norton utilities

Yeah, norton is what I use. I know there are a few other things out there. Those nuts at apple for one reason or other decided not to include any defragging software. Probably in bed with symantec or something, who knows...

If you have multiple drives/backups, simply reinitilaize the disc. It's the fastest and most complete defrag you can get. Takes about a minute, then simply copy back the data from backup. regarding Norton, DO NOT INSTALL ON YOUR MAC!!!! There are major issues with Norton run from a mac drive. I have pesonally sen Norton run from disc destroy data beyond recovery. run norton only from the CD, do not install!!!! FWIW, when reinitializing is not an option, we use DisckWarrior and Plus Optimizer, as good and safer IMHO.

lukis have also had problems installing norton and run only from disc ?

Not to mention that if you want to optimize your hard drive you either need to run Speed Disk from the Norton Utilities CD or another hard drive anyway as you cannot optimize the disk that you are running from, another reason not to bother installing it.

Plus, as we all know, reinitializing is the best way to go.

Norton will defragment my main drive - the one where all the programs and plug-ins are stored. After loading, deleting, and reloading several demo programs, my main drive got pretty hosed up and I noticed a speed drop. I certainly don't want to reinitialize the main drive each time. I looked at PlusOptimizer, but it didn't seem to be fully OS 10.2 compatible, based on (My G4 only came with OS9 classic)