Your AppleCare TechTool disk doesn't work?

Question

As many who purchased the last of the G5 iMacs knows, the TechTool Deluxe disk provided with AppleCare didn't work, i.e. you could not boot up your iMac with it.
I spoke to AppleCare about this two weeks ago, and they denied that version 3.0.4 was not the correct disk for OS 10.4.6.
However, they have now quietly admitted this, and offer a free download of a revised version 3.0.4 here:
https://support.apple.com/techtooldeluxe/main?id=dl
from which you can burn your own disk.
A bit sneaky IMO to retain the old version number! But it could be that the disk will only work with YOUR iMac.

Answer 1

Its never been a very satisfactory aspect of the Applecare, I'm afraid. I've always operated on the principle that you ignore the software provided (it used to be Virex, which caused far more problems for people than it ever prevented or solved!)
The disks are almost always well "behind the the times". Usually fine for the previous model, but not for the one that people are actually buying at the time they usually shell out for Applecare. In my case I usually only bother about Applecare (if at all) at the time my 12 month original hardware warranty is running out. By this time the software that comes in the package will probably actually be "current" for my now 12 month old purchase! I've recently bought a package for my iMac ALS because of the power supply failures that seem a bit too common with them, but my other Macs aren't under cover.
You can usually get as good , or better, advice here than you get through the phone services IMHO anyway, so the phone support doesn't matter as far as I am concerned (though there are occasional exceptions to this)
As far as TTPro 4 goes, I personally like Diskwarrior for directory repair and iDefrag for defragging. All that this really leaves is the additional hardware diagnostics in TTPro, most of which you can achieve with the Apple Hardware Test anyway. If I was "in the market" for an "all purpose" suite these days (since the demise of Nortons) I'd probably go for Drive Genius rather than TTP.
My advice to any new Mac user, in fact, is to buy a good external Firewire Drive for backup purposes before you even think about the these third party utilities. Between this and Apple's own utilities (Disk Utility etc), you will actually be able to do just about anything that any of the third party makers offer, and quite a few other things too!
Cheers
Rod