Boot MacBook Pro

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    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.

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orthopodvt

Member
Dec 30, 2020
6
0
Is there any way to get a MBP (2017) to boot Readspeed? I installed REFind, and it seems to see the USB with Readspeed (which is a bootable FreeDOS USB), but when I select it, it just dumps me back to the rEFind menu. Thanks for any help.
 
Your clue is in the name: r-EFI-nd It's a EFI/UEFI boot tool. Macs have been EFI for a long time (probably before almost anything else.) There are now two problems: The EFI start program is not found on your USB, and if it were to be found (renamed to the correct name) it wouldn't work because FreeDOS expects a BIOS to supply all the low level support to run, and EFI would only do that if it had a CSM (BIOS compatibility support module.) Mac's never cared about running anything but MacOS so if there is a means to boot DOS it's merely because Apple wanted to support Windows on your machine. These days Windows can boot without BIOS because it can boot two ways (under BIOS or under UEFI) so Macs probably don't support a CSM any more (because I presume there is a cost to license the necessary code.)

It's not that it's not possible, but it will be a struggle and you still may not succeed. You can find other advice here or the forums.
If that doesn't work, this is an excellent article about booting a Mac into DOS:
https://www.grc.com/groups/spinrite.dev:25574
 
As far as I can tell, any Mac from 2015 and newer can NOT boot into DOS or FreeDOS, and so can't run ReadSpeed
 
Your clue is in the name: r-EFI-nd It's a EFI/UEFI boot tool. Macs have been EFI for a long time (probably before almost anything else.) There are now two problems: The EFI start program is not found on your USB, and if it were to be found (renamed to the correct name) it wouldn't work because FreeDOS expects a BIOS to supply all the low level support to run, and EFI would only do that if it had a CSM (BIOS compatibility support module.) Mac's never cared about running anything but MacOS so if there is a means to boot DOS it's merely because Apple wanted to support Windows on your machine. These days Windows can boot without BIOS because it can boot two ways (under BIOS or under UEFI) so Macs probably don't support a CSM any more (because I presume there is a cost to license the necessary code.)

It's not that it's not possible, but it will be a struggle and you still may not succeed. You can find other advice here or the forums.
Thanks - looks like I'm out of luck ;-(