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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.

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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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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
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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
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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
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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
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~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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OS X Hard drive recovery

I am trying to recover data from a bad Seagate 1TB hard drive in a 2010 iMac. One day the iMac wouldn't boot (stuck at gray screen on startup). I removed the hard drive from the iMac and connected it to a MacBook using a 3.5" HDD to USB adapter. The…
AAA
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