ReadSpeed, by design, cannot see or access USB drives.
SpinRite 6.0 may be able to see/access the drive if the BIOS does.
4TB USB HDD, UEFI only system, weak sectors
- Thread starter TheQuickFox
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/Steve. -
BootAble – FreeDOS boot testing freeware
To obtain direct, low-level access to a system's mass storage drives, SpinRite runs under a GRC-customized version of FreeDOS which has been modified to add compatibility with all file systems. In order to run SpinRite it must first be possible to boot FreeDOS.
GRC's “BootAble” freeware allows anyone to easily create BIOS-bootable media in order to workout and confirm the details of getting a machine to boot FreeDOS through a BIOS. Once the means of doing that has been determined, the media created by SpinRite can be booted and run in the same way.
The participants here, who have taken the time to share their knowledge and experience, their successes and some frustrations with booting their computers into FreeDOS, have created a valuable knowledgebase which will benefit everyone who follows.
You may click on the image to the right to obtain your own copy of BootAble. Then use the knowledge and experience documented here to boot your computer(s) into FreeDOS. And please do not hesitate to ask questions – nowhere else can better answers be found.
(You may permanently close this reminder with the 'X' in the upper right.)
SpinRite 6.0 may be able to see/access the drive if the BIOS does.
I only buy high endurance SD cards these days. I’ve lost a few due to using the ‘standard’ ones too much. Buy ones that are built for security cameras and dashcams. There is a big differenc.
Right!
InitDisk "might" be able to fix something. Or, not.If the BIOS does not adequately support SpinRite 6.0 accessing the USB drive, InitDisk is certainly worth a try.
I tried readspeed, but I'll give initdisk a try. Since I've become aware of them I've been buying 'high endurance' flash drives. Recently I purchased Hard Disk Sentinel out of curiosity, I saw it mentioned here. A discount, one time lifelong license, and the ability to run it concurrently with Windows piqued my curiosity.
With some limited use so far it seems interesting. You can do a read only, read with relocate bad sectors, a deep surface test, and an initialize/ wipe data test. What it is lacking is data recovery. I am still waiting tor Spinrite since it has data recovery and speed on it's side. In the mean time, Hard Disk Sentinel is able to run on the multi terabyte drives I don't trust enough for regular use I just copied everything off one backup drive and will start a deep surface test on it later. I've had suspicions about the condition of that drive for some time but due to it's size I can't run SR on it.
Another thing I like about HDS is the graphical display. It shows a grid with each box representing so much data, similar to SR. It displays how fast each box is by changing it's color, light to dark green in a few steps, the darker the color the slower. Speed I am guessing is determined by the number of retries needed. It also plots graphs of data transfer speed and temperature for the entire test. I have to say I like it so far. Worth repeating is lack of data recovery, and it does warn about possible data loss on most tests. It may be worth looking into. There is a trial version with most of it's functions disabled.
With some limited use so far it seems interesting. You can do a read only, read with relocate bad sectors, a deep surface test, and an initialize/ wipe data test. What it is lacking is data recovery. I am still waiting tor Spinrite since it has data recovery and speed on it's side. In the mean time, Hard Disk Sentinel is able to run on the multi terabyte drives I don't trust enough for regular use I just copied everything off one backup drive and will start a deep surface test on it later. I've had suspicions about the condition of that drive for some time but due to it's size I can't run SR on it.
Another thing I like about HDS is the graphical display. It shows a grid with each box representing so much data, similar to SR. It displays how fast each box is by changing it's color, light to dark green in a few steps, the darker the color the slower. Speed I am guessing is determined by the number of retries needed. It also plots graphs of data transfer speed and temperature for the entire test. I have to say I like it so far. Worth repeating is lack of data recovery, and it does warn about possible data loss on most tests. It may be worth looking into. There is a trial version with most of it's functions disabled.
Sorry Dan, that was me
. My test hard drive had nothing on it so I didn't notice that anything had happened to it. I did notice my boot 'thumb' drive stopped working, which I thought was something I had caused, but that was explained by all the other reports. I had nothing to add and forgot about it. All the downloads are now accounted for .Not a problem. It is history now.Sorry Dan, that was me
Good to know, though. Thanks for the update!
