[SOLVED] -- v6.0 CD boots to Spinrite splash screen and goes blank

[Steve]

Guys... Just for the record, while SR 6.0 CAN install itself onto a USB drive, it is FAR from ideal.

This is why the first thing I did when we began this project was work on the "InitDisk" technology. As I recall, I believe that 6.0 just copies the SAME 1.44MB bootable diskette image (no partition table!) to the USB device, which is not only awful, but also often does not boot at all. So it definitely needed replacing in v6.1.

 

[DarkwinX]

No it was not. I tried booting twice but both shots it came up on 2nd boot device and USB did not appear in the boot pick list. The screeenshot above showed Floppy so I made sure it was on Floppy the 2nd boot, my gut telling me that must be wrong, but no USB option so I gave it a shot. BTW- Floppy is so worthless/unreliable I have not tried to maintain a floppy drive since my early Atari 520ST days.

Hmmmm. I found this online with someone who has the same board as you - it seems like it should work. I'm any case the 6.1 CD may have better luck.


"After changing legacy to enabled, I would have to change another thing, on "Hard Disk Drives", I had to make the USB drive the first choice and my actual HDD the second choice, so thanks for the tip, it's confirmed now that I can boot from USB, you have been a great help! Thanks again"

 

[Randywfl]

I abandoned the whole USB path for now and went ahead with burning 6.1 onto CD. put the bios boot to CD drive and successfully booted into a working Spinrite session where I am now running a level 3 maintenance scan on my 2nd physical drive, just for fun -- No performance issues on that drive so I expect it will come up all clean.

I checked file listing on my 6.0 CDs and they just had a single SPINRITE.exe file, as did the 6.1 CD which makes no sense to me because the file listing on the USB drive shows eight files including an AUTOEXEC.BAT file which does make sense from what I recall of the old dos days. Meanwhile, 6.1 seems to be progressing nicely on my 2nd physical drive.

 

[Randywfl]

6.1 CD finished its first scan. As expected, the 2nd physical drive came up showing perfect health. Next scan will be level 2 on my 10" EEE-PC laptop drive that refuses to boot. No idea what could have caused that drive to stop working so it will be interesting to see what spinrite will do with it.

THANKS for all the attention and efforts!!!!

 

[Randywfl]

6.1 CD finished level 2 scan on my little laptop hard drive and came through with no errors except for S.M.A.R.T. System Monitor showing 100/200 seek errors and red dots half way across that line. Don't know what that means, but I really expected to see some errors and repairs so I decided to give it another run on level 4. So far its looking like it's my laptop that is defective

 

[ColbyBouma]

6.1 CD finished level 2 scan on my little laptop hard drive and came through with no errors except for S.M.A.R.T. System Monitor showing 100/200 seek errors and red dots half way across that line. Don't know what that means, but I really expected to see some errors and repairs so I decided to give it another run on level 4. So far its looking like it's my laptop that is defective

100/200 Seek Errors is a Western Digital quirk. I've seen it in many WD drives. I don't know what it means, but as far as I can tell, it is not a sign of a faulty drive.

There are many SpinRite testimonials where a Level 2 scan didn't report fixing anything, but the drive worked after the scan. Sometimes just forcing a drive to read everything makes it see there's a problem, and it silently fixes itself in the background. You won't know for sure until you put the drive back in the laptop and try it.

 

[DarkwinX]

@Steve might be worth considering for your image sizes, some still use CDs so perhaps 700mb might be a good choice

 

[Randywfl]

100/200 Seek Errors is a Western Digital quirk. I've seen it in many WD drives. I don't know what it means, but as far as I can tell, it is not a sign of a faulty drive.

There are many SpinRite testimonials where a Level 2 scan didn't report fixing anything, but the drive worked after the scan. Sometimes just forcing a drive to read everything makes it see there's a problem, and it silently fixes itself in the background. You won't know for sure until you put the drive back in the laptop and try it.

Srange laptop, Would not even let me into BIOS before I did spinrite on the drive. Not only let me into BIOS now But I was able to select the USB drive for boot, which I did after verifying it would still not boot into Windows off the hard drive. Curious thing though when I boot off the USB and run spinrite, it sees the hard drive so it is currently running level 2 scan again just to verify the laptop can read/write the drive Ok, and it does. Still waiting for level 2 to finish so I can try normal boot again. This is very strange.

 

[DanR]

Curious thing though when I boot off the USB and run spinrite, it sees the hard drive so it is currently running level 2 scan again just to verify the laptop can read/write the drive Ok,

Please note: Level 2 ONLY writes data if/when it has to recover data. If ALL sectors read OK, then Level 2 is the same as level 1: read only.

You would need to do a Level 3 to write ALL sectors.

 

[Randywfl]

Uhh ohhhh. What happened?? Laptop was happily scanning away on level 2 with about 30 minutes left to complete, but suddenly the screen went blank, the drive light went out and even the power light went out. Power brick still showing it has power.
Hmmm, Now the power light is back on but that is the only sign of life. Very strange.
Hit the power switch one time and its booting back up into spinrite. What now? Guess I will try for Windows boot on the hard drive. No windows boot -- drive light just stays lit up for a while and finally goes out again. No Joy there. Oh well

 

[Randywfl]

Thanks DanR . . . Running level 3 now and hoping for the best.

 

[DanR]

YW! You might keep an eye on the drive temp. It is displayed at the bottom of the S.M.A.R.T. System Monitor screen. And also at the bottom of the screen saver (if enabled). Watch for any drive overheating.

One more thought: If it stops partway thru the drive, and you can note where it stops, then when restarting it just start a little ways BEFORE the point at which it stopped. there is no need to re-do the front part of the drive over again.

 

[Randywfl]

TY DanR . . . I did keep an eye on it when I ran it under my dektop and it never went over 91 F so I didn't bother monitoring while in the laptop. Checking now under Level 3 it shows 129 F so yeh, It could have shut down from overheating. I don't think the fan works on this laptop under dos boot.

 

[DanR]

The fan should work regardless of how the LT is booted (mine do). It is possible the fan is either dirty or faulty. In which case things other than the HDD could also be overheating.

If the temp keeps climbing you might consider aborting the run, note the % where the run was stopped, and restart per my previous post, AFTER a cool down. It will take extra time, but you ought to be able to eventually get through the entire drive this way.

Repeatedly driving a drive to overheat shutdown is not good for the drive.

 

[Steve]

@Steve might be worth considering for your image sizes, some still use CDs so perhaps 700mb might be a good choice

The problem with CDs is that they are inherently read-only... so no logging possible. And SpinRite now defaults to logging. So it will produce errors when it attempts to log.

Also, I don't know whether a bootable USB image will even work on a CD? SpinRite's (6.0 & 6.1) CD image is "special". The reason @Randywfl only saw SPINRITE.EXE on the disc is that there's a separate boot image area — separate from the data region. The boot image area is where all of the FreeDOS and other files live, and that's what's visible when the image is booted.

 

[Randywfl]

The reason @Randywfl only saw SPINRITE.EXE on the disc is that there's a separate boot image area — separate from the data region.

I did ESC after CD Spinrite finished and then I did dir at the dos prompt where I saw a list of files including AUTOEXEC.bat along with the SPINERITE.exe file. I have Windows set to show hidden and system files so its a mystery to me why they don't show up in windows. No matter. It boots and runs so that's the important thing. I also found the option to boot from the USB and that was proven to work on the laptop so I think all is well now except laptop still not booting from hard drive.

 

[Randywfl]

If the temp keeps climbing you might consider aborting the run, note the % where the run was stopped, and restart per my previous post

I let the LT sit overnight and restarted SR at 26% on level 3 where I had stopped it last night. Its now up over 60% without any error/repairs showing and running at a consistant 100 F which should be safe. Running upside down with a fan blowing on it to keep it cool. I think its going to be able to finish level 3 this time.

 

[DarkwinX]

SpinRite's (6.0 & 6.1) CD image is "special".

Ok so maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're doing at the moment with the standalone ISO - if the CD image iso is not going away and is accessible for non Windows users then I think everyone is covered.

I just wasn't sure if the standalone iso you were creating was only going to be in USB form or not?

 

[DanR]

I let the LT sit overnight and restarted SR at 26% on level 3 where I had stopped it last night. Its now up over 60% without any error/repairs showing and running at a consistant 100 F which should be safe. Running upside down with a fan blowing on it to keep it cool. I think its going to be able to finish level 3 this time.

It sounds like you have the heat problem solved. When Level 3 is complete the drive should have faster performance. Windows might even boot again.

 

[Randywfl]

Windows might even boot again.

Nope. Windows did not boot but I think we proved the drive is healthy so I think my last resort is to get an external USB/Sata case and use it as a backup drive for my new laptop.
The little laptop was a portable workstation but I can't work any more since the brain surgery that removed "a mass" from my brain the size of the average door knob so I'm not really worried about the little laptop. If only spinrite could work on what's left of my brain