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  • SpinRite v6.1 Release #3
    Guest:
    The 3rd release of SpinRite v6.1 is published and may be obtained by all SpinRite v6.0 owners at the SpinRite v6.1 Pre-Release page. (SpinRite will shortly be officially updated to v6.1 so this page will be renamed.) The primary new feature, and the reason for this release, was the discovery of memory problems in some systems that were affecting SpinRite's operation. So SpinRite now incorporates a built-in test of the system's memory. For the full story, please see this page in the "Pre-Release Announcements & Feedback" forum.
    /Steve.
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  • 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.

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Drive Stopped Responding To Commands (SRPR 6.1 RC5)

#1

cpuguru

cpuguru

Ran SRPR 6.1 RC5 on a used (by me) Samsung SSD 850 EVO 1TB on level 2 before I installed it in an iMac since it's such a pain to remove the screen to get to the innards.

Got an error that "This drive has stopped responding to commands" red screen indicating it had issues 20.5% into the run.

I tried to run it again on level 1 but SR couldn't find the drive again.

I had to power the PC off and back on again before it saw the drive.

Running SR on level 1 from the beginning and it passed that location without error and is almost done.

I'll run it again on level 2 to see if it craps out again.

Cheers!

Doug


#2

Steve

Steve

Thanks for your report. My guess is that SpinRite helped the drive to find a read problem which it then dealt with. But that SpinRite and/or the drive did not gracefully recover from that trouble. We've seen this with spinners in the past, and it recently surfaced again for one of SpinRite's testers in GRC's development newsgroup. So I currently have it on my (very short) list of things to pursue before we finally put SpinRite v6.1 to bed. I'd be pretty certain that the same Level 2 pass tht glitched that first time will now cruise right through since that follow-up Level 1 had no trouble. (y)


#3

cpuguru

cpuguru

Steve said:
Thanks for your report. My guess is that SpinRite helped the drive to find a read problem which it then dealt with. But that SpinRite and/or the drive did not gracefully recover from that trouble. We've seen this with spinners in the past, and it recently surfaced again for one of SpinRite's testers in GRC's development newsgroup. So I currently have it on my (very short) list of things to pursue before we finally put SpinRite v6.1 to bed. I'd be pretty certain that the same Level 2 pass tht glitched that first time will now cruise right through since that follow-up Level 1 had no trouble. (y)
Click to expand...
You are correct sir - level 1 completed without issue. Ran a Level 3 and it also completed without issue.

I know it's frowned upon to write to SSDs if you don't have to but the fact that the SSD survived the level 3 process gives me more confidence that it'll be a good replacement for the bad spinner in the iMac. If it dies it dies, not a super critical system for me.

Cheers!


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