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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.)
It will likely be awhile . . . See
Subject to change if/as Steve's thinking changes.
As Dan says, it is on the roadmap. It will happen. But how “soon” is completely unknown.
I agree that this is what we're seeing more and more. This is why I'm so excited about the subtle timing variations we detected in SSDs during the ReadSpeed benchmark development which was built upon the native AHCI driver development. Drives that are having trouble reading their own data — as revealed by reduced reading speed — cannot hide that fact from any sufficiently sensitive examination. This promises to be a really big deal for SpinRite.
You will need Google translate as the web page is in Russian, but the program is in English.
Go figure.
It's particularly enlightening on old drives that have bad spots.
If you can access USB attached drives from SpinRite on your PC now then you should be able to access an NVMe drive in a USB adapter.
ReadSpeed? NO. It will not. ReadSpeed by design is ONLY for internal drives. RS cannot see/access USB drives.
SpinRite? Maybe. PROVIDED: Provided your system BIOS supports this. Most BIOS are very limited in their USB support capability.
And if you are fortunate enough to be able to scan ANY USB drive, the s-l-o-w BIOS I/O speed would make any benchmarking meaningless and useless. All you would see would be the very s-l-o-w BIOS I/O speed.
And the slow scan speed would mean a rather l-o-n-g scan time. But the long, slow scan would be valid - eventually
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I've just tested this out on my main system. First getting BIOS (CSM) enabled was a trick. Got that going and booted my fresh copy of SR 6.1 Release 4. Drive discovery shows the following.
So am I correct in assuming that the two NVMe drives are not supported at all with SR 6.1?
I was able to complete the benchmark, but the performance seems a bit worse than the AHCI detected SSD 860 EVO. Is this due to the BIOS layer rather than native driver compatibility? Screenshots below.
BIOS connected NVMe got the following numbers. Forum here wouldn't allow me to add more than two screenshots.
midpoint drive rate: 403.096 MB/s
end of drive rate: 407.757 MB/s
smart polling delay: no smart
random sectors time: 0.182 msec
front of drive rate: 404.423 MB/s
midpoint drive rate: 398.071 MB/s
end of drive rate: 391.805 MB/s
Define supported? They're listed, they're not red, so you were able to select them and run SpinRite on them? I suspect yes, so they're supported by your BIOS which means they're supported (in some sense at least) by SpinRite. The problem is that the BIOS isn't the fastest way to do the work as it has limits which will slow things down. SpinRite 6.1 does not have its own NVMe drivers, that will have to wait for SpiNRite 7.x. Never the less, if your machine can run SpinRite, and your BIOS exposes the drive, there is some hope SpinRite will work with it. It's just not guaranteed that all BIOSes will allow even that.
@Adam-TheMan-Tyler How are these NVMe drives installed in your system? Plugged into an M2 slot? Plugged into a SATA controller?
How were you able to do the benchmark?
More info is needed!
