Reporting Spinrite Error

[ShootThePicture]

Long time Spinrite user, first time poster.

I went to use Spinrite 6.0 on an Samsung 500 GB SSD today, and I ended up receiving an error. It said to report it, so I'm trying to do so.

When I went to run level 2 on the drive, I was told that it was "MBR followed by EFI". It then said, "This partition exceeds the size of this drive as defined by the system's BIOS or BIOS extension." It told me I should "NOT PROCEED". However, I went to the GRC forums at https://forums.grc.com/threads/spinrite-mbr-warning-message-and-question.138/ where the person was having the same issue as me and received a response from Steve himself saying it was safe to proceed. I did so.

It ran for awhile, but then gave me a "Division Overflow Error". The "critical" error occurred at B04E. I can't reproduce the exact values in the registers.

The drive still seems to be working fine. I'm copying files off of it right now. However, since I have another drive that receives the same message about "MBR followed by EFI" before it can run, and it is having real problems, I thought I should report this.

 

[DanR]

When I went to run level 2 on the drive, I was told that it was "MBR followed by EFI".

This seems to be a drive with an MBR partition and a GPT partition. SR 6.0 cannot handle GPT partitions. SR 6.1 will handle GPT just fine.

 

[ShootThePicture]

This seems to be a drive with an MBR partition and a GPT partition. SR 6.0 cannot handle GPT partitions. SR 6.1 will handle GPT just fine.

It's from an old Windows 10 machine. Oh, well. This drive should be okay. I don't think Spinrite damaged it. The other one is definitely damaged--NOT by Spinrite--because two computers boot up telling me that the SMART system is saying the drive is going to fail soon.

Thanks for your help!

 

[peterblaise]

". . . I went to use Spinrite 6.0 on an Samsung 500 GB SSD today, and I ended up receiving an error. It said to report it, so I'm trying to do so. When I went to run level 2 on the drive, I was told that it was "MBR followed by EFI". It then said, "This partition exceeds the size of this drive as defined by the system's BIOS or BIOS extension." It told me I should "NOT PROCEED". However, I went to the GRC forums at https://forums.grc.com/threads/spinrite-mbr-warning-message-and-question.138/ where the person was having the same issue as me and received a response from Steve himself saying it was safe to proceed. I did so. It ran for awhile, but then gave me a "Division Overflow Error". The "critical" error occurred at B04E. I can't reproduce the exact values in the registers. The drive still seems to be working fine. I'm copying files off of it right now. However, since I have another drive that receives the same message about "MBR followed by EFI" before it can run, and it is having real problems, I thought I should report this . . ."

The fact that you got B04E error in SpinRite 6 on a smaller than 549 GB drive belies the analysis that went into the MDFYSR60 patch, however . . .

Run MDFYSR60 first anyway, and use the FORCE command line option.

Then let us know if that empowers SpinRite 6 in any way.

Thanks.

.

 

[PHolder]

I was told that it was "MBR followed by EFI"

Knowing that SpinRite 6 can't handle modern GPT partitions, is there any reason why you have not tried the SpinRite 6.1 pre-release on this drive?

 

[Paul F]

The fact that you got B04E error in SpinRite 6 on a smaller than 549 GB drive belies the analysis that went into the MDFYSR60 patch, however . . .

Really? Do you think proceeding on a partition that SpinRite 6.0 sees as greater than the drive size might have something to do with it?

 

[peterblaise]

". . . Really? Do you think proceeding on a partition that SpinRite 6.0 sees as greater than the drive size might have something to do with it? . . ."

@Steve Gibson can comment on what the FORCE command line does in SpinRite 6.

If it treats the drive as raw, presumably accepting BIOS-discovered physical geometry, or instead if the FORCE command line causes SpinRite to accept bogus geometry, or maybe even something else, @Steve will suggest what FORCE does.

Is there any way to discern the 'illegal' geometry that SpinRite suggests might be recorded on the drive?

Is it maybe really a corrupt partition sector, not a GPT partition?

Burned out or corrupt firmware?

Is there a way to know?

Perhaps manually viewing, sector by sector, with HxD? https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

If the drive itself is broken, misreporting for whatever reason, what will a custom MDFYSR60 provide?

And if a custom MDFYSR60 provides full function to both SpinRite and the drive, why not publish for everyone and anyone?

Instead of, well, whatever is the reason not to allow others similarly situated to take advantage of whatever is learned here?

Whaddayathink?

Thanks.

.