SpinRite FAQ

  • SpinRite Release Candidate #5 Posted
    Guest:
    Another heads-up for anyone who's interested in remaining current with SpinRite as it moves from pre-release to final v6.1. The DOS executable "SRPR.EXE" now being offered by GRC's pre-release page has been updated to Pre-Release #5. Only one error was found in RC4: When the log exceeded more than 113,359 lines, the oldest lines were not being discarded from the on-screen "scroll-back" buffer. That's fixed in RC5. Otherwise, so far as anyone knows, SpinRite 6.1 is finally ready for the world. This interim FAQ page has pre-release downloading details.
    /Steve.
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SpinRite FAQ ‑ Frequently Asked Questions
This page will be created shortly. Suggestions for its contents may be posted in the thread below and as they are considered they will be moved into this main body of the FAQ.
 
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Reactions: Barry Wallis
I would like a very clear description of how DynaStat interacts with levels that request a write/refresh. If the sector is unrecoverable via DynaStat, does it get written with recovered data if any, or zeroes if none was recoverable, or does it get left alone for future recovery attempts? I assume the answer is: the user chose a level that requires a rewrite so therefore bad sectors do get rewritten, no matter what, which probably forces the drive to relocate the sector if possible.

This does pose an issue for someone who doesn't know they have an unrecoverable sector and thought they were just doing maintenance and refreshing the drive in advance of any problems. In this case, SpinRite is running unattended and will "paper over" a problem the user didn't know they had.
 
My drive is not showing up in the BIOS, can I still use SpinRite to get my data back?
My drive is showing zero capacity, can I still use SpinRite to get my data back?
My drive is making click click click sounds, can I still use SpinRite to get my data back?
My drive is making grinding/scraping sounds, can I still use SpinRite to get my data back?

Why do hard drives fail?

What are good sectors?
What are slow sectors?
What are bad sectors?

Can SpinRite detect drive firmware problems?
 
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It might be worth mentioning in the FAQ, if it is indeed the case, that Spinrite 6.1 will only address the first 137GB of any physical drive. (Is that indeed the case?) Thanks!
 
". . . It might be worth mentioning in the FAQ, if it is indeed the case, that Spinrite 6.1 will only address the first 137GB of any physical drive. (Is that indeed the case?) Thanks! . . ."
That's a limit for BIOS-presented USB-connected drives, where SpinRite 6.1 will test only the first 128GiB/137GB, that's not all drives, and @Paul_F has a TSR-suite of preliminary programs that may then present USB-connected drives via SCSI, and then SpinRite 6.1 will test the entire drive.

Yes, this most probably should be presented in the FAQ that is inside SpinRite 6.1 and here.
 

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