Hi, SpinRite is That's fantastic, it would be interesting to have some of
the following options in future versions: 1) Formatting Zero Fill and
Test for Sales Report (Imagine I want to sell my drive to a stranger. It
would be useful to have a complete formatting option where data
recovery is impossible, followed by a test confirming the drive is
100% functional, and a sales report attesting that the drive was
formatted, tested, and is 100% functional.)
There are a gazillion drive wipers out there, free HDDScan can fill a
drive with the sector number in each sector and draw a graph of
write responsiveness, and I have BIOS that offer SE Secure Erase,
calling on the drive to self-erase quickly.
I put any drive in a USB adapter and run free GRC ValiDrive to get the
fastest confirmation of read / write capability end to end ( only 576
sections, NOT every sector, NOT every byte ).
A fresh partition and format, and
ChkDsk /R is a great proof of
space without bad sectors.
A SpinRite 6.1 Level 5 LOG takes the longest, but is worth the most,
'proving' the drive has just successfully completed 3 reads and 2
writes of every sector, every byte.
Responsiveness?
Twin graphs from free HDDScan, one showing erase responsiveness,
and another showing read responsiveness should do just fine.
Free HD Tune is quicker at drawing a read graph, less precise.
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2) The possibility of the new version running in the background on
Windows/Linux would be very helpful, allowing you to work
normally while the unit is tested in the background. 3) Parallel
testing would be greatly appreciated; I would save a lot of time if
I could test all 5 units at once.
Free and fee-versions of HD Sentinel and fee-based HDD Regenerator
work under Windows on drives in the background, and free Puran
DiskFresh even works on the boot live system drive.
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4) An online database where it's possible to submit benchmark
reports for each HDD model, allowing us to compare performance
and determine if a drive is experiencing performance issues.
I have found that no two drives, even consecutive serial numbers,
behave the same - all are idiopathic.
Plus, other people's problems are other people's problems, not mine.
For example, Backblaze claims they pull drives based on S.M.A.R.T.
data, but acknowledge that drives fail without S.M.A.R.T. warnings, and
they do not say if the drives they pull actually fail or not, so basing my
decisions on their whacky policies would be a fool's game.
But there is much to learn from other people's LOGs, so see
https://gitlab.com/GRC-Community/SpinRite-Logs and dive in, and
tell us what you find - thanks to
@ColbyBouma for that SpinRite LOG
repository.
And I have learned from all new-to-me drives getting a full SpinRite
6.1 Level 5 run and LOG so I no only have proof that I got what I
expected - or return any surprises - I also have something to
compare to later when any drive ages and maybe needs attention,
I can compare to the original LOG.
So it's probably important for us to make and keep our own LOG
repository.
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5) It would be interesting if, in the event of a power outage, Spinrite
would continue the test from where it left off, essentially saving
progress, and with a sudden power drop, it would recognize where
it stopped and continue the work. Sorry for my bad english, the
ideas are just some thoughts that I find interesting, I don't know if
they're possible or feasible. Best Regards,
Yes, programs supposedly
automate stuff.
Being able to interrupt a SpinRite run, then
automatically pick up
where it left off, would be a great automation.
In the meantime, we manually watch, read logs, and manually write
new command lines, or manually select menu options to manually
pickup where we left off.
To reduce manual intervention, I recently ran SpinRite, over and over,
automatically, on a wonky drive, using the following batch file:
REPEAT.BAT
RS
SPINRITE NORAMTEST LEVEL 2 DYNASTAT 0 NOREWRITE SKIPVERIFY BIOS 81 AUTO
REPEAT
RS is free GRC ReadSpeed, which I find clears a drive's mind, so to
speak, in preparation for the next SpinRite run.
That could be
AUTOEXEC.BAT and automatically start up again after a
power outage - some duplicate work, but moving forward nevertheless.
The drive and SpinRite apparently kept resolving problems, and
avoided seriously damaged sectors while doing so - DynaStat would
throw the drive off line, so I turned off DynaStat, and kept asking the
drive to read, and asking SpinRite to fix non-DynaStat problems.
After 2 weeks of 2-to-3 full SpinRite runs per day - yes, it started at 13
hours for each run, it got quicker and quicker as the days wore on,
a clue that more and more was becoming readable without retries -
I recovered 100% of the needed unique user-data without the drive
going off line.
Otherwise, with straight-forward blunderbuss banging into bad
sectors, the drive would go offline when trying to copy everything out.
I 'automated' by bypassing the sectors that most folks bump into,
causing them to have to manually power cycle the drive, manfully
reboot, and then manually try to pick up after the bad sectors,
manually and iteratively narrowing their scope to isolate the bad
sectors.
Apparently,
DynaStat 0 NoRewrite accomplished enough success
to win.
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The
above are great suggestions for enhancing SpinRite's capabilities.
It would be great if SpinRite did
everything, but it does many things
well, and is superb at
data recovery and
drive maintenance, which
are SpinRite's forte.
So we use other tools, too, along with SpinRite.
As well as using SpinRite in creative ways..
Like a screw driver is a tool that we use in may creative ways beyond
merely driving screws, SpinRite is also a tool that we can use in a
variety of creative ways if we pay close enough attention, and try
things, get clever, brainstorm with others, and make magic happen.
Let us know how you use SpinRite and other tools.
Thanks.
