Just installed Spinrite 6.1, runs fine on my MSI B450 Tomahawkk based PC but when trying to run it on my MSI B550 Pro VC mobo on a different PC I can get startup after enabling CSM in Bios and enabling UEFI+Legacy mode for the USB stick. Spinrite comes up with the first screen but after the first keyboard press then no more response from keyboard. Plugged KB out then back in no difference. Tried searches in here but so far stuck without a keyboard. Haven't found a suggestion as yet that works. As stated in other threads there is no solution as yet for UEFI USB boot mode for 6.1 Spinrite.
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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.
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This is a bit confusing. CSM and UEFI booting are typically mutually exclusive (either/or) but not both at the same time.
In order to properly boot CSM both UEFI and Secure Boot must be disabled when enabling CSM.
Please see this article for more valuable and important information:
From your description I am unsure what "first" SR screen you are seeing?
The splash screen has been known to cause problems on some PC's. IIRC is to do with the switch of video mode. You can edit the config.sys on the SR USB stick to comment out splash.sys without any problems. Try that.
I have read that article and made those changes, Spinrite will start from the USB stick but after the first key press there is no keyboard afterwards. In this particular MSI Bios when I change it from UEFI to CSM, the Boot Mode Select choices is either UEFI or Legacy+UEFI. In that case my only choice is is Legacy+UEFI, in which case I still lose the keyboard functions.
The first SR screen I see after startup is the one that says "press any key to proceed".... Second screen shows my registration, after that then the Testing System RAM screen appears and is frozen immediately and says 0::Errors in yellow in the right corner. It stopped with only one memory pattern test. At that point keyboard is disabled and I have to use the PC power button to shut down and restart. The USB stick works fine on the B450 mobo mentioned earlier, the B550 mobo is a new build with new 128Gb memory.
I guess SR doesn't like this memory even though it is in both PCs and Windows 10 runs fine with it.
Thank you.
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Will do. Thanks.
Took a look and there is no Config.sys, only Spinrite.exe, Edit.Com and SRLOGS folder.
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It’s there but hidden. Even if you tell windows to show system files in explorer you won’t see it.
In windows, open a command prompt, go to the drive letter of the usb drive and type:
X:\>notepad config.sys
You should be able to REM out the splash screen
Also, similarly edit autoexec.bat to REM out the line that starts SpinRite. This way you’ll boot to a dos command line and you can start SpinRite with command line options if you want (like disabling the ram test)
Made those changes but end up with a mess, I get the C:\> prompt but as soon as I type the first S in spinrite it fills up with a string of sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss and locks.
It seems your keyboard is somehow not compatible with your bios or with Free DOS. Do you have another keyboard handy? If so, try using that one for running SpinRite.
It's unfortunate that your motherboard is incompatible. However, Steve offers a 100% money back guarantee on SpinRite. You can request a full refund.
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Hopefully SpinRite 7 Pro will be more compatible with these AMD motherboards
Thanks, well hopefully a solution can be determined before making that decision. One other thing I am going to try is to use a PS/2 adapter and run it on that port to see if the connection is maintained. I owned Spinrite back many years ago, I think it was version 2.0 and had no issues back then.It's unfortunate that your motherboard is incompatible. However, Steve offers a 100% money back guarantee on SpinRite. You can request a full refund.
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Hopefully SpinRite 7 Pro will be more compatible with these AMD motherboards
I presume the two keyboards you have tried are USB. I wonder if your motherboard has the old [round] ports for keyboard and mouse. (Traditionally green and purple.) If so, I suspect an old style keyboard plugged into one of those would work... but it might be a lot of work to go through to check all that.
Do you know if your motherboard BIOS is fully up to date... it MAY be the case that the USB keyboard issue might be fixed by an update (but seems unlikely, as they would likely have encountered it themselves while developing the BIOS you might expect.)
Oh, I just saw you latest post.
That's great news for you, and exactly what I expected.