SpeedTools Utilities for Mac

User Reviews

• MediaScanner = excellent

  Crazy DaveMay 17, 2009

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />The new Scan Files for Bad Sectors mode included in 2.8.1 is FANTASTIC!!!! I have successfully recovered data from two failed hard drives in the past two days. Copying large amounts of data from a failing hard drive can be tedious, time-consuming and fraught with danger without the correct tools, because copying the data invariably tries to also copy the CORRUPT files along with the good, resulting in a hard drive crash and basically having to manually spend hours weeding out the bad files from the good. However, SpeedTools v2.8.1 is the first Mac OS X software I'm aware of that reports which files are sitting on bad blocks so I can ignore and copy everything EXCEPT them. Since OS X has been severly lacking in decent hard disk utilities I previously had to resort to using OS 9 for small (&lt;120GB) hard disks and Windows for large drives (&gt;120GB). MediaScanner's Auto Reassign function also successfully restored three previously unusable hard disks to full working order. One drive had four bad blocks, another had one and another had two bad blocks. The drives were impossible to use without a bad block remapping tool due to the way hard drives remap blocks. Before I had to resort to using Windows or OS 9 to remap bad blocks, but MediaScanner as of version 2.8.1 now seems to finally be the hard disk tool I've been searching for. I wish this tool was available years ago when I worked at AppleCentre, it would have saved us from having to have a Windows computer in the office and probably would have saved literally hours upon hours each week, because removing a hard disk from an iBook just so you could scan it on a Windows computer meant spending about 30 minutes dismantling the entire computer then 30 minutes reassembling it again, one hour of completely wasted time. I believe this is a more worthwhile tool than DiskWarrior, as most hard disk corruption is caused by bad blocks, which DiskWarrior DOES NOT FIX. Some people swear by DiskWarrior and tell me it's saved their data on many occasions - but if your hard disk is corrupting itself and regularly needs to be repaired by DiskWarrior, you should be asking yourself, WHY is it corrupted? If the corruption wasn't caused by bad memory/power failure/accidental unplugging of a USB drive/system crash then it's highly likely you have a bad block sitting somewhere on your hard drive. Disk Utility, and DiskWarrior will NOT pick this up, and TechToolPro only does a read-only scan which will not reassign bad blocks so it is completely useless. However MediaScanner seems to work just as well as OS 9 Norton Utilities or Windows Disk Scan at mapping out bad blocks. Now that this tool is available for OS X, the possibility of a Windows free office is getting closer each day. If Apple would just fix Spotlight and bring back the old Find File from OS 10.3.9, I would be able to literally throw the PC out the window and have a Mac ONLY household as was possible five years ago.

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• Media Scanner. That's Why You Should Buy This

  jreffnerDecember 1, 2007

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />This app is great primarily for one reason. Media Scanner. Unlike TechTool Pro which can only find bad blocks, this app can reallocate them thereby fixing your drive. This is the only app I know of that will do this. This app will save your data on the bad blocks. Nothing else will. Additionally, zeroing all data via Disk Utility doesn't always reallocate the bad blocks either, and it definately doesn't save your data either. To me that alone is well worth the price.

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• Media Scanner - Part of SpeedTools utilities

  madison_mac_userNovember 12, 2006

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I just purchased SpeedTools Utilities for my OS X 10.4.8 Mac. Why? This morning I found when trying to copy files off my iBook's internal ATA hard drive I was getting -34 errors (the files wouldn't copy). I could hear the hard disk having trouble reading data off the hard drive and knew my files were on bad blocks/sectors that couldn't be read. So as I write this, I'm using the 'Media Scanner' utility of SpeedTools to reallocate the bad blocks/sectors. It's working great. Files that I was not able to copy to an external backup, have been reallocated to new sectors and I can now use the files as though nothing happened to them. So for me, the reallocate bad blocks/sector feature by itself has been worth the purchase of speedtools. In Mac OS 9 I always used Hard Disk Toolkit to do the same thing.

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• No major issues

  Call-151April 29, 2005

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />After reading the comments here, I thought long and hard before attempting to purchase and download from the Intech site. I'm happy to report that there were absolutely no issues with purchase, download or installation. Works as advertised, and the HI Cap driver allowed me to install a new 300GB Maxtor in a Digital Audio G4 with ease. My only complaint is that the guide for the S.M.A.R.T. component is missing. Haven't contacted tech support yet, so I can't comment on issues of responsiveness.

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• Maybe not for defragmenting but..

  simApril 12, 2005

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Using disk utilities to defragment hard disks under OS X is up for debate. However, the Media Scanner utility included in this suite was the only application I found that was able to restore a dying 1st Gen IPod which had been rendered almost completely unusable due to many bad blocks on the drive. Disk Warrior, Apple Disk Utility, Micromat Techtool Pro all were unable to do what Media Scanner accomplished (after a few hours) and now my IPod is back in business. Perhaps there are other utilities that can map out and disable bad blocks, but I know this one works.

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• problematic company

  tombovoSeptember 10, 2004

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I purchased the SpeedTools Utilities in December of 2003, but never received confirmation from the company, which means they never emailed me confirmation of the order, and I can never update the product. I tried to contact them, and they ignored me. The claims about how many spam emails they get is a smoke screen to hide their total lack of support. With the Mac OS X 10.3.5 update, the SpeedTools v1.0 kernal extensions cause too many problems, and since I can't update the product for compatiblity, it is now removed from my system, and I suggest everyone do the same.

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• Works well

  SLKXDecember 17, 2003

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I've had this product for a couple of weeks now, and I like it. I don't have a use for a few of the utilities that come with it, but the Disk Defrag and QuickBack utilities are very well done. I also like the "parent app" which provides a very useable and organized interface - not to mention it looks slick! All-in-all I would recommend this product. Hopefully the future utility additions promised by Intech (for free) will further add to this software's usefullness like a data recovery app - hint, hint Intech!

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