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Questions tagged [spinrite]

SpinRite is a computer program for scanning hard disks data storage, recovering data from them and refreshing their surfaces.

20 questions
28
votes
7 answers

Running Spinrite from a USB drive?

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…
Snackmoore
  • 673
10
votes
1 answer

SpinRite 6 "MBR Followed by EFI" Error

When I run SpinRite 6 on my Windows computer with a 3TB drive, it displays a red MBR Followed by EFI error next to the drive, with a message saying it should not be run unless the MBR is "fixed." What is the cause of this error and how do I fix it?
Kaypro II
  • 1,482
6
votes
8 answers

Is there a way to prevent Windows from taking control of a hard drive?

I own a copy of SpinRite, a hard drive recovery and maintenance utility, that can't run under Windows because it requires such low-level access to the drive. Typically, you create a boot disc that runs SpinRite on top of FreeDOS in order to scan…
raven
  • 5,435
5
votes
1 answer

Does SpinRite still prevent/predict crash failure in modern hard drives?

Yesterday I attended a presentation by Western Digital that discussed various innovations in rotating hard drive internals, including perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR), heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), etc. And of course, there's…
Philip
  • 1,645
2
votes
2 answers

Step by step instructions to make dos "see" and "access" usb hard drives

I am stuck with an USB external hard drive (Maxtor 1 Touch) 750GB that crashed. I have photos and home movies (my son's birth, first birthday etc) that are very important to me. I am given to understand that Spinrite is a very good tool to use, but…
Gireesh Venkateswaran
2
votes
0 answers

Adding a USB Device Driver to a SpinRite ISO Image

Has anyone successfully gotten a SpinRite ISO image to successfully see a USB device? Steve Gibson, on his SpinRite FAQ page, says that you can add a USB device driver to a DOS boot diskette and FreeDOS may then be able to recognize USB devices. …
Matthew
  • 21
2
votes
1 answer

Resuming interrupted spinrite session

Everytime I interrupt my spinrite session, it prompt me with a percentage telling me that I could resume the session at the point of interrupt, this is all great but I never knew how to resume it. As the drive get larger and larger, more often than…
Snackmoore
  • 673
2
votes
1 answer

What does "Empty Sector" mean in Spinrite?

While running Spinrite (from GRC.com), one of the screens shows a "Raw Data Snapshot". This usually shows data from hard drive sectors flash past as they are read or written. On one drive in an HP laptop, a lot of times during the scan, the "Raw…
Jamie Cox
  • 679
1
vote
1 answer

So I found and marked some bad clusters—now what?

I don't know exactly why, but hard drive failure happens to me quite often. This time around, three out of my eight drives failed almost at the same time (two HDDs and one SSD). I still don't know what the hell is wrong with the SSD, but…
user270749
1
vote
2 answers

What is the S.M.A.R.T. page?

I've just listened to Steve Gibson talk about his SpinRite software, on the Security Now podcast episode 336 (transscript). At 33:20 he says: I can show and do show on the SMART page that sectors are being relocated and that errors are being…
Mads Skjern
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1
vote
3 answers

Does any Spinrite level intentionally result in data loss?

That is, are any of the operational levels designed in a way which writes over or otherwise destroys existing data on the disk? I looked around but couldn't find an answer to this question, and can't deduce it from the jargon used by Spinrite…
Stefan Stlokic
  • 11
1
vote
1 answer

CHKDSK at boot time after Windows 7 upgrade

I recently upgraded by Windows XP desktop to Windows 7 using the Home Premium Upgrade installation DVD. My original plan was to reformat the boot disk during installation, however, during the installation process that wasn't an option (I'm assuming…
KeithL
  • 123
1
vote
1 answer

SpinRite on USB drive

I had a laptop that one day stopped booting. I took the hard disk (WD, SATA, 320GB) out and tried it in a USB caddy and tried to connect it to my desktop PC. It behaves erratically, constantly disconnecting and reconnecting. Sometimes Windows tells…
Matw2
  • 11
1
vote
0 answers

Sony Vaio EB1E0E IDE Mode

I am trying to use SpinRite on my Sony Vaio EB1E0E, and for this I need to enable the IDE mode. However when I go to the advanced tab in the bios I only see the Vt-x enabling and disabling. Any suggestions on how I can go about enabling IDE mode in…
Botto
  • 293
1
vote
1 answer

~2,000,000 seek errors on SpinRite?

I ran a level 4 maintenance level on my hard drive with SpinRite. Everything was clean, but I checked the log and it said that it found ~2,000,000 seek errors. That's the only thing that SpinRite found. Is that something to worry about?
ctzdev
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1
2