Spinrite 6.1 RC5 stops on 3TB, 4TB and 10TB drives

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sweeney746

Member
Nov 27, 2023
10
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If I run spinrite on level 4 for a 3TB and 4TB it will freeze with 3 hours to go, and I have to reboot. If I run those drive on level 3 they will finish.
I tried to recover a 10TB on a different computer in level 2 and it froze at 49%. I have read the forums but haven't found anyone else having this problem.
 
Since there are different things that might "freeze" could you share a bit more? Was this a complete lockup where absolutely nothing worked, the screen was frozen, the keyboard was unresponsive, Escape didn't, and your only recourse with the machine's hardware reset button or power off and on? Since you said that you had to reboot, I'm assuming this is what you experienced?

You're correct that this hasn't been seen before. And also not during three years of development testing. Normally, after a freeze, I would suggest that you try another machine. But you did that and the same thing occurred on that second machine. Are the two machines similar or completely different? And also, what about the drives? Are they known to have some problems that you hoping to have SpinRite treat? And how did you prepare the SpinRite boot environment? One thing that IS common to both scenarios is, presumably, the thumb drive that you booted from. It would be very interesting to see whether using a different boot thumb drive might resolve the trouble?

Thanks in advance for anything more you can share!
 
One thing that IS common to both scenarios is, presumably, the thumb drive that you booted from.
If SpinRite tries to write to the log file, but the boot drive has stopped responding, will SpinRite recover gracefully or freeze?
 
Since there are different things that might "freeze" could you share a bit more? Was this a complete lockup where absolutely nothing worked, the screen was frozen, the keyboard was unresponsive, Escape didn't, and your only recourse with the machine's hardware reset button or power off and on? Since you said that you had to reboot, I'm assuming this is what you experienced?

You're correct that this hasn't been seen before. And also not during three years of development testing. Normally, after a freeze, I would suggest that you try another machine. But you did that and the same thing occurred on that second machine. Are the two machines similar or completely different? And also, what about the drives? Are they known to have some problems that you hoping to have SpinRite treat? And how did you prepare the SpinRite boot environment? One thing that IS common to both scenarios is, presumably, the thumb drive that you booted from. It would be very interesting to see whether using a different boot thumb drive might resolve the trouble?

Thanks in advance for anything more you can share!
I was using a small thumb drive and thought maybe the log file was filling the drive. I put spinrite on 32gb thumb drive and it had the same problem. I also heard on the SN podcast (I have listened from the beginning) that you made changes to over rite the log with the new SC release. I have 50+ hard drives in all different sizes and problems. I don't have problems with anything under 3TB. I'm not an expert on using spinrite so normally user error is the first place I look.
 
If SpinRite tries to write to the log file, but the boot drive has stopped responding, will SpinRite recover gracefully or freeze?
millQ (bless his heart) has really wrung the crap out of SpinRite's logging system—much as you have with so many drive-related edge cases! (y). But SpinRite just calls MS-DOS to perform its writing. So it ought to return an error that it cannot write to the log.
 
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@sweeney746: Thanks for the additional feedback. I don't know that I've ever, myself, run a huge drive on a higher level just due to the time it would take. So this evening I'll set SpinRite going on huge drive at level 4 and see what happens.

Another super-useful thing to know would be whether this repeats for you? ... as in: If you run the same drive at the same level on the same machine does it hang at the same place? :confused: Thanks! (y)
 
@sweeney746: Thanks for the additional feedback. I don't know that I've ever, myself, run a huge drive on a higher level just due to the time it would take. So this evening I'll set SpinRite going on huge drive at level 4 and see what happens.

Another super-useful thing to know would be whether this repeats for you? ... as in: If you run the same drive at the same level on the same machine does it hang at the same place? :confused: Thanks! (y)
Yes It stopped at the same spot on the 3TB with a little over 3 hours to go and 5 hours on the 4TB. I ran it first on the old SC and when I heard your podcast I went out and got SC5 and they both stopped at the same place. I'm mostly playing with old drives for fun. The 10TB was one that I had in my computer with my life on it. I really need to recover it even though I have most of it on my NAS. I only ran the 10TB once since it took 30 hours + when the computer stopped taking input at 49% something like 24 hours to go. I'm at work but can get any detailed information you need when I get home. I didn't expect the quick response.
 
THANK YOU for the additional info. This is better news than I had hoped, since the most difficult to track down of all problems is the non-reproducible hang that never strikes in the same spot twice. And having it occur on two different machines strongly suggests that something those drives are doing is causing SpinRite to get into trouble.

I'll see whether I can recreate this. Level 2 is all you really need for recovery of that 10TB drive. That's usually what I would recommend. And as I understand it, this trouble NEVER occurs unless at Level 4? Thanks!!
 
THANK YOU for the additional info. This is better news than I had hoped, since the most difficult to track down of all problems is the non-reproducible hang that never strikes in the same spot twice. And having it occur on two different machines strongly suggests that something those drives are doing is causing SpinRite to get into trouble.

I'll see whether I can recreate this. Level 2 is all you really need for recovery of that 10TB drive. That's usually what I would recommend. And as I understand it, this trouble NEVER occurs unless at Level 4? Thanks!!
I ran level 2 on the 10TB when it stopped at 49%.