RICHCASTILLO  Very good support from the developer. Answered my emails within the same day and after normal working hours. "Talked me through" my problem. I was playing around with Drive Genius and I thought I had damaged a drive by force quitting during a partition shift. At first I thought, what the heck, I'll just reformat the drive if the force quit messes me up. All the data was backed, anyway. What happened though is the drive refused to be formatted in Apple Disc Utility. ADU could find the drive but would run into an indefinite stall after beginning the format. To Drive Genius's credit, it was able to undo the damage that it allowed me to do through my curiosity.

Although the repartition interface seems clear enough at first glance, I found it somewhat difficult to use. Sometimes the buttons would go inactive (indicating that you can't do that operation right now) but no explanation why? And how do you move clockwise vs counterclockwise? It was not evident to me but the documentation discussed the merits of moving a partition counterclockwise.

Drive Genius is a very good and powerful utility. The truth is that with a utility program of this sort there are always going to be people in distress who post low star ratings. Its sort of like root canals. Root canals have a horrible association. As my dentist explained it to me, its not the root canal that is so unpleasant, its the pain from the preceding infection, so don't blame the root canal. I bought drive Genius because I knew someday it may be my root canal.   
(Version 2.1)

VLDU2  As a new IMAC user, (though I've been using DOS-based computers for 25 years)I felt the need to find a good disk utility package to keep the hard drive working as it should. After doing my homework - comparing software and prices etc, I felt that Drive Genius 2 would meet the need. After finding it, for a great price from an Internet retailer, I bought it about a week ago. After discovering that I would have to boot the computer from the Drive Genius disk, in order to perform the needed tasks on the hard drive, I did so. I then attempted to Defrag the drive, and ran into an immediate problem with the 'catalog btree'. This appeared to be a show-stopper. I attempted to "Repair" the drive, without success. I then sent email to customer support and received excellent results. The problem was specifically explained, and explicit instruction given as to how to fix it. I was told to run "Repair" again, more than once if needed, and if that didn't work to run "Rebuild".

I ran "Rebuild" just once, and things worked as advertised. The btree catalog and the Volume header were restored without any problem. I then defraged the drive, again with great success. There were absolutly no bad sectors on the drive, and this produce is well worth the price. Thanks Prosoft.  
(Version 2.0.3)

STEVEW1  I am a user of DG 2.1, I have used Drive Genius since 1.0, and can tell you it is an outstanding product that works as advertised. I maintain a network of 10 Macs and it is software I would not do with out. I defag the drives on a regular basis and have yet to have a drive not boot afterward.  
(Version 2.1.0)

MACINTOSH SAUCE  I recently purchased this program in ProSoft's bundle with Data Rescue 2. Drive Genius is a fantastic program and defragments HDs really well IMO. Their customer service is also excellent. Earlier today, I emailed them for the link to the new DVD image for Drive Genius 2.1. Got a reply back in minutes - now that is top notch customer service!  
(Version 2.1)

JAN13  NO (!) partitioning PLEASE !!!old way is The Way !!!

I have lost a 100 Gb of data using partitioning future of this other vise very good software. This partitioning option is simply nightmare ...  
(Version 2.2)

ZEBA  To charge for the 0.0.1 upgrade that mainly consists of bug fixes, that should not have been there in the first place, is outrageous. 5$ or 1 cent, it's all the same. Supporting developers with such an attitude is a big mistake. I suggest that you do not buy this software as long as they do not change the upgrade policy for the better.  
(Version 2.1.1)

FORREST LOVE  Ok I'm a real jerk in terms of the software/hardware I've dropped mad cash on and have gotten no support. Paul and David from Prosoft were extremely patient and knowledgeable about my issues and it cost me NOTHING. Drive Genius has been a great tool for me and a few of my fellow Apple Video Editors. I'm just very impressed with both the product and their support, I'm not going to drop any names, but when you spend over $10K on a product and have to pay for a support call is BS. These guys are spot on, courteous, patient and knowledgeable. If you are a serious OSX user and have to deal with drive issues, DG will save your ass. I’ve seen many companies who want a $450 BS support contract. These cats do it for a product costing $100.00 for FREE which is well worth the price of DG... My Name Is Forrest Love  
(Version 2.1)

CHRISWILLARD  Recenty the Prosoft technical support folks went beyond expectations in helping solve a problem with a drive partition that refused to be defragmented. After the simple things failed to solve the problem they offered to examine the entire disk image of the drive in search of a suspected corrupt file that was causing the error.

They were able to find the file and provide instructions for deleting and re-constituting a non-corrupt version. Kudos for going the extra mile. Both the drive and I am now happy campers.  
(Version 2.2)

GORDON BELL  Hi all,

We did see some Defrag issues that would affect less than 1% of customers in past versions. Although that's a small percentage, considering the sales of Drive Genius, that was affecting a group of customers and we had strived to improve on that.. Even with a warning message to recommend a backup before running Defrag (or any major disk utility type of feature) we still saw many that didn't backup and if they were one of the very few that had an issue, it was indeed pretty upsetting (Understandably). Of course, when that happened, and there was no backup in place, it was frustrating and those customers would post their experiences (which is what MU is for..)-- Unfortunately most of the 99% that didn't have a problem usually wouldn't post and therefore doing a search would typically only show the posts of those that came into problems.

Defrag was greatly improved with 2.1.1 and therefore we're not seeing that at all now. However, with any disk utility software it's always recommended to have a backup before you work on your drive (we include the Clone feature which provides you with the fastest most thorough type of backup with a quick click).

We're very excited about these latest versions of Drive Genius as they represent improvements in all features, especially the popular features like Defrag and Repartition and DriveSlim.

Even with the improvements and continued performance boosts, we still always recommend a backup before using any disk utility. Any company that tells you to use their disk utility product and not worry about backing up first is indeed leading you down the wrong path, so we'll never really change that recommendation. Some people will take that recommendation and think, "Oh, wow, they want me to backup, their product must not be very stable." but that's just the case with this type of software. Even apple warns customers to backup before doing major changes or upgrades to your system---

We do appreciate all the feedback and I truly welcome those comments as they help us strive to improve our product.

Cheers,

Gordon from Prosoft-  
(Version 2.2)

D.B   A couple of comments. . . . . First, I think it is misleading and bad business for ProSoft, the developer, to NOT provide the link for the upgraded app as a bootable DVD image. Life is complicated enough, and to have to pay even a small amount, $5, for the privilege of downloading the updated DVD image is pathetic. They probably spend more on managing that payment process than dollars that are generated, AND, the cost in customer goodwill is added to THAT. If they offer free upgrades to paid customers, then downloads for making a bootable disk for a product such as this should absolutely be included. . .

And, to the commenter re: the Apple advice re: defragging - I saw severe fragmentation of my partition after doing an 'expand my partition size'. Doing a DriveGenius defrag fixed this and made my system run much faster. . . . .In normal use, defragging may not be needed in the MacOSX environment, but if one starts messing about with partitions, I can see the need for the process.  
(Version 2.1.1)