Downgrade for Running on Vintage Systems

  • Be sure to checkout “Tips & Tricks”
    Dear Guest Visitor → Once you register and log-in please checkout the “Tips & Tricks” page for some very handy tips!

    /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.)

RetroViator

New member
Apr 20, 2024
3
0
Hi, I'm a longtime follower of Steve's work, but first-time buyer of SpinRite. :)

I need to run SpinRite on an old PC... like an early Pentium with 32MB of RAM. The system happily boots the floppy image, but I'm sad to report that I'm greeted with a flashing screen telling me the system, "lacks sufficient memory to run SpinRite with large buffers." Perhaps SpinRite 5 would meet my unusual needs. Does anyone know if it's possible to run older versions of SpinRite? I realize my serial number is hard-coded into the version I downloaded, so this might not be possible.