Something impossible just happened
- Thread starter Mervyn Haynes
- Start date
- Watchers 5
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Be sure to checkout “Tips & Tricks” Dear Guest Visitor → Once you register and log-in please checkout the “Tips & Tricks” page for some very handy tips!
/Steve. -
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.)
Or for even faster support, contact GRC directly: https://www.grc.com/support.htmHehe, do it again
Seriously, you should report it in the newsgroups.
I don't think GRC Support is for development issues, the newsgroup is the right place.
Yeah, I tried to join the news groups several times using Gravity, but I did not like the layout & even after setting up an account could not post for some reason. So I gave up in the end, and now just read posts with the web version, and use this forum. Perhaps one of you could add it to the dev group please.
We'd LOVE to have you there, Mervyn. I may eventually get over here. That's why I created these forums. But I do not intend (I really just cannot) to be fully active and managing things in both spaces. PLEASE come over to the newsgroups and tolerate Gravity. Also, Paul Holder, I believe, likes a different very capable Newsreading client. So there ARE others!
Yeah I use a news reader that was written in Delphi and is a little long in the tooth (but maybe not as long as Gravity) and I like it much better than Gravity. As for not being able to post, you probably just need to read the instructions very carefully on Steve's page about setting up the reader (there are specific requirements about username and password.)
Here's some links:
XanaNews on GitHub: https://github.com/graemeg/xananews/releases/tag/v1.21
Setting up the client: https://www.grc.com/discussions.htm (scroll to bottom pay attention to instruction 3.)
I find Mozilla's Thunderbird serviceable and yes, you definitely need to read the links above on setting up a Newsreader so you can post. It drove me crazy for a few days until I figured it out.
OK, I will give it one more try to join. Can't do it for a couple of days as I have other commitments.
On the difficulty of posting to GRC's NNTP Newsgroups: It's unfortunately necessary and deliberate.
I don't know how much of a problem it might still be, but once upon a time there were NNTP newsgroup spamming bots loose on the Internet. One of the solutions that is employed for combating Bot posting is to simply do something that a bot won't know. THESE Web forums are kept clean, in the presence of a TREMENDOUS amount of pressure from outside Bot and Human postings, by a combination of automated tricks and our human volunteer moderators. The sign-up form here has a bunch of bogus hidden fields that bots unknowingly fill-in, and when they do they are greeted with a pseudo-success and are allowed to falsely believe that they have succeeded.
As our moderators here know, I've invested heavily in working to catch and block bogus registrations. I figure that keeping actual human postings in line will be enough work without adding automated nonsense to the load. So I'm happy to report that bogus registrations have been zeroed. But it took some doing. I wanted to get that done before SpinRite happened, since THIS is slated to be SpinRite's official support home and it's DEFINITELY going to be VERY busy once v6.1 happens.
And for the NNTP Newsgroups... there wasn't much to work with that would not be a bother to legitimate posters. I could have required that passwords all contain a specific string somewhere. But I liked the idea of simply requiring that the username and password be the same. Since NEITHER of them are published in postings, they are essentially secret. And the fact that the user's client (only) DOES display the username means that no one is ever forgetting their password. It's worked out damn near perfectly for years, and it sets the bar just high enough that someone needs to want to post to be able to figure out how to.
I don't know how much of a problem it might still be, but once upon a time there were NNTP newsgroup spamming bots loose on the Internet. One of the solutions that is employed for combating Bot posting is to simply do something that a bot won't know. THESE Web forums are kept clean, in the presence of a TREMENDOUS amount of pressure from outside Bot and Human postings, by a combination of automated tricks and our human volunteer moderators. The sign-up form here has a bunch of bogus hidden fields that bots unknowingly fill-in, and when they do they are greeted with a pseudo-success and are allowed to falsely believe that they have succeeded.
As our moderators here know, I've invested heavily in working to catch and block bogus registrations. I figure that keeping actual human postings in line will be enough work without adding automated nonsense to the load. So I'm happy to report that bogus registrations have been zeroed. But it took some doing. I wanted to get that done before SpinRite happened, since THIS is slated to be SpinRite's official support home and it's DEFINITELY going to be VERY busy once v6.1 happens.
And for the NNTP Newsgroups... there wasn't much to work with that would not be a bother to legitimate posters. I could have required that passwords all contain a specific string somewhere. But I liked the idea of simply requiring that the username and password be the same. Since NEITHER of them are published in postings, they are essentially secret. And the fact that the user's client (only) DOES display the username means that no one is ever forgetting their password. It's worked out damn near perfectly for years, and it sets the bar just high enough that someone needs to want to post to be able to figure out how to.
