how to disable beeping while attempting to recover a sector

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taomoon

New member
May 2, 2023
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I have several drives in a bad state and I am currently running SR61 on them. SR beeps continuously using the motherboards onboard speaker while attempting to recover a sector. Is there any way to disable this function either vie the GUI or from the CLI? The tiny little speaker on the motherboard makes the most awful sound when beeping. I cannot even unplug it as it's soldered to the board. Any insight would be appreciated.

Tao
 
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Hi TaoMoon (@taomoon): Yes. Depressing BOTH SHIFT keys at the same time will toggle SpinRite's sounds. While it's muted you'll see the tag “(quiet)” posted in the upper-right corner of the screen.

If you always wish to run without sound, you can start SpinRite with the token "quiet" on the command line. This will start it in quiet mode, and you can then toggle sounds on and off with the SHIFT keys. (y)
 
Thank you. I'd just encountered this after learning about the pre-release from SN959 and my wife was not thrilled at the noise emanating from my office.

Thanks Steve for all the work you (and the team of testers) have put in to 6.1.

Aaron.
 
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Hi TaoMoon (@taomoon): Yes. Depressing BOTH SHIFT keys at the same time will toggle SpinRite's sounds. While it's muted you'll see the tag “(quiet)” posted in the upper-right corner of the screen.

If you always wish to run without sound, you can start SpinRite with the token "quiet" on the command line. This will start it in quiet mode, and you can then toggle sounds on and off with the SHIFT keys. (y)
Thank you!
 
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Anyone else having an issue disabling sounds by pressing both SHIFT keys?
I have tried everything. I'm booting from a SR-created USB image. Not running from the CLI so I don't know how to start it silent.

Thanks
 
Hi @Ronny. So... Simultaneously depressing both shift keys is NOT toggling the sounds off and on and showing "(quiet)" in the upper right corner of the screen?

Assuming that's not working for you (as it seems it isn't), you can boot SpinRite's USB drive then just exit at the start by pressing ESC. That will drop you to a DOS prompt. Then restart SpinRite with the command: spinrite quiet

And if you want this always whenever you boot SpinRite, you can use the text editor that's included to edit the autoexec.bat file to do that, too. From the DOS prompt, enter: edit autoexec.bat

Then use the editor to add the "quiet" after SPINRITE that you will see on the last line. Exit and save the change and now it will be automatic. (y)
 
Hi @Ronny. So... Simultaneously depressing both shift keys is NOT toggling the sounds off and on and showing "(quiet)" in the upper right corner of the screen?

Assuming that's not working for you (as it seems it isn't), you can boot SpinRite's USB drive then just exit at the start by pressing ESC. That will drop you to a DOS prompt. Then restart SpinRite with the command: spinrite quiet

And if you want this always whenever you boot SpinRite, you can use the text editor that's included to edit the autoexec.bat file to do that, too. From the DOS prompt, enter: edit autoexec.bat

Then use the editor to add the "quiet" after SPINRITE that you will see on the last line. Exit and save the change and now it will be automatic. (y)
Correct, Steve. No sound disablement and no "quiet" tag on the screen.

I'm using SpinRite v6.1 Release 2. Before this, I downloaded the version in the link that arrived following my purchase.
I am using a bootable USB stick that was prepared with SpinRite's tool and it boots fine.

Earlier today I had the originally downloaded version, and today I downloaded v6.1 R2, renamed the file to SPINRITE.EXE, and copied it to my already-bootable USB (and it works. It boots fine.)

I have both EXEs on the USB drive now, and ran "fc.exe /b <old file> <new file>" to compare both in binary mode and they are different, although both show "SPINRITE 6.0" on the screen when booting up. I think I saw something or heard you on SecurityNow! that 6.1 still shows "6.0" on the screen, so I'm not worried.

I can't drop to FREEDOS. In every screen that I can press ESC the only option is to reboot the system.

Thank you

-Ronny
 
Correct, Steve. No sound disablement and no "quiet" tag on the screen.

I'm using SpinRite v6.1 Release 2. Before this, I downloaded the version in the link that arrived following my purchase.
I am using a bootable USB stick that was prepared with SpinRite's tool and it boots fine.

Earlier today I had the originally downloaded version, and today I downloaded v6.1 R2, renamed the file to SPINRITE.EXE, and copied it to my already-bootable USB (and it works. It boots fine.)

I have both EXEs on the USB drive now, and ran "fc.exe /b <old file> <new file>" to compare both in binary mode and they are different, although both show "SPINRITE 6.0" on the screen when booting up. I think I saw something or heard you on SecurityNow! that 6.1 still shows "6.0" on the screen, so I'm not worried.

I can't drop to FREEDOS. In every screen that I can press ESC the only option is to reboot the system.

Thank you

-Ronny
Quick update on this:

When I'm still in the menus, before starting any operation, I still get the beeps no matter what.
I then let it start (level 2), and do enough through the menu to get to the screen with the squiggly worms in it (graphic status display) :)

When there, with the worms displaying I hold both shifts, and I could hear a faint "tick tick tick tick tick" coming from the speaker.
I press the two shift keys, and it goes away.
I press them again, and the ticking sound is back.
I then press the two shift keys again, and it goes away.

After a couple of those sound/no sound/sound/no sound it stays silent and doesn't come back.

Let me know if it's acceptable and/or helpful, and I could make a video and post it for you only on YouTube.

Thanks

-Ronny
 
Earlier today I had the originally downloaded version, and today I downloaded v6.1 R2, renamed the file to SPINRITE.EXE, and copied it to my already-bootable USB (and it works. It boots fine.)

I have both EXEs on the USB drive now, and ran "fc.exe /b <old file> <new file>" to compare both in binary mode and they are different, although both show "SPINRITE 6.0" on the screen when booting up. I think I saw something or heard you on SecurityNow! that 6.1 still shows "6.0" on the screen, so I'm not worried.
RONNY!!! This was MY screwup!! You really DO have v6.0! I messed up the server last night and fixed it this morning when someone reported that the /prerelease.htm page was delivering v6.0 instead of v6.1! So please grab v6.1 again and THEN you'll have what you want!
 
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Thanks for letting me know, Steve!
I was trying to figure out all day how the heck I downloaded the wrong version :ROFLMAO:

Live Long and Prosper, my (new) friend!
 
Re-enabling the display of the version number at the top of the screen would help eliminate confusion like this ;)