28

I need to use SpinRite on my notebook which has no CD-ROM.

How can I install and run SpinRite from a USB thumbdrive? Such that I could boot the notebook up with a thumbdrive and start SpinRite.

Are all USB thumbdrives capable of booting? I don't even know how to make them boot.

Peter Mortensen
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Snackmoore
  • 673

7 Answers7

24

I tried the following.

  1. Download and install "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8" from http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197
    Click on Blue "Primary Download site" -- not Green "Downloads" advertisements
    or from http://www.19systems.net/HP-USB-Tool-v2.1.8.exe

  2. Download "Windows 98/DOS boot files" from http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=196
    Click on Blue "Primary Download site" -- not Green "Downloads" advertisements
    or from http://www.19systems.net/Win98-Boot-Files.zip

  3. Unzip Win98 files into a temporary folder such as Win98boot

  4. For pre-Vista Run "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool". For Vista and beyond, right click it and "run as administrator"

  5. Use it to format the USB drive and enable the option to make it bootable with files from Win98boot

  6. Copy spinrite.exe to the formatted USB drive

  7. On the target notebook, edit boot sequence so that boot from USB is ahead of HDD

  8. Boot the notebook with it and at DOS prompt, run spinrite.exe

You can now run SpinRite on a CD-ROM-less machine.

Community
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Snackmoore
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22

Also, You can run the spinrite installer and choose to install onto a drive. and "Hold down the letter of the drive on the keyboard and press install" then it boots right into spinrite (Just tested)

Travis
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  • 2
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17

I could not get SpinRite 6.0 to boot from my USB drive by using its built-in installer. I tried the accepted answer but it didn't work because HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool reported "Device media is write-protected" (but for some reason it was writable by everything else).

Here's what worked for me:

  1. Download Rufus, a tool for making bootable USB drives. At the time of this writing its version is 2.17.1198.

  2. Run Rufus with the following settings:

    • screenshot
    • MBR partition scheme for BIOS or UEFI
    • FAT32
    • 16 kilobytes
    • SpinRite 6.0
    • [Unchecked] Check devices for bad blocks
    • [Checked] Quick format
    • [Checked] Create a bootable disk using FreeDOS
    • [Checked] Create extended label and icon files

  3. Run the SpinRite 6.0 installer and create an .iso file.

  4. Mount the .iso file and copy SPINRITE.EXE to the USB drive.

  5. Boot the drive.

  6. DOS should start. Run spinrite.exe.

Andrew Keeton
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7

For *nix users, it is possible to boot Spinrite by just writing the floppy disk image of Spinrite to a usb drive.

dd if=spinrite.img conv=notrunc of=/dev/sdx

or

cat floppy.img > /dev/sdx

Where sdx is your usb drive. Root privileges required.

If you're feeling fancy, you can also integrate Spinrite onto a syslinux or extlinux usb drive with a boot menu. For example, here's a minimal working syslinux.conf that also includes memtest on a single usb drive:

default vesamenu.c32
label spinrite
  menu label Run SpinRite 6
  kernel memdisk
  initrd floppy.img

label memtest
  menu label Run MemTest86+
  linux memtest

See the syslinux documentation for more details about creating boot menus.

blee
  • 1,864
6

Seems to be described here: https://www.grc.com/sr/faq.htm

How do I make a bootable USB thumb drive?

Hewlett Packard (HP) makes an easy-to-use utility called “HP USB Disk Format Tool”, which includes a "Create a DOS Startup Disk" option. It's freely available from: http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197 (mirror) along with the Windows 98/DOS boot files.

Run the HP tool, pointing it at the directory where you unzipped the DOS boot files, and it will automatically build a bootable DOS USB drive using those files. Next, copy your original SPINRITE.EXE file onto the root directory of your USB drive. Once done, reboot the system with your BIOS configured to boot from USB drives. At the DOS prompt, type spinrite to start SpinRite.

Note that this also has the advantage of using real Microsoft MS-DOS files rather than the “FreeDOS” files which accompany SpinRite. The real, original MS-DOS may operate more consistently on less compatible systems.

Vinayak
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Christoffer Madsen
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4

SpinRite 6.0 lets you install make any writable drive bootable using an option on its main menu, as noted above by Travis. You may have to hunt around a bit in your BIOS Setup menu to find the option for elevating you drive, such as a USB flash drive, to the first position.

You can make an inexpensive, quiet "SpinRite machine" by buying a Zotac mini-PC without a hard drive and just booting from a USB flash drive or memory card. Plug in a hard drive dock (toaster) so you can easily prepare or refresh any of your 3.5 or 2.5 inch drives.

Wells
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1

I've heard that SpinRite can be ran as virtual machine. This won't require a physical CD drive as SpinRite is loaded onto the VM from an ISO file.

How to Run SpinRite in Virtualbox

Dan Stevens
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