Drive Setup 1.7.2: Who can use it?; Low-level gone?; more issues
Drive Setup 1.7.2: Who can use it?; Low-level gone?; more issues
Drive Setup 1.7.2 is for all Power Mac users Several readers suggested that Drive Setup should only be used with specific Macs. This was based on information from a TIL article (#30020) referenced from the Drive Setup 1.7.2 page. The article did not actually mention 1.7.2, but described 1.7.0 as follows: "This version ships with the Power Macintosh G3 Blue & White computers, and the Strawberry, Lime, Tangerine, Grape and Blueberry iMac computers with Mac OS 8.5.1 and is only supported on these computers." Some readers took this to mean that the same restriction applied to 1.7.2.
My understanding was that version 1.7.2 was intended for a wider audience, but I checked with Apple's John Phelps just to be certain. He confirmed: "Drive Setup 1.7.2 is approved for use with all PowerPC-based computers running System 7.5 or higher (up to Mac OS 8.5.1)."
No more Low Level formatting for ATA drives Barry Lubov noted that the Low Level formatting option was dimmed in Drive Setup 1.7.2 but not Drive Setup 1.6.2. This is not a bug. It's a feature, first added in Drive Setup 1.7, as explained in TIL article #30020:
Low level format option for all ATA drives has been disabled. This test was not performing a low level format. This test instead wrote zeros and performed subsequent reads to verify drive calculated checksums on the written data. With the exception of the read portion, this test was the same as the write zeroes option. The combination of both tests and the larger capacity of drives Apple is shipping provides unnecessary redundancy at the expense of the user experience. Drive Setup users can achieve the same functionality by selecting the Zero all data initialization option before initializing the hard drive followed by the Test Disk... function under the Function menu.
FileSaver issue? Yigal Cohen writes: "Since I've installed Apple's Drive Setup 1.7.2, Norton FileSaver Scan prompts me that it cannot scan and update the disk because 'it's in use.'" Graham Haultain reported a similar problem.
Miscellaneous other reports Several users wrote to say that they were using Drive Setup 1.7.2 with no problems at all (thanks, Aaron Ryck, David Schultz and others). However, other readers continued to report an inability to start up after installing the update. In virtually every case, downgrading back to the previous version of the driver remedied the problem (thanks, Pete Jurkovich, Alan Summerfield, Daryn Edwards, and others). While these sort of problems crop up with virtually every disk formatting utility update (requiring some users to reformat their drives to get the update to work), version 1.7.2 seems more prone to these problems than typical.
I have not received further reports of the AppearanceLib error. I am still not certain why it occurred in my case. Eventually I will reformat my drive. In the meantime, I am content to remain using Drive Setup 1.6.2.
Work-arounds suggested Readers have come up with some work-arounds for their particular problems with starting up after updating via Drive Setup 1.7.2:
Zapping PRAM solved the startup problem for John Pale.Updating the driver after restarting with Extensions off solved the problem for Daryl Woods.
John McNamara had success by doing an install of 8.5.1 onto another volume. "I then copied the System, Finder, and System Resources files onto my boot volume. Then things worked fine."