Mac external drive not recognized by Spinrite 6.1

[akjim]

Hello kind Spinrite affectionados! I am a new user having a problem to which an answer is not found using the search string “external drive not recognized by Spinrite”.
The whole story: Synology NAS says this 4TB drive has become unreliable. The Synology now has a new replacement drive and I’m curious about whether Spinrite will do some good on the drive now removed. I am using a Mac, and have a bootable Spinrite USB created yesterday with a fresh download of Spinrite. The drive resides in a Voyager Q (bare drive toaster). I can mount and format the drive on my Mac. When I restart the same Mac, with the same cabling to the external Spinrite recognizes only Mac’s internal HD. The external drive has been formatted the same as the internal drive. What am I missing?

Thank you all in advance!

 

[Scott]

The drive resides in a Voyager Q (bare drive toaster). I can mount and format the drive on my Mac. When I restart the same Mac, with the same cabling to the external Spinrite recognizes only Mac’s internal HD. The external drive has been formatted the same as the internal drive. What am I missing?

How is the Voyager Q connected to the Mac? Based on this spec sheet:

https://www.newertech.com/downloads/NWTVOYQMAN.pdf

It appears that this can connect via USB or FireWire. I’d guess that only USB might be recognized by the Mac when booting in BIOS emulation.

 

[akjim]

The Voyager Q is connected via USB

 

[Scott]

The Voyager Q is connected via USB

Next troubleshooting step - if you have a flash drive in the same usb port as the voyager, is it recognized by SpinRite?

 

[akjim]

I have two USB ports available, both are functional. I can run Spinrite from either and I can access the external under MacOS through either of them also.

 

[Scott]

I have two USB ports available, both are functional. I can run Spinrite from either and I can access the external under MacOS through either of them also.

But if you boot from one and with a flash drive in the other, is the flash drive seen by SpinRite?

 

[akjim]

Oh, good idea Scott .... I'll test that right now

 

[akjim]

Yes, Spinrite recognizes a thumb drive in the adjacent USB port, but not the external. This is true regardless of which port is running Spinrite.

 

[Scott]

Hmm. What if you start SpinRite with the forcebios switch?

C:\>spinrite forcebios

If not then I’m out of ideas other than either:
1. If your Mac can run VirtualBox, run SpinRite inside VirtualBox, or
2.Find a PC that can run SpinRite and try there

 

[AlanD]

I would guess that the emulated "BIOS" on your Mac does not recognise disks over 2.2TB. It works with MacOS because that supplies the drivers, but the BIOS does not have them.

 

[akjim]

Thank you Scott and AlanD ..... I'll try a smaller HD in the toaster to see if that is recognized. I've an old PC sitting on the shelf to try also. I'll be back later with either success or continued intrigue.

 

[Scott]

Hey @akjim , I experimented on my mid-2012 MacBook Pro, and at least on my machine, @AlanD 's theory was correct. I connected an external USB to SATA adapter and tried it with two drives. In both cases the drive was inserted in the adapter and powered on prior to booting the Mac:

• 1 Terabyte Seagate Drive
  • Result - Success. SpinRite saw the drive as a 1 Terabyte, BIOS connected drive on Port 81
• 4 Terabyte Toshiba Drive
  • Result - Failure. SpinRite saw there was something at BIOS Port 81 but could not identify the drive, nor could it determine the size. It just showed dots in the Size field

That's good thinking, Alan, and I'll update the "Boot a Mac into FreeDOS" instructions to note that BIOS-attached drives probably won't be recognized if over 2.2 TB.

 

[jlee]

The whole story: Synology NAS says this 4TB drive has become unreliable. The Synology now has a new replacement drive and I’m curious about whether Spinrite will do some good on the drive now removed.

It might. But sometimes NASes will reject a drive that's simply taking too long to respond or has other issues that aren't caused by media errors. It's worth trying with SpinRite but it may find no problems.

 

[akjim]

Thank you Scott and AlanD, .... I put a 120 GB drive in the toaster and it mounted fine under Spinrite on my mac. Next I moved the toaster to the old Toshiba PC I had sitting on the shelf. Spinrite runs OK on the Toshiba and will mount the 120GB drive on that machine. Trying next with the 4TB, it will not mount on the Toshiba either. Tried forcebios, again does not mount.

 

[Scott]

@akjim , your Toshiba has the same problem as the Mac - an old BIOS that can’t access devices larger than 2.2 TB. If you find a PC from around 2017 or so you might have better luck.

 

[akjim]

Thank you Scott, I'll pack this up for now and take it back to Hdqtrs when I go in a few weeks. Pretty sure someone there will have a newer PC. Thanks, close thread.....