Hardware config for SpinRite to recognize drives above 2.2GB

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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.

    (You may permanently close this reminder with the 'X' in the upper right.)

If a computer has no SATA sockets, only M.2 or
NVMe, you can try an M.2-to-SATA adapter,
and provide your own power supply to a SATA
drive:

1751740970743.png

Otherwise, a dedicated old cheap computer with
SATA sockets on the main system memory bus
board is an excellent route - some of us never
throw old computer stuff away, it always seems
to come in handy.
 
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@DanR, @peterblaise, and everyone else-- thanks so much for the great help! You and others have been so helpful. Forgive me again -- I'm a career developer, and sometimes higher-level or partial explanations, while accurate in intent, actually raise other questions. So I was poking a little more at ChatGPT, and it produced some technical details that were incredibly insightful, and given everything I had read on these forums, contained a detail or two I did not expect. I decided to format the entire conversation in Markdown and attach it for any other inquisitive souls which might come after (notice the extension of *.md.txt -- for some reason it would not take an attachment with a *.md extension).

Give the attached doc a read...it surprised me -- but according to this conversation, the TLDR of why in my case the 2.2TB limit (warning, the below is a bit pedantic) appears to be the following:
Your BIOS is part of the limit (via Int 13h), but mainly the DOS application does not support GPT nor large addressing.
  • To fully see & use the 4TB GPT drive, you would need either:
    • a modern OS that bypasses BIOS after boot (Windows, Linux), or
    • special DOS drivers that implement large LBA and GPT.
Click to expand...
In other words as I understand this, sparing the lower level details (see the attached doc):

The problem isn't one of large-drive capacity support via USB connection (or my specific USB-SATA bridge / 48-bit LBA support) or GPT partitioning vs direct-SATA connection. Strictly speaking, direct-SATA connection isn't providing any drive support or solving a problem per se that exists in a USB configuration, and the problem isn't a BIOS limitation per se. The problem is both FreeDOS and SpinRite support of viable configurations (not a knock, just a clarification, as it makes the difference in whether trying to debug a configuration is a worthwhile move -- or starting over). The problem seems to be that FreeDOS doesn't support it, and best I can tell (could be wrong), is that SpinRite's drivers implement large LBA and GPT only with direct-connected SATA drives. Following, there isn't really anything magic about a ZimaBoard or any other hardware, and there should be no struggle for config -- direct-connect SATA to motherboard, done-and-done. It's not whether other configs properly support large hard drive capacity, this is about SpinRite drivers.

I think I now understand a lot of isolated comments many of you have posted above in their proper context. Forgive me again for taking a bit more research to clarify what I imagine are a few who commented above thinking "yeah, that's what I told you before". Your comments are greatly appreciated and even right on, I just needed to understand what was under the hood of those comments. Again, your guidance got me to this point.

So..if anyone could confirm what I've said above, I think I can consider this a solved and explained issue (if not, LOL, I guess more to do! :) ), and I hope the attached doc helps another hard drive / SpinRite traveller.
 

Attachments

  • ChatGPT_2.2TB-hard-drive-limit copy.md.txt
    13.3 KB · Views: 92
brado2049 said:
SpinRite's drivers implement large LBA and GPT only with direct-connected SATA drives. Following, there isn't really anything magic about a ZimaBoard or any other hardware, and there should be no struggle for config -- direct-connect SATA to motherboard, done-and-done.
Click to expand...
When SpinRite 6.1 can use it's built-in native drivers with an internal drive connected to a motherboard controller:
BIOS -> Boot FreeDOS
FreeDOS -> Provide a DOS environment for SpinRite 6.1 to reside and run in
SpinRite 6.1 -> Native Driver -> Controller -> Drive
Neither the BIOS or FreeDOS are involved here with SpinRite 6.1's operation hence NO BIOS/DOS limitations apply
SpinRite 6.1 will run at the max speed the controller-drive combo is capable of, with NO limitations re drive capacity or drive formatting.

When SpinRite 6.1 cannot use it's built-in native drivers with an internal (e.g. NVMe) or external drive:
BIOS -> Boot FreeDOS
FreeDOS -> Provide a DOS environment for SpinRite 6.1 to reside and run in
Drives will now all be "BIOS" drives
SpinRite 6.1 -> BIOS -> Drive
Now all BIOS/DOS limitations will apply, seriously handicapping SpinRite 6.1 and severely limiting what SpinRite 6.1 can do.
 
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Yup, thanks @DanR. After going through this process and research, I now understand enough of what’s under the hood to understand the why of yours and others explanations.

It might have been the subtext of a lot of comments, and understood by a lot of the posters, but perhaps an improvement could be made to the doc and GRC SpinRite support to be a little more definitive on what works / doesn’t for SpinRite users, and make it part of the lead, rather than something they have to search for. Specifically what not to do / what’s not worth the time — that could be a major timesaver. It is fine that folks are experimenting with hardware and various configurations and VM’s and the like — that’s interesting info and helpful for some that want to go that route. But the most expensive variable in the equation by far is time, and then secondly, probably the hard drives / data you need to rescue.

GRC tech support couldn’t give me a hardware configuration known to have worked (I asked, told them I’d go buy it immediately if they could give me a config which was known to work), and pointed me toward the forums. That’s fine, as there’s great info and a great community here on these forums (and again, I thank all of you for your guidance), but I think the info could be put on the front page as a starting point for those that want to get up and running. If weeks of testing and research can be saved with a purchase costing a few hundred bucks, that’s not even a decision. Unless I have an intellectual curiosity to go under the hood (which is fine), I make that purchase day 1 (and I did — unfortunately I was buying the wrong hardware to solve the wrong problem).

Maybe I can help contribute something here. I just ordered a ZimaBoard2 with the intent of making it a dedicated SpinRite rig. If a success, I’ll summarize the experience and post it here. Maybe that can serve as a possible known go-to SpinRite hardware configuration for anyone that wants a dedicated rig and would like to bypass searching / testing hardware.

Thanks again for the help here. We’ll see what happens with the ZimaBoard2.
 
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PHolder said:
I am concerned that the BIOS may be so new on the ZimaBoard2 that it won't allow legacy booting. They don't seem to have info either way in the documentation I searched. (I did make a request to their technical support, but it's all automated and they never got back.)
Click to expand...
Yeah, I have the same concern. I had also fired off a message to their tech support and also posted to their Discord, but crickets on both. I decided to take the plunge anyway and find out. I have other potential uses for the ZimaBoard2 even if SpinRite doesn't pan out. But I should know shortly (within a week if shipping info is accurate), and I'll post back here when I do.
 
Scott said:
You could also spin up VirtualBox under Windows and run SR in a virtual machine. The VirtualBox BIOS can definitely address drives larger than 2.2 TB.

If you are not testing your boot drive, no need to create a boot drive, just install VirtualBox on your running Windows install and follow instructions to map your drives.

Click to expand...
Thanks for that link, Scott. Depending on what happens with the ZimaBoard2, yours might end up being the only game in town. I may end up doing it on VMware Fusion or Paralllels b/c I prefer to work on macOS (b/c of other development support needs), but I'll eventually get there.
 
brado2049 said:
Thanks for that link, Scott. Depending on what happens with the ZimaBoard2, yours might end up being the only game in town. I may end up doing it on VMware Fusion or Paralllels b/c I prefer to work on macOS (b/c of other development support needs), but I'll eventually get there.
Click to expand...

You can run VirtualBox on an Intel Mac, instructions in the same link. Or you can run SpinRite in QEMU on either an Intel or Apple Silicon Mac:

 
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Well, what do you know, I just got a reply from the Zima Store folks. Here’s the answer: ZimbaBoard2 does not support legacy booting, it only supports UEFI booting. So ZimaBoard2 … no go. :(.
 
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@Tazz — I know, bummer. I’ve gone through this hardware testing drill before, but now that I really understand the problem for the first time, I’ve got more motivation to solve it. I have a decent guess based on the SN podcast and what I’ve read on these forums that a known working hardware configuration that could be bought right off the shelf might be welcome. No promises, but over the next weeks I’m going to see if I can’t come up with a hardware configuration which can be easily purchased for a dedicated SpinRite rig.
 
brado2049 said:
No promises, but over the next weeks I’m going to see if I can’t come up with a hardware configuration which can be easily purchased for a dedicated SpinRite rig.
Click to expand...
You will almost certainly find that any "new" machines currently available will not do legacy boot. Your best bet is to look for a second hand machine that is a few years old. If it is not urgent, there may be a lot of them after 24 October ( end of W10 support) that still do BIOS booting.
 
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Here’s something interesting I just ran across — has anyone heard of or tried CSMWrap, which allows CSM booting capabilities on UEFI-only systems? If this as advertised, then perhaps something like ZimaBoard2 actually might be an option running CSMWrap to get legacy boot support. https://github.com/FlyGoat/csmwrap

If anyone has any info about this, please post!
 
ColbyBouma said:
millQ was able to get it working:
Click to expand...
Thanks @ColbyBouma ! I contacted the Zima folks tonight because they were very courteous in their support reply to my last question and explanation of the SpinRite use case (they were very interested to learn about that apparently). I asked if their engineers might test CSMWrap on the ZimaBoard2 and let me know if it is compatible, and if so, I’d buy it again (I returned the other) and test SpinRite on it. I’ll post here when I get an answer from them.
 
FWIW, the original ZimaBlade does work well for a dedicated SpinRite solution. I have 2 of their NAS packages. SpinRiting a NVMe drive in the PCIe slot does work, but where it's through the BIOS it's slow.

Since it only has one USB port you do need to get either a PCIe to USB adapter or some kind of USB-C multiport adapter that supports pass-through charging. Also, if you go the multiport adapter route you'll need to get a USB-C charger because of the non-standard USB-C power adapter that comes with the ZimaBlade.
 
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@brado2049 wrote, in summary: "... 4TB SATA not seen or not fully ​
seen by SpinRite 6.1 ... all drives larger than 2.2TB appear as ​
2.2TB on all computers ..."​

So ... what does SpinRite 6.1 say about ANY OTHER SATA drive in
ANY OTHER computer for you?

Especially with these command-line options:

SPINRITE NORAMTEST SKIPVERIFY​

Reminder: you are using a boot FreeDOS USB made by SpinRite 6.1,
yes?

Could you kindly list specifics so we all can know of apparent exceptions?

Computers ... make, model, BIOS, date ...
Drives ... make, model, firmware, date ...

A 2024 computer is not expected to have an old-fashioned CMOS BIOS for booting and presenting devices to any DOS.

USB devices are not expected to provide full speed nor full size reporting through an CMOS BIOS to any DOS.

You need another computer where you can install the drive to be tested as an internal SATA drive.

On ANY other computer, what does free ReadSpeed say about the drives in the computers?

https://www.grc.com/readspeed.htm

Reminder:

Mount each drive internally as SATA, one at a​
time, as the only drive in a computer, boot​
from a FreeDOS USB, with no CONFIG.SYS if​
necessary ( or ONLY BUFFERS=98 ), and try:​
​
SPINRITE NORAMTEST SKIPVERIFY​
​
Also, @Paul F created and kindly 'donated' a​
utility that empowers SpinRite 6.1 to run on​
MS-DOS, so if FreeDOS still does not pass​
access to the full drive, let us know and we'll​
help you try MS-DOS and SpinRite 6.1.​

So ... ?!?
 
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