Does Apple test their features fully?

[VinegarTasters]

If you formatted a harddrive to NTFS (maybe from a windows machine), and you plug it into Mountain Lion, open Disk Utility app. Lets say you want to format it into ExFat (the FAT32 successor). But you want security by wiping it to zero first during the format.

Guess what? You can't do it. Each time you select "zero" the drive in the format options, and try to Erase the drive to ExFat, it fails. Why is that?

Apparently, no-one tested it before. Another bug. How do you get a workaround? You must format it WITHOUT any security (no zeros, no DOD security of wiping 3 times, etc). After you erase it without any security, then magically, the security options work. (you can "zero" the drive, do DOD security erase, etc).

There are LOTS of bugs crawling in OSX Mountain Lion that NOBODY fixes. Just slides under the rug release after release. Before, they may have less money, and you can get away with minor bugs not being fixed, but now that they are flush with money, continuing to ignore quality means something is wrong with their process.

 

[maflynn]

There are LOTS of bugs crawling in OSX Mountain Lion that NOBODY fixes.

Have you reported the bugs to apple? I've not seen LOTS of bugs in Mountain Lion so I'm not sure what you mean. Please expound on your point about lots of bugs.

 

[GER-pbr]

I'm pretty sure this is not a bug. You are trying to write on an NTFS-formatted drive which simply isn't possible. Once you re-formatted the volume to a different file system and to be in read/write-state, Disk Utility is able to write millions of zeros.

Makes sense, doesn't it?

I think you are completely overreacting; while there are bugs in the OS, there are certainly not "LOTS of bugs crawling in OSX Mountain Lion that NOBODY fixes".

 

[VinegarTasters]

Have you reported the bugs to apple? I've not seen LOTS of bugs in Mountain Lion so I'm not sure what you mean. Please expound on your point about lots of bugs.

Come on, stop trolling. Yes, the bugs are reported, just never fixed. The above bug for example.. You can just look in this forum, search for bugs. Shared Wi-Fi losing connection, etc.

Even this one, which will not be fixed because it is considered "minor":

Another one is the separators in Finder (Earlier, 30 days, 7 days, etc) becomes folders. That is a new one but I am sure others have seen it if they used the finder enough.

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I'm pretty sure this is not a bug. You are trying to write on an NTFS-formatted drive which simply isn't possible. Once you re-formatted the volume to a different file system and to be in read/write-state, Disk Utility is able to write millions of zeros.

Makes sense, doesn't it?

I think you are completely overreacting; while there are bugs in the OS, there are certainly not "LOTS of bugs crawling in OSX Mountain Lion that NOBODY fixes".

No, makes no sense at all. This is the "format" functionality, where during the format, it adds security of wiping previous data. The "zero"ing is not in any other place other than the "format" area. It is a selectable option in "Format". It just doesn't work. Lots of people will use it and figure you can't format it using security, so they will never use it. If it was only tested first, they would have simply forced a format without security following a format with security if the user selected "zero" option. They could even make it a two step process like a "wizard" functionality in Windows, where it guides you through. they could even added text above it saying you can only format without security first round, then do it again second round. No. It just errors out.

Don't try to explain problems away. Fix the problems. Otherwise, these bugs will exist release, after release.

 

[maflynn]

How am I trolling when I asked you to expound upon your generic statement that there are LOTS of bugs. If you want to complain about the bugs, which is fair, please list the bugs your talking about. Generalized statements really are not conducive to discussing the issue

 

[MacDawg]

Too many people define a bug as something doesn't work the way want it to or expect it to, which truly is not a "bug"

 

[maflynn]

Back to my prior point, have you sent apple any feedback on the bugs that you're complaining about?

Its possible that they're unaware of one or some of them, and if you submit them, they'll look into it.

Its one thing to complain about it in a forum, but quite another to actually communicate to apple that there's a problem with their software.

 

[GER-pbr]

Too many people define a bug as something doesn't work the way they want it to or expect it to, which truly is not a "bug"

ACK.

While I agree that some kind of message or hint would be helpful (saying it's not possible to erase before formatting), I don't see any point in discussing this issue here. This is certainly not a bug and all the functionality is there. You might call it a usability issue, though.

If you enjoy spending your day being upset because of a missing hint or warning, then go ahead and have fun. I'm not going to waste my time in this thread.

 

[theSeb]

If you formatted a harddrive to NTFS (maybe from a windows machine), and you plug it into Mountain Lion, open Disk Utility app. Lets say you want to format it into ExFat (the FAT32 successor). But you want security by wiping it to zero first during the format.

Guess what? You can't do it. Each time you select "zero" the drive in the format options, and try to Erase the drive to ExFat, it fails. Why is that?

Apparently, no-one tested it before. Another bug. How do you get a workaround? You must format it WITHOUT any security (no zeros, no DOD security of wiping 3 times, etc). After you erase it without any security, then magically, the security options work. (you can "zero" the drive, do DOD security erase, etc).

There are LOTS of bugs crawling in OSX Mountain Lion that NOBODY fixes. Just slides under the rug release after release. Before, they may have less money, and you can get away with minor bugs not being fixed, but now that they are flush with money, continuing to ignore quality means something is wrong with their process.

Testing everything is simply impossible so the answer to your question is, no. There is no software that is fully tested and bug free. Apple certainly does not ignore quality, but their developers and QA teams are only human.

I am struggling to understand your post though. Why are you expecting Disk Utility to be able to write to an NTFS drive when OS X does not have this ability natively? (that's what a secure wipes does - it needs to be able to write to the disk first) It can reformat an NTFS partition, but it cannot write to it so I am confused what you think the problem is.

Also, I would love to see a more detailed explanation of these "lots of bugs" that you have found, with examples.

 

[NT1440]

ML has built in Ntfs support?

 

[theSeb]

ML has built in Ntfs support?

Only read. There is also apparently hidden and inactive support for writing to NTFS, but it's deactivated for whatever reasons. (probably licensing)

 

[Krazy Bill]

Yes, the bugs are reported, just never fixed.

You are just now figuring this out?

The squeaky wheel gets the oil and the wheels you want fixed just don't make enough noise. And now that iOS6 is done, I suspect more resources will be devoted to bug squashing in that arena.

Come on, stop trolling.

A trolling moderator. There's a new one.

 

[maflynn]

A trolling moderator. There's a new one.

I've been called worse

 

[old-wiz]

Only read. There is also apparently hidden and inactive support for writing to NTFS, but it's deactivated for whatever reasons. (probably licensing)

licensing and... no one outside of IBM truly understands NTFS, and even the IBM people sometimes don't know.

 

[CyBeRino]

Only read. There is also apparently hidden and inactive support for writing to NTFS, but it's deactivated for whatever reasons. (probably licensing)

Actually it's to cover their collective behinds.

Only Microsoft knows how to write to NTFS and be certain nothing is going wrong.

Apple doesn't want to be sued by a bunch of people who hooked up their NTFS drive, wrote stuff to it and then found that corrupted a bunch of other crap.

And since Microsoft appears to not want to tell anyone else how NTFS works, this is what we're stuck with.

 

[VinegarTasters]

Man, you guys seem to want to explain the problems away. Have you thought about explaining the problems it may cause?

What if you are a government agency wanting to purchase Macs or convert to Macs? They have NTFS drives. Because of security, it needs to be wiped using DOD (3 layer security). If they use those NTFS drives as the main drive what will happen? They won't purchase MACS. Because Macs can't do the DOD security layer on the NTFS drives. Because the format is done before installing the OSX, there is NO option before installing OSX to do the DOD 3 layer security on the NTFS before putting on the OSX. No Mac purchases for government agency (or any corporation that requires DOD clearance).

No. This is not my case. But since you guys like explaining problems away, lets be fair I can do the same thing explaining problems will arise. Same with wired Magic Trackpad. No agency with emergency 24 hour uptime will purchase Macs because the batteries may run out and they may need to run to the convenience store to purchase batteries. Only Apple makes the magic trackpads, and they don't offer wired versions. If you are a 911 emergency receptionist, where uptime is critical, they are not going to purchase macs. Apple does not cater to special needs, and offer options. They are catered to the "noobs" and don't know anything, but likes cool things.

 

[DVD9]

Actually it's to cover their collective behinds.

Only Microsoft knows how to write to NTFS and be certain nothing is going wrong.

Apple doesn't want to be sued by a bunch of people who hooked up their NTFS drive, wrote stuff to it and then found that corrupted a bunch of other crap.

And since Microsoft appears to not want to tell anyone else how NTFS works, this is what we're stuck with.

Linux distros have no problem with NTFS.

Download a Ubuntu CD and try it.

 

[pdjudd]

Linux distros have no problem with NTFS.

We are talking about full proper support that is guaranteed 100% to work reliably. Can any solution in a linux distro guarantee that? I doubt it. Trouble is, that their is no accountability in that - nobody can sue when the you-know-what-hits-the-you-know-where. That isn't the case with Apple. They face major liability if they try and do this sort of thing and fail. If Apple fails, they face big problems with people since the disk would be pretty much gone and Apple could face legal liability.

There is also the problem of comparing a commercial OS to one that is not commercial but I won't go there. Ubuntu is not comparable to Apple.

Pretty much any Reading NTFS solution involves something non-native and is a custom thing. The closest we can get is from Paragon (as far as I know) who (I believe) writes their own custom solution. Maybe they even license some tech (I honestly don't have any deep knowledge of how Paragon does things).

Suffice to say, Apple has never supporting any sort of writing to NTFS - something that is no secret. It isn't a bug, it's a limitation of writing a commercial OS where Apple isn't into taking risks. Same thing with MS not supporting reading or writing to HFS+ (not at all). It's possible with extra software, but MS doesn't support it. Apple provides *some* support, just not what the OP wants. It's not a bug - Apple doesn't promise full support of NTFS volumes (they don't even advertise it last I checked)

And again, there is a difference between "we can get it to work" verus "we can advertise this and support this as a feature to end consumers" Apple doesn't want to take a risk there since there us a huge risk for failure and even might involve legal problems.

 

[chrono1081]

Man, you guys seem to want to explain the problems away. Have you thought about explaining the problems it may cause?

What if you are a government agency wanting to purchase Macs or convert to Macs? They have NTFS drives. Because of security, it needs to be wiped using DOD (3 layer security). If they use those NTFS drives as the main drive what will happen? They won't purchase MACS. Because Macs can't do the DOD security layer on the NTFS drives. Because the format is done before installing the OSX, there is NO option before installing OSX to do the DOD 3 layer security on the NTFS before putting on the OSX. No Mac purchases for government agency (or any corporation that requires DOD clearance).

No. This is not my case. But since you guys like explaining problems away, lets be fair I can do the same thing explaining problems will arise. Same with wired Magic Trackpad. No agency with emergency 24 hour uptime will purchase Macs because the batteries may run out and they may need to run to the convenience store to purchase batteries. Only Apple makes the magic trackpads, and they don't offer wired versions. If you are a 911 emergency receptionist, where uptime is critical, they are not going to purchase macs. Apple does not cater to special needs, and offer options. They are catered to the "noobs" and don't know anything, but likes cool things.

No one is explaining problems away, they're simply saying if you feel its a bug, report it. Complaining about it on Mac Rumors does absolutely nothing. Apple doesn't read Macrumors.

Bug reporting has a system, go to http://www.apple.com/feedback and report the bug.

Also all of your "so and so won't purchase Macs because x reason" are completely, 100% invalid. If Windows machines were so perfect and stable I would not have a job right now.

You're getting angry for no reason.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

What if you are a government agency wanting to purchase Macs or convert to Macs? They have NTFS drives. Because of security, it needs to be wiped using DOD (3 layer security).

No. Not really. The DoD uses encrypted drives (similar to FileVault 2 and BitLocker). And the DoD does not erase the data. The DoD destroys the HDDs/SSDs, if necessary.

 

[theSeb]

Man, you guys seem to want to explain the problems away. Have you thought about explaining the problems it may cause?

What if you are a government agency wanting to purchase Macs or convert to Macs? They have NTFS drives. Because of security, it needs to be wiped using DOD (3 layer security). If they use those NTFS drives as the main drive what will happen? They won't purchase MACS. Because Macs can't do the DOD security layer on the NTFS drives. Because the format is done before installing the OSX, there is NO option before installing OSX to do the DOD 3 layer security on the NTFS before putting on the OSX. No Mac purchases for government agency (or any corporation that requires DOD clearance).

No. This is not my case. But since you guys like explaining problems away, lets be fair I can do the same thing explaining problems will arise. Same with wired Magic Trackpad.

Yes, I can just see the men in black suits pondering and worrying over this one.

Your use case is simply not valid, but feel free to keep ranting and accusing people of being this and that, since you don't like, or understand, the explanation you've been given. OS X cannot write to an NTFS partition, so how is it supposed to securely wipe an NTFS partition? Why not format it into HFS Journaled and then do another format with secure wipe? You could have done this already instead of ranting on the forum.

No agency with emergency 24 hour uptime will purchase Macs because the batteries may run out and they may need to run to the convenience store to purchase batteries. Only Apple makes the magic trackpads, and they don't offer wired versions. If you are a 911 emergency receptionist, where uptime is critical, they are not going to purchase macs. Apple does not cater to special needs, and offer options. They are catered to the "noobs" and don't know anything, but likes cool things.

hahahahah. Seriously. What does that have to do with your problem? Seems like you're now just going off on some weird tangent. Wow. Apple does not create a wired trackpad for emergency control rooms. Apple = fail. It's been a while since I've seen some logic like this.

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No. Not really. The DoD uses encrypted drives (similar to FileVault 2 and BitLocker). And the DoD does not erase the data. The DoD destroys the HDDs/SSDs, if necessary.

Please don't pollute this thread with your facts and excuses.

 

[old-wiz]

Why in the world would a 911 emergency center have to depend on a wired/wireless trackpad? Could they not use a mouse? Wired mice have no batteries and are a proven technology and it is very cheap and easy to keep a backup in house.

Trackpads are nice, but hardly a serious requirement.

 

[Purant]

I think the OP makes some good points, but the way he is expressing himself isn't helping.

Being able to do a zero-fill format (or low level format as it's often called... incorrectly) is something that you should be able to do, and the format process shouldn't care about what kind of filesystem is there already.

Also, it is true that Lion and ML are a step down from Snow Leopard in terms of cohesion and stability. SL is a mature OS, ML has a ton of quirks right now, a lot of the iOS inspired features feel really tacked on and not that useful and the built-in apps lack cohesion...

 

[CyBeRino]

Linux distros have no problem with NTFS.

Download a Ubuntu CD and try it.

I'm a UNIX/Linux sysadmin. I'll pass on that if you don't mind.


Linux doesn't have this problem because they aren't a multi-billion-dollar company. They have pretty much zero chance of being sued for data loss. Apple is somewhat different in this regard.

 

[VinegarTasters]

No. Not really. The DoD uses encrypted drives (similar to FileVault 2 and BitLocker). And the DoD does not erase the data. The DoD destroys the HDDs/SSDs, if necessary.

Nice find. But it doesn't pertain to this case. That document states for disposal of computers. Whereas the case here is the computers are not for disposal but for possible DOD use.

Also, DOD as in DOD security layer (3 layer security erase). It is not department of defense, it is the protocol for dealing with harddrives. You could have just opened up Disk Utility and look at the menu options... DOD 3 layer security. So it has nothing to do with DOD, it has to do with security.

Lastly, there are apple people lurking in these forums. There are many people who have reported that Apple got their email address looked up from these forums and Apple directly emailed them (note that email address are normally not public on these forum posts). In fact, every time I mention something bad about Apple products (that are detrimental to their profit line), my posts get sent to the wasteland. Coincidence? I think not.