First time 6.1 user on a Mac

[MacMan42]

After having listened to Security Now since probably the beginning, I bought Spinrite 6.1r2 to try on my Macs. (Thank You Steve!!)
I know Steve doesn't have a Mac's, but there may be someone else interested.
I used a Windows laptop to download the file and write to a USB stick.

On an iMac Late 2012 (IvyBridge i5-3330S) it booted and run with no problems.
On an iMac 2017 (KabyLake i7-7700K) it never showed in the Boot Manager.

Two differences on the 2017, are that it has what Apple called a Fusion Drive, which is an 2 TB HDD and a 128 GB SSD joined in a pseudo-RAID.
The HDD is connected to the SATA bus and the SSD is connected to the NVMe PCIe bus
The other difference is that the volume already Boot Camp installed and a Windows partition created.

 

[Steve]

Thanks for your report. The older iMac's success is expected... but you're going to need to wait for SRv7 for that newer machine. It will support UEFI booting and an NVMe driver, neither of which SRv6.1 has.

 

[Scott]

On an iMac Late 2012 (IvyBridge i5-3330S) it booted and run with no problems.
On an iMac 2017 (KabyLake i7-7700K) it never showed in the Boot Manager.

Hey @MacMan42 , you might try the "Booting on UEFI instructions" I added last week for your 2017 Mac.

https://forums.grc.com/threads/how-to-run-spinrite-on-a-uefi-only-machine-part-1-of-5.1613/

 

[Batson]

For the OP: I"m trying to run Spinrite on a mid 2012 iMac that also has Bootcamp installed with a Windows partition. I haven't been able to get the USB drive to appear in the boot menu. Can you explain how you were able to do this? Was it a regular Mac boot with the option key, or did you drop into DOS in the Windows partition and work some sort of magic there? Thanks in advance!

 

[PHolder]

2012 iMac

I googled "legacy boot 2012 iMac" and the AI responded with:

To legacy boot a 2012 iMac, you'll need to access the Startup Manager by pressing and holding the Option key (Alt) during startup, then select your desired bootable drive (like a USB with an installer).

I realize this may not be very helpful, but the thing you need to know is that SpinRite does a Legacy Boot (need a BIOS/CSM) and I presume your Mac has that if it can run Windows, so you just need to know how to get it to be enabled instead of just booting UEFI.

 

[Batson]

Thanks for that. Correction: it's a mid 2010 Mac.

 

[Scott]

Thanks for that. Correction: it's a mid 2010 Mac.

See this article:

https://forums.grc.com/threads/how-to-boot-a-mac-into-freedos-for-bootable-spinrite-or-readspeed-part-1-of-3-intro.458/

And note:

• If your system is from 2010 or earlier it may be able to boot from a FreeDOS flash drive, but it may only support booting from CD-ROM

I’d guess that you’ll have to create a CD and try that

 

[Batson]

Much appreciated! Time to dust off some old skills
I also have a Windows desktop that I have run Spinrite on many times. In creating the boot media to try to boot on the Mac, would I be better off using Windows tools or Mac tools to create the media?

 

[Scott]

Much appreciated! Time to dust off some old skills
I also have a Windows desktop that I have run Spinrite on many times. In creating the boot media to try to boot on the Mac, would I be better off using Windows tools or Mac tools to create the media?

The windows "half" of the SpinRite executable can create the bootable USB (though your Mac may not boot from it), and also create the .ISO that you can burn to a CD. Create the ISO on your Windows machine, and burn it on your Windows machine, if it has a CD writer, or on your Mac.

And good luck finding blank, writable CDs these days!! You'd want to burn to a CD-R or a CD-RW disk, based on the SuperDrive specs I see for this mid-2010 iMac:

iMac (27-inch, Mid 2010) - Technical Specifications - Apple Support

support.apple.com

 

[Batson]

Excellent - thanks much!
I'm diving in!!

 

[ZiggyStar]

I have it working on a 2015 Intel MacBook Pro in a VirtualBox VM.
Only hassle is fixing the script to mount the volume for the drive I want to test each time.

 

[gleclaire]

I have it working on a 2015 Intel MacBook Pro in a VirtualBox VM.
Only hassle is fixing the script to mount the volume for the drive I want to test each time.

Depending on your desire to do scripting, VirtualBox can be launched and configured from the command line.

Linux: How to Run VirtualBox VMs from the Command Line

Oracle's open source VirtualBox offers a solid GUI for managing virtual machines. But sometimes you'd prefer to use the command line. Here's how.

thenewstack.io