Jan 23, 2018 Drive Genius 5 Mac Full Cracked is the latest version of the most professional tool that provides you with several tools for managing your Mac memory. These abilities are in a wide range of tasks, including rebuilding and even editing sectors. Using Drive Genius 5.1.0 For Mac Free Download. Nov 22, 2018 Within the Drive Genius main window you have the option to access any of the cleaning and optimization tools provided by the app: Defrag, DriveSlim, Repair, Scan to deallocate bad blocks, DrivePulse, Integrity Check, Initialize, Repartition, Duplicate, Shred, Benchtest, or Sector Edit.
- Drive Genius 5 Mac Protection And Optimization Software Mac Defrag Update
- Drive Genius 5 Mac Protection And Optimization Software Mac Defrag Windows 7
Effectiveness
4 out of 5
Virus scanner, cleanup, data recovery and defrag
4 out of 5
Virus scanner, cleanup, data recovery and defrag
- Try Drive Genius 3, the best hard drive utility on the Mac platform- DrivePulse, Defrag, DriveSlimTM, Repartition-on-the-fly and Scan are only a few of the award-winning features of Drive Genius 3. Drive Genius 3 now includes DrivePulse, the easiest way to monitor the overall health of your drive. Optimize your drive with Drive Genius 3.
- What’s New In Drive Genius 5 The all-new BootWell device gives you a chance to make an exceptional bootable optional drive to Defrag or Repair your fundamental hard drive. You can likewise customize and sort out your Mac hard drive symbols with IconGenius.
price
4 out of 5
$79 for a comprehensive set of tools
4 out of 5
$79 for a comprehensive set of tools
ease of use
4.5 out of 5
Automatic protection plus click-and-go scanning
4.5 out of 5
Automatic protection plus click-and-go scanning
support
4.5 out of 5
Phone and email support with helpful documentation
4.5 out of 5
Phone and email support with helpful documentation
Quick Summary
Drive Genius 5 promises to keep your computer running smoothly while ensuring you don’t lose any valuable data. The app combines virus scanning, data recovery and cleanup, defragmentation and cloning, and more. The DrivePulse utility constantly scans for issues before they become a problem. That’s a lot of value for $79. More expensive plans are available for professionals and enterprise customers.
Is Drive Genius worth it? If you use your Mac to make money or store valuable information, then it’s worth every cent. The collection of tools it provides is more comprehensive than any of its competitors. However, if you are a casual computer user there are some free utilities that provide basic data recovery, if you need it at all. Read our detailed Drive Genius review below for more.
What I Like
- A good collection of tools combined in a single program.
- Proactively scans for problems and warns you in advance.
- Protects you from viruses and other malware.
- Frees disk space and speeds your hard drive.
- Scans take a lot of time.
- Scan results could include more information.
Drive Genius 5
macOS, $79
Quick Navigation
// Why Trust Me?
// Drive Genius FAQs
// Drive Genius Review: What's in it for You?
// Reasons Behind My Reviews and Ratings
// Alternatives to Drive Genius
// Conclusion
// Drive Genius FAQs
// Drive Genius Review: What's in it for You?
// Reasons Behind My Reviews and Ratings
// Alternatives to Drive Genius
// Conclusion
Why Trust Me?
My name is Adrian Try. I’ve been using computers since 1988, and Macs full time since 2009. I’ve dealt with lots of slow and problem-ridden computers over the years while doing over-the-phone tech support and maintaining training rooms full of PCs. I spent years running optimization and repair software like Norton Utilities, PC Tools, and SpinRite. I spend countless hours scanning computers for problems and malware. I learned the value of a comprehensive cleanup and repair app.
For the last week, I’ve been running the trial version of Drive Genius 5 on my macOS Sierra-based iMac. Users have the right to know what is and isn’t working about a product, so I’ve run every scan and thoroughly tested every feature.
In this Drive Genius review, I’ll share what I like and dislike about the app. The content in the quick summary box above serves as a short version of my findings and conclusions. Read on for the details!
Drive Genius FAQs
What is Drive Genius?
It is a collection of utilities that work together to keep your Mac healthy, fast, uncluttered and virus free. Drive Genius scans for problems automatically using the DrivePulse utility. It also enables you to periodically scan for problems manually and repair a variety of hard drive issues.
To repair your startup disk you will need to boot from another drive. Drive Genius facilitates this by creating a secondary boot drive called BootWell that contains the suite of utilities. To cover all of those features you would normally need to purchase several products.
Here are the program’s main benefits:
- It monitors your drives for issues before they become problems.
- It protects your computer from malware.
- It protects your files from corruption.
- It speeds file access by defragmenting your drives.
- It frees drive space by cleaning unneeded files.
How Much Is It?
Drive Genius does the lot for $79. According to Cult of Mac, Drive Genius is used by the Apple Genius Bar.
Is It Safe to Use?
Yes, it is safe to use. I ran and installed Drive Genius 5 on my iMac. A scan using Bitdefender found no viruses or malicious code. In fact, the app’s malware scan will keep your computer safer.
If you interrupt some of the app’s utilities while they are in use, for example, Defragment, you could cause damage to your files, and possibly lose data. Clear warnings are displayed whenever care must be taken. Just make sure you don’t turn off your computer during those procedures.
How to Turn Off DrivePulse on Menu Bar?
DrivePulse is running continually to ensure the safety of your computer. It’s fine to leave it running, and won’t interfere with your work. How do you turn off DrivePulse when that’s necessary? Just open Drive Genius’ preferences and click Disable DrivePulse.
But there are times you may want to turn off as many background processes as possible to achieve optimal performance on your computer. For example, many podcasters do this while they are recording a Skype call.
Drive Genius Review: What’s in it for You?
Since the app is all about protecting, speeding, and cleaning your Mac, I’m going to list all its features by putting them into the following five sections. In each subsection, I’ll first explore what the app offers and then share my personal take.
1. Monitor Your Drives for Issues Before They Become Problems
Drive Genius doesn’t just wait for you to initiate a scan, it proactively monitors your computer for problems and warns you as soon as it finds one. The background scanning feature is called DrivePulse.
It can monitor physical and logical hard disk damage, file fragmentation, and viruses.
DrivePulse is a menu bar tool. When you click on it you can see the status of the scans, and the health of your hard drives. Here’s a screenshot of the day I installed it. A S.M.A.R.T. check verified that my hard drive is healthy, and understandably the status of the other checks is Pending since I just installed the app.
I took the screenshot below six days later. The status of most of the scans is still Pending. The Physical check on my drive is still only 2.4% complete, so it takes quite a while to thoroughly check everything systematically. Every file I access, however, is checked immediately.
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My personal take: There’s peace of mind having an app monitoring your computer for problems in real-time. Every file I use is checked for viruses. Every file I save is checked for integrity. I didn’t notice any performance hit while I worked on my Mac. It takes some time for DrivePulse to examine your entire hard drive, so it’s worth doing some scans of your own upfront.
2. Protect Your Computer from Malware
Drive Genius will scan your system for viruses—in real-time with DrivePulse, and systematically on-demand with Malware Scan. Infected files are moved to the trash.
The Malware Scan is very thorough and takes many hours to complete—on my iMac it took around eight hours. But it does this in the background so you can continue to use your computer. For me, it found five infected email attachments.
My personal take: As Macs become more popular, the platform is becoming a larger target for creators of malware. It’s good to know that Drive Genius is keeping its eyes open for viruses and other infections before I discover them the hard way.
3. Protect Your Drives from Corruption
Data is lost when hard disks go bad. That’s never good. It can happen when a drive is physically faulty or degrading because of age. And it can happen when there are logical problems with the way data is stored, for example, file and folder corruption.
Drive Genius scans for both types of problem, and can often repair logical errors. The scans are thorough and take some time. On my iMac’s 1TB drive, each scan took between six and ten hours.
The Physical Check looks for physical damage on your hard drive.
Thankfully my Mac’s eight-year-old drive was given a clean bill of health, though it would be nice if the app said that, rather than just “Physical Check completed.”
The Consistency Check looks for file and folder corruption to verify that your data is stored safely.
Again, I have a happy Mac. If this scan found problems, Drive Genius would be able to rebuild the folder structure so that the file names are re-linked to their data, or repair logical file and folder errors.
To repair my startup drive, DiskGenius would install itself on a second Bootwell drive and reboot.
Using the trial version I was able to create a Bootwell disk and boot from it, but not run any scans.
My personal take: Fortunately hard drive problems like this are fairly rare, but when they happen, repair is urgent and important. I love that Prosoft can give you early warning of potential problems, and is also competent at repairing a range of hard drive issues.
4. Speed File Access by Defragmenting Your Drives
A fragmented file is stored piecemeal across several locations on your hard drive and takes longer to read. I’ve been defragmenting hard drives since my first 40MB hard drive in the 80s. On Windows, it made a huge difference to my drive’s speed, and it can make a noticeable difference on Macs as well, especially if you have a lot of large files, like video, audio, and multimedia files over 1GB in size.
I tested the Defragmentation feature on my 2TB USB backup drive. (I wasn’t able to defrag my startup drive with the trial version.) The process took 10 hours.
During the scan, I wasn’t given any visual feedback on progress (other than the timer at the bottom of the window), or any indication of how fragmented the drive was (I don’t think it was particularly fragmented). That’s unusual. With other defrag utilities I could watch the data being moved around during the process.
When the defrag had completed, I received the following diagram of my drive.
My personal take: While defragmenting a hard drive isn’t the magic cure for slow computers that it was on PCs years ago, it can still give a helpful speed boost. Drive Genius’s defrag tool isn’t the best I’ve tried, but it does the job, and saves me purchasing another software program.
5. Free Hard Disk Space by Cleaning Unneeded Files
Drive Genius has a number of other utilities that are able to help you work with your drives and files. Two of these are designed to help free up hard drive space by cleaning up duplicate files and locating large files.
The Find Duplicates utility locates duplicate files on your hard drive. It then keeps one copy of your file (the one most recently accessed), and replaces the other copies with an alias to the first file. That way you are only storing the data once, but can still access the file from all of those locations. Once the duplicates are found, the app gives you the option of deleting any instances you don’t need.
Large files obviously take up quite a lot of storage. That’s fine if you need them, but a waste of space if they’re old and unnecessary. Drive Genius 5 provides a Find Large Files scan that finds them, then lets you decide what to do with them. You can control how large the files listed are, as well as how old. Older files are more likely to be no longer be needed, but make sure you check carefully before deleting.
Drive Genius also contains utilities to clone, securely erase, initialize and partition your drives.
My personal take: File cleanup and file-related utilities aren’t Drive Genius’s strength, but it’s great they are included. They’re useful, do the job, and save me having to purchase additional software.
Reasons Behind My Reviews and Ratings
Effectiveness: 4/5
This app combines a virus scanner, cleanup tool, data recovery utility, defragmentation tool and hard drive cloning into a single application. That’s a lot of functionality for a single app. Drive Genius’s scans are thorough, but at the expense of speed. Be prepared to spend a lot of time with this app. I wish I was given more detailed scan results and better visual feedback.
Price: 4/5
At $79 the app is not cheap, but it includes a lot of features for the money. To find an alternative, you probably need to purchase two of three other utilities to cover the same ground, possibly costing hundreds of dollars in total.
Ease of Use: 4.5/5
DrivePulse works automatically, and the rest of Drive Genius is a simple push button affair. Clear and concise descriptions are displayed for every feature. That makes it a very easy program to use.
Support: 4.5/5
Technical support is available via phone or email, I didn’t encounter any problems while using the app, so can’t comment on the responsiveness or quality of that support. A PDF user guide and comprehensive FAQ are available. While video tutorials were created for Drive Genius 3 and 4, they, unfortunately, have not been reproduced for the current version of the app.
Alternatives to Drive Genius
Few programs cover Drive Genius’s impressive range of features. You may need to choose several alternatives to cover the same ground.
If you’re looking for a suite similar to Drive Genius, consider:
- TechTool Pro 9: TechTool Pro ($99.99) is one tool with many functions, including drive testing and repair, hardware and memory testing, cloning, and volume and file optimization.
- Stellar Drive ToolBox: Stellar Drive ToolBox ($69) is a comprehensive pack of useful tools to manage and optimize your Mac including hard drive monitoring and defrag, cloning, searching for large files and more.
- DiskWarrior 5: DiskWarrior is a suite of hard drive utilities that repair drive problems, recover missing files and monitors your drive’s health.
If you’re looking for security software to protect your Mac from malware, consider:
- Malwarebytes: Malwarebytes protects your computer from malware and keeps it running silky smooth.
- Norton Security: Norton Security protects your Macs, PCs, Android and iOS devices from malware with a single subscription.
Best clean mac software cnet. If you’re looking for a Mac cleaning tool, consider:
- CleanMyMac X: CleanMyMac can free up a decent amount of hard drive space for you quickly, starting at $89. Read our CleanMyMac review.
- MacPaw Gemini 2: Gemini 2 is a less expensive app that specializes in finding duplicate files. One-time payment starts at $19.99. Read our Gemini review.
- iMobie MacClean: MacClean will free up space on your Mac’s hard drive, protect you from malware, and boost your privacy as well. Costing just $29.99 for a personal license it’s good value, though it’s not able to repair hard drive problems. Read our MacClean review.
Conclusion
Drive Genius constantly monitors your hard drive and fixes issues before they become major problems. It scans for viruses, and automatically moves infected files to the trash. It monitors for file fragmentation that slows your computer, and pops up a warning. It does all of this without you lifting a finger.
Besides that, it includes a comprehensive set of tools that scan for and fix problems, free hard drive space, and clone, partition and securely erase your drives. These features are essential if you require a reliable, safe and secure work environment. If that sounds like you, then I highly recommend Drive Genius. The program offers excellent value for money when you consider all of the functions it can perform.
If you are a casual home user, and don’t have anything stored on your computer that you would miss if it vanished, then Drive Genius may be more than you need. Just make sure you keep a backup of anything important, and consider the free utilities if something goes wrong.
5/5 (1 Review)
Guides
What’s new in Drive Genius 5?
The biggest new feature added by Drive Genius 5 is the ability to perform near real-time and manual malware scans on storage devices connected to your computer. Our existing DrivePulse utility that automatically monitors the health of your hard drives now also monitors downloaded files for potential malware threats. In addition, a scan can be manually run to check all files on a particular hard drive.
Why doesn’t my clone made in macOS 10.13 show up when trying to use the Startup Manager (Option Booting)?
In most situations this occurs due to the new Apple File System (APFS). After creating a Clone of an APFS drive, you will first need to set the Clone as your Startup Disk. To do this, select the Apple icon in the upper left of your screen, choose System Preferences, and select the Startup Disk option. Click the lock in the left left of the window to make changes, and select the Clone you have created. You can then press the Restart button to startup into the clone. After booting into your Clone using this method once, you can then use the Startup Manager for starting up in the future.
Why is ‘X’ feature or utility greyed out?
Drive Genius will disable utility icons that are not applicable to the currently selected drive, file or folder. If you hover your mouse cursor over a disabled icon, a tooltip will appear to explain why the utility is disabled.
The login credentials are very important as they will give you access to the software. Best animation software mac 2015.
Drive Pulse is alerting me about a permissions issue, what do I do?
If Drive Pulse alerts you about permissions on a drive then you can use Drive Genius to Fix Permissions on that drive. The Fix Permissions utility is located in the ‘Protect’ section, or the third section of features in the main software findow. Please note that fixing permissions in the latest version of Drive Genius is only supported on machines running Mac OS 10.10 Yosemite.
For those running 10.11 El Capitan, 10.12 Sierra, or any future releases, your operating system now automatically repairs file permissions during software installations, updates, or changes. The Fix Permissions button utility will not be displayed if you are on a version of mac OS that does not require manual permission repairs.
For those running 10.11 El Capitan, 10.12 Sierra, or any future releases, your operating system now automatically repairs file permissions during software installations, updates, or changes. The Fix Permissions button utility will not be displayed if you are on a version of mac OS that does not require manual permission repairs.
Why does Drive Genius say it is not compatible with my virus protection?
Drive Genius is compatible with most Virus Protection, however we have seen issues with Drive Genius and Virus Protection software trying to gain access to the same drive.
Drive Genius now includes its own malware tool, and DrivePulse will monitor most downloaded files in real time, reducing the need for additional software.
Based on past customer experience, and testing we have seen conflicts with Virus Protection software. However there is no requirement to Uninstall and the warning can be permanently disabled by checking 'Do not show this message again' and then clicking the Continue button.
A simple workaround would be to disable the antivirus during the time in which you’re using the software, or to set up an exception.
We cannot guarantee compatibility with any other third party antivirus utility, and suggest evaluating the full-feature demo version of Drive Genius with your current setup if you have concerns about compatibility.
Drive Genius now includes its own malware tool, and DrivePulse will monitor most downloaded files in real time, reducing the need for additional software.
Based on past customer experience, and testing we have seen conflicts with Virus Protection software. However there is no requirement to Uninstall and the warning can be permanently disabled by checking 'Do not show this message again' and then clicking the Continue button.
A simple workaround would be to disable the antivirus during the time in which you’re using the software, or to set up an exception.
We cannot guarantee compatibility with any other third party antivirus utility, and suggest evaluating the full-feature demo version of Drive Genius with your current setup if you have concerns about compatibility.
Where do I find my Drive Genius serial number?
If you purchased the software directly from Prosoft Engineering on our website, your serial number will be emailed to you (please check your spam filter). If you do not receive your serial, or have lost the email record, please contact our support team.
If you purchased from a third party reseller, your serial number will be included in the packaging, on a sticker on the bottom of the inside cover of the printed insert.
If you have a copy of the software installed and activated, you can find your serial number and registration information in the Drive Genius -> About Drive Genius dropdown menu option.
If you purchased from a third party reseller, your serial number will be included in the packaging, on a sticker on the bottom of the inside cover of the printed insert.
If you have a copy of the software installed and activated, you can find your serial number and registration information in the Drive Genius -> About Drive Genius dropdown menu option.
What is a Drive Genius BootWell and why should I buy it?
The Drive Genius BootWell drive is used to maintain and manage your primary internal hard drive on your Mac.
Most Drive Genius utilities work on your primary internal hard drive “live” with no need for a secondary startup drive. However certain utilities require starting your computer from a secondary drive so they can have exclusive access to your primary drive, this is where the BootWell comes in.
The utilities that require BootWell are:
The advanced Physical Check options. Repair. Rebuild. Defragment. Repartition. The whole-drive Secure Erase option.
Drive Genius utilities will automatically prompt you to restart using a BootWell drive as needed. The BootWell drive purchased with Drive Genius is a Hi-Speed USB 3.0 flash drive. It will run at a higher speed on older USB 2.0 Macs and even faster on a newer Mac with USB 3.0 ports. We have tested the read and write speed on this flash drive on the different macOS versions that Drive Genius supports.
The current supported macOS operating systems are resource intensive and therefore will require a Hi-Speed flash drive to create a Drive Genius BootWell.
This BootWell drive has been chosen after rigorous testing and found this to have the best read and write speeds. Our BootWell drive is a good solution and is available from our website for a nominal price.
Alternatively, you can create your own, however we cannot guarantee compatibility with all device manufacturers. Any device you attempt to use must be hi-speed USB 3.0 and 32GB or larger.
Most Drive Genius utilities work on your primary internal hard drive “live” with no need for a secondary startup drive. However certain utilities require starting your computer from a secondary drive so they can have exclusive access to your primary drive, this is where the BootWell comes in.
The utilities that require BootWell are:
The advanced Physical Check options. Repair. Rebuild. Defragment. Repartition. The whole-drive Secure Erase option.
Drive Genius utilities will automatically prompt you to restart using a BootWell drive as needed. The BootWell drive purchased with Drive Genius is a Hi-Speed USB 3.0 flash drive. It will run at a higher speed on older USB 2.0 Macs and even faster on a newer Mac with USB 3.0 ports. We have tested the read and write speed on this flash drive on the different macOS versions that Drive Genius supports.
The current supported macOS operating systems are resource intensive and therefore will require a Hi-Speed flash drive to create a Drive Genius BootWell.
This BootWell drive has been chosen after rigorous testing and found this to have the best read and write speeds. Our BootWell drive is a good solution and is available from our website for a nominal price.
Alternatively, you can create your own, however we cannot guarantee compatibility with all device manufacturers. Any device you attempt to use must be hi-speed USB 3.0 and 32GB or larger.
I am using a personal USB to create a BootWell, why am I getting errors?
BootWell drives perform at their optimal level when the USB used has certain specifications. The average USB is typically purchased for simple data transfer and storage. These types of flash drives will have problems if they are used to create a BootWell drive generally because of the difference in speed and the chipset used.
Drive Genius requires a USB drive that is 32GB or larger, and hi-speed USB 3.0. Even drives that meet these requirements may still experience issues as described below, so you may need to try another manufacturer’s device.
Prior to selecting our USB drive supplier we tested several drives extensively to find the drive that performed the most efficiently with Drive Genius.
One of the big differences in the type of memory and, to a lesser degree, the type of I/O controllers used by USB drives can make a drive perform two or three times faster and last 10 times longer than other drives.
Drive Genius requires a USB drive that is 32GB or larger, and hi-speed USB 3.0. Even drives that meet these requirements may still experience issues as described below, so you may need to try another manufacturer’s device.
Prior to selecting our USB drive supplier we tested several drives extensively to find the drive that performed the most efficiently with Drive Genius.
One of the big differences in the type of memory and, to a lesser degree, the type of I/O controllers used by USB drives can make a drive perform two or three times faster and last 10 times longer than other drives.
Why do I need to create a BootWell?
With the release of OS X Mavericks or any Mac made after March 2011, Apple made a change in their operating systems going forward, which no longer allows 3rd party software to unmount the main internal boot drive while you are booted into it. This prevents the use of certain utilities while you are booted into the drive.
Creating and using a BootWell allows our users to boot into a strictly Drive Genius environment without the need to create a full secondary startup disk.
Using a BootWell allows the user to run utilities such as defrag, repair, repartition, or rebuild with minimal effort. A BootWell drive can be used to maintain, repair, or recover your primary startup drive in the event of a primary drive error.
For maintenance purposes, most Drive Genius utilities work on the primary startup drive 'live' with no need for a secondary startup drive. However all repair and recovery utilities, and anything that requires writing data to the internal drive, requires starting your computer from a secondary drive so Drive Genius can have exclusive access to your primary drive.
Creating and using a BootWell allows our users to boot into a strictly Drive Genius environment without the need to create a full secondary startup disk.
Using a BootWell allows the user to run utilities such as defrag, repair, repartition, or rebuild with minimal effort. A BootWell drive can be used to maintain, repair, or recover your primary startup drive in the event of a primary drive error.
For maintenance purposes, most Drive Genius utilities work on the primary startup drive 'live' with no need for a secondary startup drive. However all repair and recovery utilities, and anything that requires writing data to the internal drive, requires starting your computer from a secondary drive so Drive Genius can have exclusive access to your primary drive.
Is Instant DrivePulse the same as DrivePulse?
DrivePulse tests and provides a pass/fail status for the drive.
DrivePulse will only run if the system is idle. If you want immediate DrivePulse test results, instant DrivePulse can be used.
Instant DrivePulse will perform a physical check for bad blocks, a fragmentation test of the drive, and a consistency check for any corruption on the drive.
DrivePulse will only run if the system is idle. If you want immediate DrivePulse test results, instant DrivePulse can be used.
Instant DrivePulse will perform a physical check for bad blocks, a fragmentation test of the drive, and a consistency check for any corruption on the drive.
What are the benefits to defragging my Mac?
Using Drive Genius to defragment your internal drive can speed up your boot times and improve application and file access overall.
Adding and deleting files to and from your hard drive will cause the drive to become fragmented, as the OS will split files across multiple empty parts of the hard drive to fill free space. When the OS writes files to the drive, it will look for empty space on the hard drive to write data to. However, this will cause the drive to slow down, as it will need to scan multiple parts of the hard drive to locate and read the file.
Drive Genius Defrag Utility puts all these broken up pieces together into one continuous block with all of the empty space at the end. This allows your hard drive to access the data much faster leading to a faster running computer.
Adding and deleting files to and from your hard drive will cause the drive to become fragmented, as the OS will split files across multiple empty parts of the hard drive to fill free space. When the OS writes files to the drive, it will look for empty space on the hard drive to write data to. However, this will cause the drive to slow down, as it will need to scan multiple parts of the hard drive to locate and read the file.
Drive Genius Defrag Utility puts all these broken up pieces together into one continuous block with all of the empty space at the end. This allows your hard drive to access the data much faster leading to a faster running computer.
What does the Revive Damaged Areas option do within a Physical Check?
Most modern drives will automatically reallocate any bad data areas they encounter to another area on the drive. Each drive has a reserved amount of space to handle these reallocations.
If Drive Genius or DrivePulse informs you it has found bad areas, or you suspect there are bad areas on a drive you can enable Revive damaged areas. This will allow Drive Genius to instruct the hard drive to reallocate any bad data areas that are found during the Physical Check.
When Drive Genius 4 finds a bad area, it will attempt to read the information from the bad area and write it back to the same area. This will kick-in the drives reallocation mechanism and move the data area contents to a new area.
**Please note that bad data area reallocation will likely result in data loss, as the contents of bad areas may not be retrievable. Therefore, Drive Genius defaults to erasing and formatting the drive if data areas are reallocated. If you want to attempt to recover data from the drive - even though it may be corrupt - you can disable the erase option.
**Please also note that reviving damaged areas is a temporary fix. If your drive has more than 5-10 bad blocks we highly recommend looking into replacing your drive, as it will be highly prone to drive failure and data loss in the near future.
If Drive Genius or DrivePulse informs you it has found bad areas, or you suspect there are bad areas on a drive you can enable Revive damaged areas. This will allow Drive Genius to instruct the hard drive to reallocate any bad data areas that are found during the Physical Check.
When Drive Genius 4 finds a bad area, it will attempt to read the information from the bad area and write it back to the same area. This will kick-in the drives reallocation mechanism and move the data area contents to a new area.
**Please note that bad data area reallocation will likely result in data loss, as the contents of bad areas may not be retrievable. Therefore, Drive Genius defaults to erasing and formatting the drive if data areas are reallocated. If you want to attempt to recover data from the drive - even though it may be corrupt - you can disable the erase option.
**Please also note that reviving damaged areas is a temporary fix. If your drive has more than 5-10 bad blocks we highly recommend looking into replacing your drive, as it will be highly prone to drive failure and data loss in the near future.
What speed is the Speed Utility checking in my Mac?
The Speed Test within Drive Genius will determine how long it takes to read data from a given block on the drive. The read speed determines how fast the drive will be able to retrieve and use the data stored within the drive. The faster the read speed the faster you can access and use data from that drive.
Will the clone utility copy over my recovery volume?
Yes, the software will copy over the recovery volume to the clone. (This will be an exact copy of the recovery volume, so it will be bootable)
What does Rebuild do?
Rebuild is a utility in Drive Genius that will try to rebuild your folder structure on the drive. If this is on your internal boot drive then you will have to start up your mac from the Drive Genius BootWell drive. In some cases you might have to run Rebuild more than once to fix the folder structure on the drive.
Why can’t I defrag my internal hard drive?
Due to the changes Apple made with the release Mavericks 10.9 the live defrag option is not available in newer operating systems or any Mac made after March 2011. You need to boot from the Drive Genius BootWell.
The BootWell allows you to have a secondary startup drive to perform the Utilities such as Defrag.
The BootWell allows you to have a secondary startup drive to perform the Utilities such as Defrag.
What does extended check do within a physical check?
The extended check option will verify the read and write ability of every data area on the drive. Unlike the Revive option, which only attempts writes for bad areas, the Extended check option will read and write the contents of every single data area on the drive; possibly multiple times.
This process goes through great pains to bypass all operating system layers and directly interact with the drives data; therefore enabling Extended scan will greatly increase the time needed to complete the scan. If you have the time to let the Extended check complete, it will find faults with the drive even when other tests, other utilities or vendors themselves declare the drive to be in good condition.
**Due to the stress placed on a drive with the Extended check option enabled, it is not recommended for SSD drives.
**Please note that stressing an already failing drive with bad blocks can cause more damage and more bad blocks on the drive. We do not recommend using this option with failing drives.
This process goes through great pains to bypass all operating system layers and directly interact with the drives data; therefore enabling Extended scan will greatly increase the time needed to complete the scan. If you have the time to let the Extended check complete, it will find faults with the drive even when other tests, other utilities or vendors themselves declare the drive to be in good condition.
**Due to the stress placed on a drive with the Extended check option enabled, it is not recommended for SSD drives.
**Please note that stressing an already failing drive with bad blocks can cause more damage and more bad blocks on the drive. We do not recommend using this option with failing drives.
Why can’t I see the active files on my internal hard drive?
Active Files utility is only available on drive you are not booted into like an external drive or if you are started up from a BootWell the internal drive.
In Find Duplicates the selected files turned red, have they been removed?
Yes, when a file turns red within the software, the file has been removed/erased from your system.
Drive Pulse is alerting me to run Repair, what do I do?
If Drive pulse alerts you that you have errors on your drive and drive needs to be repaired. This is a software corruption and therefore using Drive Genius Repair utility you can fix this corruption.
If this is your internal drive then you will have start up your mac from the Drive Genius BootWell drive to run the Repair. The internal drive needs to be unmounted to run Repair.
If this is your internal drive then you will have start up your mac from the Drive Genius BootWell drive to run the Repair. The internal drive needs to be unmounted to run Repair.
What is Consistency Check?
Drive Genius 5 Mac Protection And Optimization Software Mac Defrag Update
A Consistency Check is when Drive Genius checks a HFS+ drive for corruption on the drive. All HFS+ drives attached directly to a Mac are frequently checked by Drive Genius for corruption on the drives which could lead to the drive becoming not bootable or corruption spreading to the Mac OS files.
If Drive Genius finds corruption on the files on a drive it will prompt you to Repair the drive, and if it cannot be repaired the drive may need to be backed up and re-formatted, or replaced in severe cases.
If Drive Genius finds corruption on the files on a drive it will prompt you to Repair the drive, and if it cannot be repaired the drive may need to be backed up and re-formatted, or replaced in severe cases.
If I run 1 pass within secure erase, can I use your recovery software to recover the data?
No, when 1 pass is done, numbers are written on every possible part of the drive and its most likely that no recovery software can recover it.
Why can’t I defrag, repair, or rebuild my internal drive while I am booted into it?
Apple made a change with their OS releases 10.9-10.10 starting with that prevents 3rd party applications from unmounting the boot drive while you are booted into it. Defrag, repair, and rebuild all require unmounting the drive to run on current and future operating systems that are supported. There are currently only two solutions to this problem. You can create a secondary startup disk, which requires downloading and installing a full operating system or using Drive Genius to create a BootWell drive.
A File Management utility is showing me a lot of files to delete. Which files should I select?
You should only delete files you are familiar with and are not using (files you know can be safely deleted). If you see unfamiliar files, the best course of action is to assume those files are related to macOS or applications and leave those files alone. The utilities will show all files on your drive according to the options you have selected; they make a best effort to filter files that should not be deleted. However, it is ultimately your responsibility to determine which files to delete.
Will Drive Genius work with RAID drives?
Yes. Hardware based RAID, Apple software RAID and SoftRAID are supported.
Does Drive Genius support Drobo drives?
No. 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.
Should sleep mode be disabled prior to running a utility?
Drive Genius 5 Mac Protection And Optimization Software Mac Defrag Windows 7
No. Drive Genius prevents the system from automatically sleeping while a utility is running. Although the display may turn off during a long process, the system will not sleep while a utility is running. If the display goes to sleep, simply move the mouse or tap the keyboard to wake up the display.
Will Drive Genius report a problem during a Clone if the source drive is corrupted?
No. Since Drive Genius uses a bit-by-bit copy, every problem will be copied over without regard for the corruption on the drive. This will result in a direct copy of the source drive. If the source drive is failing to attach or startup, the destination drive will also have the same issues. This is ideal for creating a copy of a bad drive for the purpose of troubleshooting, such as using Prosoft’s Data Rescue to scan for data from the duplicated device.
Does a Clone destination drive have to be larger than the source drive?
It must be at least the same size, but it does not have to be larger.