PerfectDisk Problem

Not surprising at all. I have had no problems at all running ZASS 6.1.744.001 alongside PerfectDisk 7 and the latest Raxco release of FD-ISR on four different machines.

As long as Zone Labs doesn't fix the problem with PerfectDisk, I won't budge from the ZASS version I'm running. It's Zone Labs' obligation to fix it and nobody elses's.

If they ignore the problem so long that 6.1.744.001 is obsoleted by the competition, then I'll move on and it'll be "See ya Zone Labs -- wouldn't wanna be ya".

 

I was using Sygate Personal Firewall Pro until last week when I became aware Sygate was not going to be updated and was somewhat becoming obsolete since it had been bought by Symantec. I was looking for a replacement and looked at a few evaluations that seemed to rake it high amongst firewall sw. I started with version 6.5.700 and recently discovered they had done the same mistake in a previous version.

When I find a sw company does not respond to user problems, I do my best to use a competitive product from a company that does respond to such problems. Very often, the bigger the company the less responsive it becomes. All too often they charge a high price and much of it goes into advertising and journalists' payment for positive reviews. I don't want to encourage this and would rather encourage those that strive to make their products better. I also advise other people on their software and am always happy to recommend the smaller guy whose product is better than the well known largely promoted sw company whenever possible.

 

I definitely am with you on that. Nonetheless, I'm invested in X 4 licenses for the next 6 months or so. Subscription renewal time around Decmber will be the time for me to check out the best up and comers that haven't gotten too big for their britches.

 

Guys

Pls let us know of the progress. If PerfectDisk is not going to fix the problem, then we will make our Comodo Firewall "aware" of perfectdisk installation so that it knows how to handle itself and makes sure it operates smoothly! Whether other companies fix their bugs or not, we should not let others stop us from operating smoothly (as much as possible of course as certain cases might require the other vendors to fix their problems)

thanks
Melih
Comodo

PS: if you wish you can create a posting in our forums for this to make sure to keep our developers abreast of the situation.

 

Thank you, Melih-Comodo but, IMO, it is Zone Alarm that has a problem, NOT PerfectDisk !

PerfectDisk has not changed in some time. ZoneAlarm changes with the wind.

EDIT: I see that Comodo Firewall was involved in what jbarr was doing after the ZoneAlarm problem, it's just not clear (to me) that Comodo was also having a problem with PerfectDisk rather than the AV program. Not sure why jbarr would want to "escape" from an offline defrag rather than let it run to completion. Sorry if I confuse things.

 

According to the Raxco support email I received last week, Zone Alarm's v. 6.5 firewall is apparently what's causing the offline defrag conflict w/PerfectDisk. Raxco has contacted Zone Labs and is working with them to resolve this issue.

Furthermore, Raxco indicated that the latest conflict is not related to the chkdsk problem that was fixed with ZA v. 5.1. Unfortunately the latest ZA 6.5 firewall update released last week did not address the current issue.

And to clarify my previous post concerning Comodo Personal Firewall, I was successful with initiating an offline defrag after uninstalling the free ZA 6.5 and downloading and installing CPF 2.1.1. I intentionally escaped because I wasn't prepared to perform a complete defrag at that time. Since then I have been able to perform a complete offline defrag using CPF.

Bottom Line: PD's offline defrag still has a conflict w/ZA 6.5, but CPF 2.1.1 does not. Will update this post should Raxco notify me of any progress.

 

OK, got it, thanks for that jbarr

 

I am using Zone Alarm Security Suite v6.5.714.000 and have also experienced the PerfectDisk boot-time defrag problem.

(Interestingly, I had to turn off ZA just to receive my email confirmation message from this forum so I could post here!)

I had followed some earlier advice posted here & checked my registery. Not only was PerfectDisk set to perform a boot-time defrag, but System Mechanic v5 also wanted to compact my registry. ZA effectively is blocking both tasks.

When the problem first occurred, I tried doing a CheckDisk. Not recommended! I got stuck in an endless loop of CheckDisk's that I couldn't get out of. Pressing any key to abort flashed a BSOD for a millisecond, followed by another reboot.

I finally had to restore my C partition from an image of a few weeks ago. The problem was still there, however, meaning that it was from a program on my P partition. The only recent change there was the ZA upgrade. No doubt now that ZA is the culprit, and PerfectDisk is not its only victim!

I have generally been very satisfied with ZA, but I'll just have to be patient, I guess.

Isis

 

Interesting. I run 6.5.714.001 plus PerfectDisk 7 on 4 machines and do boot time defrags and boot time chkdsks on all machines with no problem. Surely the .000 to .001 changes don't make the difference ?

 

Are you sure you don't mean v6.1.744.001?

I can't find any info on v6.5.714.001.

Isis

 

Aaaaah ! You're absolutely right, Isis. My Bad !

I guess the version numbers are too similar for me to distinguish that early in the morning.

My apologies and never mind my comment. I'm running 6.1.744.001 as you have correctly surmised.

 

Here's the latest from Raxco in their efforts to resolve this issue:

"We were able to obtain a workaround.



Please visit http://www.raxco.com/support/windows/kb_details.cfm?kbid=534 for more information.



I will also be contacting Zone Alarm and hopefully they will be interested in resolving this issue.





Susie Colon

Raxco Software Support"


I no longer have the software that is creating the conflict, Zone Alarm 6.5, installed on my computer. So I cannot speak for the success of the suggested workaround.

But Raxco deserves positive recognition for their efforts to resolve this issue. Anyone heard from Zone Alarm in this regard?

 

You're darn right Raxco !

P.S. Thanks very much for posting that, jbarr.

 

Good Grief!! Raxco reminds me of the old company WildFile, the folks who developed the original GoBack before Adaptec then Norton bought it out. They use to answer and solve tech problems not even related to GoBack. Sounds like Raxco has adopted the same high but potentially annoying (to them) standards!! KUDOS to Raxco!!

By the way, Todd never had anything to do with PerfectDisk's creation, perhaps this thread should be move to "Software & Services"?

Acadia

 

I want to give Zone Labs a little credit here. Since the discovery of this issue I have been in contact with Zone Labs twice. The first attempt was similar to a typical experience with Symantec. Generic response that does not even address the issue in the most remotes sense.

My second contact resulted in real progress. Chad from the technical department actually called me thrice. Two times I was not home. I went to King's Island with my girlfriend.

The third time was a charm. Chad and I spoke on the phone. He actually downloaded a trial of PerfectDisk from the Raxco website. He told me that he would isolate the issue once he was able to duplicate it and that Zone Labs would attempt to resolve the problem.

 

Looks like ZoneAlarm has released another upgrade to version 6.5.722.000 in an effort to resolve issues with Eudora and McAfee. PerfectDisk was not mentioned in this CNET article:

http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-6086095.html?part=rss&tag=6086095&subj=news

Good to hear from dallen's last post that ZoneAlarm is making an effort to address the PerfectDisk issue. But it sounds like ZA has its hands full at this time.

 

That's great news !

While not as much a vicarious thrill as your other news, that's great news too....I guess.

 

********************UPDATE********************
Marcus from Second Level Escalation at Zone Labs sent me the following E-mail:

Much is said about the lack of support from Zone Labs on issues such as these. My experience with Zone Labs customer support on this issue is not indicative of an experience that warrants such negative criticism.

I'm sure not all experiences with Zone Labs are so productive and that others' experiences may differ, but I like to give credit where credit is due.

********************UPDATE********************

 

Fair enough. That kind of balance should be appreciated by all of us.

 

Zone Labs has made a liar out of me. I now retract my positive remarks about Zone Labs' customer support and replace them by reiterating the aforementioned negative remarks made by my fellow Wilders Security colleagues.

 

This worked for me. It's a pain however, to go through this procedure each time I want to defrag offline. Hope someone gets the customers some relief soon. Thanks for the post to get the workaround out to me. Appreciate it.

Wonder if they fix it, how we will know it's been fixed other than trial and error with trying to use offline defrag?

 

Susie from Raxco has been very helpful in keeping me up-to-date on her findings. I wish I could say the same for Zone Labs. That being said, it seems that Raxco may have run into the same unwillingness to help from Zone Labs as I did. I say this because Susie has advised me to use the work around "until they(Zone Labs) provides a fix." If we have to rely on Zone Labs to fix this issue, it could be a long time before we see this resolved.

 

Agree - likewise, Susie from Raxco has answered me too. I have decided to uninstall ZA and just use MS Windows firewall for the interim - I am behind a router so I should be relatively safe. However...............would appreciate any suggestions for compatible, respected (free) firewalls, which forum members are using. Thanks.

 

The boot-up sequence. I used to have this problem before, but I simply resolved it just by changing the start-up sequence of a program and that did it.
It is because of a program on your computer that somehow loads before perfectdisk during the boot-up process therefore denying perfectdisk access to the drive.

" You're late. You can't come in after 7 o clock."