SpinRite 6.1 alpha 4 corrupted screen on intel macbook.

[coffeeprogrammer]

I ran spinrite alpha release 4 on my 2012 macbook pro (intel) and it started off by running fast but then the screen went corrupted, so I filmed it on my cell phone and put it on a private youtube (links only). This is a used macbook from ebay, I owned it for about 5 months and used it about every night to read kindle and watch youtube/udemy. I’ve had no problems so far. 180GB SSD hard disk.

Also, I know the nnpt style new group would have been better, but I don’t have an account there, maybe someone can let the other news group know.

 

[DanR]

How did you create your boot media?

 

[coffeeprogrammer]

How did you create your boot media?

Well I know that initdisk had something to with spin rite booting and when I tried it I only got a blank fat32 file system with nothing to boot no files at all, so then I used rufus 3.11 to create a freedos boot, is something wrong with using rufus?

 

[coffeeprogrammer]

Well I know that initdisk had something to with spin rite booting and when I tried it I only got a blank fat32 file system with nothing to boot no files at all, so then I used rufus 3.11 to create a freedos boot, is something wrong with using rufus?

OK I see "freedos" argument, I will try and reformat with that BRB

 

[coffeeprogrammer]

OK I see "freedos" argument, I will try and reformat with that BRB

Ok, I used InitDisk with "freedos" argument and it created the boot media and I tried again, but I still get the corrupted screen after it runs for a couple minutes

 

[coffeeprogrammer]

Well I feel like I should not be the only one with a 2012 macbook, it is a popular model MD101LL/A

 

[coffeeprogrammer]

Well I feel like I should not be the only one with a 2012 macbook, it is a popular model MD101LL/A

I just tried on a thinkpad x220 tablet and it worked like a charm. 6:01 for 120GB SSD.

 

[coffeeprogrammer]

I don’t think is spinrite exactly on the macbook, I booted it again and left it at the command prompt and after a few minutes it pop into the corrupt screen, must just be freedos.

 

[DanR]

is something wrong with using rufus?

Not necessarily. I have had problems with a Rufus generated boot drive, as have others. It worked on some of my machines but not on others. Other folks have also had mixed results with Rufus.

The InitDisk approach installs a plain vanilla FreeDos boot environment which may not have adequate graphics support for some systems.

I prefer the ReadSpeed approach, which installs a custom FreeDos environment., You might try that: https://forums.grc.com/threads/how-to-create-a-bootable-usb-thumb-drive.967/

I have been using my ReadSpeed created bootable thumb drive for all SpinRite development testing with no issues. Worth a try?

 

[PHolder]

As I stated elsewhere: Steve is not looking at these forums for feedback. If you intend to test SpinRite alphas, and betas, you should be participating in the newsgroup and use the gitlab to open bug report tickets.

 

[saguaro]

@coffeeprogrammer Found your post as I'm having the same problem with SR 6.1 prerelease on a 2012 MacBook Air with 256GB SSD. My screen goes "gray" not fuzzy, but almost exactly at the same point in SR level 2 run. I'm able to run ReadSpeed, benchmark the internal SSD with SR, and start the level 2 test. Three times the screen went blank only a few min into an estimated 9 min run. I'm using SR 6.1 Prerelease on a FreeDOS USB formatted by ReadSpeed on a Win10 machine. All of these downloaded today.

 

[coffeeprogrammer]

@saguaro Yes, I did want to help out in testing SR 6.1, I do look forward to Steve sharing about his process in developing it, but it became to difficult to continue to test because I start so many project and often there is no option to follow through the way Steve does. I gave my mac book to my mom because I am not not an apple fan, so I can't run a test today. I think Steve has a gitlab.com based testing forums, I am sure other users can refer you to those. I hope no one finds any more problems, I want to hear about Steve development on RTOS for SR 7!

 

[Steve]

@saguaro : Huh. That's really odd. We've had reports of SpinRite working on compatible macs... but nothing about screens blanking after a while. And I can't imagine what might be going on. Sorry!

 

[saguaro]

Hello @Steve. NP. I was hopeful for SpinRite on mac, but it seems I'm outside the venn diagram of workable models. My 2012 MB Air gets gray screen and a 2015 MBP also in my house cannot boot from FreeDOS. It's interesting that I get the exact same result shown in @coffeeprogrammer 's video every time I try SR on the Air. Perhaps our Macs shared the same SSD, controller, or part of the firmware code. I'll give a 2018 intel-based mini a try, but that's almost certainly not going to work. I'd pass on my findings, but I'm not set up in the newsgroup and don't have the bandwidth available right now...

Still 6.1 is pretty darn impressive on my old wintel box!