues before they become major problems.
Top features like Defrag and DriveSlim® will help keep your Mac running fast. BootWell™ lets you create a special bootable secondary drive to Defrag or Repair your main hard drive. Get faster performance from your Mac while also protecting it with Drive Genius 4.
The award-winning and improved DrivePulse® feature alerts you to hard drive issues before they become major problems. Optimized for OS X Mavericks, top features like Defrag and DriveSlim® will help keep your Mac running fast. The all-new BootWell™ tool lets you create a special bootable secondary drive to Defrag or Repair your main hard drive.
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You can also personalize and organize your Mac hard drive icons with I.
Drive Genius for Mac gives you faster performance from your Mac while also protecting it. The award-winning and improved DrivePulse feature alerts you to hard drive issues before they become major problems. Optimized for OS X 10.10 Yosemite, top features like Defrag and DriveSlim will help keep your Mac running fast. The all-new BootWell tool lets you create a special bootable secondary drive to Defrag or Repair your main hard drive.
You can also personalize and organize your Mac hard drive icons with IconGenius. Drive Genius for Mac Features: BootWell Drive Genius’ NEW BootWell™ technology creates a special secondary startup drive that can be used to maintain or repair your main startup drive.
Defragment Optimize your drive for maximum performance. Defragment will re-organize each file into a contiguous area of your drive allowing your computer to perform less work while retrieving your files. Repartition Add, delete, hide, expand or shrink OS X partitions so you can organize your Mac hard drive more efficiently. Repartition enables you to manage (shrink, expand, shift, delete, hide, reveal or customize) partitions (volumes) on your hard drives. Unlike traditional methods of backing up, erasing and repartitioning the drive, Drive Genius for Mac allows you to expand or shrink partitions without erasing them. Clone Automatically determines how your drive is configured, duplicates that configuration to the new drive and then performs the most efficient data copy possible.
Physical Check Checks a drive for hardware related problems that may result from a damaged drive, a bad cable, or a bad connection. Find Duplicates Locates duplicate files and replaces those duplicates with an alias. Find Duplicates is powered by the award-winning technology of DriveSlim®.
Find Large Files Powered by DriveSlim® – Large File Search finds very large files that are taking up space on your hard drive. This could be large video file that came preloaded on your Mac or some funny email attachment someone sent you. It is likely that you are not even aware of these files and Large File Search helps you keep tabs on what files are on your hard drive, allowing you to mark and delete the ones you no longer need. IconGenius™ Set a custom icon for a drive or folder.
Personalize and make drive identification easier with fun, useful and cool icons. Initialize The Initialize utility prepares new drives, or erases old drives, for use with OS X. Drives can optionally be initialized for use with Windows / Camera cards or for use with legacy PowerPC macs.
Speed Measures the optimal raw performance of your drive since it was last connected to your computer. Instant Drive Pulse Runs the most common DrivePulse® tests and provides a pass/fail status for the drive. Active Files Active Files alerts you to files that are in use that may prevent you from shutting down your Mac or ejecting a drive. No more guesswork. Consistency Check Checks for possible file and folder corruption on formatted drives. Detecting and repairing any errors can help prevent data loss.
Repair Can repair most kinds of logical file and folder errors on a drive to prevent future critical problems and potential data loss. Rebuild In circumstances where a file name is lost, the data is still there, but not accessible, Rebuild may be able to list lost file names to the file data again. Fix Permissions Permission inconsistencies can result from bad application installers and lead to applications failing to open or randomly crashing. Secure Erase Overwrites all data using one of five secure patterns designed to make data recovery near impossible, it then creates a newly formatted drive or deletes files and folders. Note: Limited functionality in demo version.
Requires 64-bit processor.
'Drive Genius' is a system utility that manages hard drives or other mounted disk images. This complex utility can do many useful tasks to your system. Besides management, Drive Genius can also provide you statistical data that can be useful. The working mode of this application is given by its split interface that can let you work with volumes or devices.
When working with volumes, the application allows you to use tools like repair, defragment, duplicate, sector edit, shred, integrity check, bench test, and scan. Most of these features are not available in this demo version, but they can be unlocked after you purchase a key. The application can only work with the file systems that it supports.
For example, I have a mounted Windows (NTFS) volume that this application won't display. The 'Devices' mode provides you with tools like repartition, duplicate, sector edit, shred, integrity check, bench test, and scan. These functions are also limited into the demo version. The application doesn't have a 'Preferences' panel. It provides all the functionalities in the main interface.
This makes it very intuitive and easy-to-use. However, be careful when you use functionalities that can damage your data's integrity. A few wrong clicks may destroy your files. Pluses: It's pretty easy to use. It gives you many interesting tools that can modify your drive's configuration. Drawbacks / flaws: The demo version is pretty limited, so I couldn't actually test all of its features.
The application has a weird behavior, when it encounters non-Mac volumes, such as a Windows NTFS partitions. In conclusion: This tool is dedicated for drives maintenance and partitioning. Use the functionalities that you don't know with caution. The application has a good manual. I recommend you to read the manual, especially if you're a novice in hard disk repartitioning. Just remember this: 'It's better to be safe than sorry.' Version reviewed: 1.5.3 What's Required in Version 3.0.2 of Drive Genius.
Drive Genius is a hard-working hard-drive utility from longtime Mac developers Prosoft Engineering, with the honorable distinction of being employed at the Apple Store Genius Bar as part of their ProCare Yearly Tune Up service. The interface of Drive Genius shares some similarities with that of its data-recovery sister program Data Rescue: you navigate through a 3D 'tool arena,' a sort of virtual lazy Susan of hard-drive tasks that's fast and fluid enough to not be annoying (and it's actually kind of fun).
You choose from six primary tasks, Information (with detailed readouts on S.M.A.R.T. Status, file system type, and more), Defrag (to optimize drive speed), DriveSlim (to free up space by eliminating duplicate or unused files), Repair (to verify, repair, or rebuild a volume), Scan (to check for bad blocks), and DrivePulse (a monitoring tool that checks your drive in the background, when your computer is idle-although unfortunately there's no way to turn off its menubar icon if you decide to use it). You can also flip to the other side of the 'tool arena' for even more esoteric tasks: Integrity Check, Initialize, Repartition, Duplicate, Shred (with up to 35-pass Gutmann erasing), Benchtest, and (perhaps scariest of all, 'for expert use only') Sector Edit. Many of these tasks can be time-consuming, but Drive Genius does a good job of keeping you entertained with graphs, lists, and live updates-or you can always just have Drive Genius notify you by email whenever it completes a task.
You'll also want the DVD version of this program (which you can either have mailed to you, or download and burn yourself), so that you can work on your drive when it's not running the OS (or when it won't boot at all). Drive utilities aren't for everyone (and Drive Genius isn't cheap), but if you're interested in keeping your Mac in tip-top shape, it's hard to go wrong with a tool that the pros use. Drive Genius gives you a lot of features in an all-in-one package that's easy to use and understand. Get faster performance from your Mac while also protecting it with Drive Genius 4. The award-winning and improved DrivePulse feature alerts you to hard drive issues before they become major problems. Enhanced and simplified interface to run tools simultaneously on multiple drives.
Optimized for OS X Yosemite, top features like Defrag and DriveSlim will help keep your Mac running fast. The all-new BootWell tool lets you create a special bootable secondary drive to Defrag or Repair your main hard drive. Reply by Prosoft Support on January 28, 2015 Hi Hudsonw We appreciate your comments on the GUI, we are always looking for input on how to make the software more appealing. Drive Genius 4 is capable of running the repair and rebuild on drives with multiple partitions, however you need to select the individual partition you wish to repair/rebuild from the drop down menu on the top of the feature section of the software. If you have any other problems or concerns with the software I would recommend reaching out to our technical support team for further assistance. Reply by Prosoft Support on January 28, 2015 Hi Tbanger9 I would recommend looking into our newest version of the software Drive Genius 4. In Drive Genius 4 we have added our new BootWell Technology which acts as a secondary startup location which you can boot your computer from in order to defrag your internal drive.
Otherwise our technical support team would be more than happy to walk you through the process of creating a Secondary startup disk for Drive Genius 3. Reply by Prosoft Support on January 28, 2015 Hi Pavlosidelov Drive Genius is capable of defragging your drive, however do to the changes made to the OS by Apple you are required to boot from a secondary startup drive in order to gain the root access needed to preform the defrag. To Uninstall Drive Genius you select Drive Genius from the menu bar at the top of your screen then select Uninstall. The steps you received are how to uninstall the software if the uninstaller within the software does not work for you. If you require any help removing these files you can always call our technical support line so they can walk you through the process. Phone: 1-877-477-6763 (Press 2 for Support) Hours: (Monday - Friday) 7am - 5pm PST. Reply by Prosoft on March 6, 2013 We know you're not digging the product right now but I'm inviting you to contact our support team, ask them about some of the things you're having issues with or questions about and they can answer your questions and hopefully make you feel more comfortable about the product- We are definitely a 'legit company' with award winning products as well as a rich history of providing products on the Mac platform (as well as working with Apple in the early years to develop tools directly for the OS).
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Find out more about us here: Over 28 years of developing on the Mac platform, including making Drive Setup for Apple as well as many other award-winning, industry standard products. Reply by Prosoft on March 6, 2013 Because it's a disk utility product, you can't just drag it to the trash like you can with 99% of the other apps out there-that's because it does have and does need to have certain files running in order to access the low-level data on your drive (most apps don't ever need that).
If you want to uninstall it, it's pretty easy to find the 'Uninstall' menu item which is on the Drive Genius Menu Bar item. I know it seems easy but I can understand that in some moments of frustration that customers may not look for it there or find it that easily (but it's there). And once again, please do contact our support team, they are great folks that love to help people out. Reply by Prosoft on March 6, 2013 Hello Bryan, Thanks for taking time to post your thoughts about Drive Genius. I'm surprised by your perception of Drive Genius but wanted to get back to you on some of the items.
First of all, we highly recommend that anyone having questions or issues with Drive Genius to give our support team a call or email- They are located right in our same California office and can easily help you out. Many times they can navigate you through something that you might not be doing correctly or you may be skipping over, and it's always just good to have a connection to a company that stands behind their products. Reply by Prosoft Engineering on October 16, 2012 Hi - Drive Genius 3 works with Boot Camp, but in limited capacity.
This is well documented in the manual and with all 3 versions of Drive Genius dating back to 2006. Which tools were you using on boot camp? The limitations of DG3 and bootcamp are dictated by Apple not by Prosoft. FAQ on Boot Camp Does Drive Genius 3 work with Boot Camp? Drives formatted with Boot Camp now have limited support by Repartition in Drive Genius 3.
Drive Genius 3 is capable of shifting Windows Boot Camp partitions, but cannot resize the Windows Boot Camp partition. This limited support for Boot Camp is intended to help utilize the available free space after duplicating hard drives with Boot Camp partitions onto larger hard drives. Please check the manual. Full Specifications General Publisher Publisher web site Release Date July 20, 2018 Date Added July 20, 2018 Version 5.2.2 Category Category Subcategory Operating Systems Operating Systems Mac Additional Requirements. macOS High Sierra.
macOS Sierra. OS X El Capitan. OS X Yosemite. OS X Mavericks. OS X Mountain Lion Download Information File Size 67.09MB File Name DriveGenius5.2.2.dmg Popularity Total Downloads 54,558 Downloads Last Week 3 Pricing License Model Purchase Limitations Limited features Price $99.
. installs different versions of macOS depending on the key combination you use while starting up. Turn on or restart your Mac, then immediately hold down one of these combinations: Command (⌘)-R Install the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac, without upgrading to a later version. Option-Command-R Upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac.
Shift-Option-Command-R Requires or later Install the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available. If you're selling or giving away a Mac that is using, use Command-R to make sure that the installation isn't associated with your Apple ID. If you haven't already updated to macOS Sierra 10.12.4 or later, Option-Command-R installs the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available. Release the keys when you see the Apple logo or a spinning globe. When you see the macOS Utilities window, continue to the next section to determine whether to or begin. Decide whether to erase (format) your startup disk before installing macOS. You should erase your startup disk in the following circumstances:.
Disk Genius Mac Download Backup
You're, so you're clearing your Mac of anything associated with you, your data, or your Apple ID. You're trying to resolve an issue that can't repair. The macOS installer says that it can't install on your computer or volume. For example, it might say that your startup disk isn't formatted correctly, isn't using a GUID partition scheme, already contains a newer version of the operating system, or can't be used to start up your computer.
If none of the circumstances above apply to you, to install without erasing. Erasing your disk permanently deletes all of the data stored on it.
If you need to erase your startup disk, follow these steps:. Select Disk Utility from the utilities window of macOS Recovery, then click Continue. Select your device or volume in the sidebar of Disk Utility.
Click the Erase button or tab. Complete these fields:. Name: Enter a name for your disk, such as 'Macintosh HD'. Format:. Scheme (if available): Choose GUID Partition Map. Click Erase to begin erasing your disk. When done, quit Disk Utility to return to the utilities window.
You're now ready to. Follow these steps after:. Choose Reinstall macOS (or Reinstall OS X) from the utilities window. Click Continue, then follow the onscreen instructions. You'll be asked to select your disk. If you don't see it, click Show All Disks.
To verify eligibility to install macOS, your Mac serial number is sent to Apple, and you might be asked for your Apple ID. Click Install. Your Mac restarts after installation is complete. If you before installing, or you installed on an external drive or other new disk, your Mac restarts to a setup assistant. If you're keeping your Mac, complete the setup assistant with your own information. If you're selling or giving away your Mac, press Command-Q to quit the setup assistant without completing the setup steps. Then click Shut Down.
When the new owner starts up the Mac, they can use their own information to complete setup.
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