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  • DNS Benchmark v2 Release 5 with Consultant License
    Guest:
    If you own any earlier release of our DNS Benchmark you may immediately download its release #5 replacement. Running an earlier release will detect the new release and help you upgrade.

    Although this release is cosmetic, appearance matters and affects ease of use. The biggest change, as seen in the image above, is that the DNS Benchmark now has a traditional Windows application menu to more fully expose its many features. This release is also "Consultant License Aware" and GRC will now issue a Consultant version when owners have previously purchased four "Personal Use" licenses. If you have previously purchased four DNSB licenses, or if you wish to upgrade your "Personal Use" license to Consultant, GRC's purchase process will direct you through that process.
    /Steve.
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  • 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.)

SpinRite FAQ

#1

Steve

Steve

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.


#2

P

PHolder

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.


#3

ShadowMeow

ShadowMeow

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?


#4

A

akahan

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!


#5

peterblaise

peterblaise

akahan said:
". . . 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! . . ."
Click to expand...
Original post 2023: Development background: That's a limit for BIOS-presented USB-connected drives, where SpinRite 6.1 under development would test only the first 128GiB/137GB of a USB drive, that's not all drives, just USB, and @Paul_F developed a TSR-suite of programs that may test and present USB-connected drives via SCSI, and then SpinRite 6.1 would test the entire drive up to 2.2TB.

Update 2024-03: Steve Gibson has evolved SpinRite 6.1 during development to self-address the issue, and will do one of 3 things if the BIOS permits:

- self-limit USB drives to 128GiB/137GB if SpinRite cannot 'patch' the BIOS dynamically in RAM during SpinRite's run,

- work on the drive up to 2.2TB if the BIOS self-limits and if SpinRite can 'patch' the BIOS dynamically in RAM during SpinRite's run,

- work up to and beyond 2.2TB if the BIOS permits and if SpinRite can 'patch' the BIOS dynamically in RAM during SpinRite's run.

The key is 'if the BIOS permits'.

There's also a technical explanation as to the bit-depth of various BIOS USB controls that explains the problem, different across a variety of BIOS and years of production.

Yes, this possible limit on running SpinRite 6.1 to test USB drives most probably should be presented in the FAQ that is inside SpinRite 6.1 and here so that folks who cannot get SpinRite 6.1 to fully test a USB drive know the reasons, and are directed to a workaround:
- try a different computer,
- or if the USB drive contains an HDD or SSD, then try to 'shuck' the drive ( take it out of it's cabinet ), if possible, and attach the internal HDD or SSD directly inside the computer via the computer's own internal IDE/PATA/SATA connections.

Thanks.

.


#6

V

vmax5000

Not sure if you want this data for the pre-release 5. I have a drive that is still running dynastat on an empty sector, but the ECC corrected shows -50 see attached pics. Should I let this run to completion?

Thanks,
Randy


#7

V

vmax5000

Sorry, I guess the image size was too large. Now the time is at 49 hrs 17 mins and there is no change. The drive is a WD 2 TB 64mb cache, WD20EARS


IMG_0444 (Small).JPEG
IMG_0445 (Small).JPEG
IMG_0446 (Small).JPEG
IMG_0447 (Small).JPEG


#8

V

vmax5000

One more thing, I pressed ESC and tried Skip this sector only but nothing changed.

Thanks
Randy


#9

V

vmax5000

I missed a picture. Here it is..

Randy
IMG_0448 (Small).jpg


#10

P

PHolder

Um, your display indicates that SpinRite is 100% complete... so I am unsure what specifically you're questioning?


#11

M

Mervyn Haynes

PHolder said:
Um, your display indicates that SpinRite is 100% complete... so I am unsure what specifically you're questioning?
Click to expand...
Look at his screen shots again, it is stalling on the last sector.


#12

Steve

Steve

@vmax5000 : What you're seeing is definitely weird. What's not so weird is that it's with a WD20EARS drive. During our testing, we encountered a bunch of bad behavior from that particular model of WD drive. That's not meant to excuse SpinRite for getting into the state it's in, but neither am I surprised that this happened with that drive.

I'm curious, though, why the Real-Time Activities screen shows so much data recovery activity...

1701962396970.png

Yet the map shows completely clean?? Did all of this activity appear at the very end of the drive, on that last "square" of the map? Thanks!


#13

D

DarkwinX

Can I add to our list of FAQs? I may be dumb, but I really can't make any sense of the SMART values. Perhaps something that explains how someone interprets this information?

Edit: I didn't find this browsing GRCs SpinRite pages - google actually took me here. https://www.grc.com/sr/smart.htm


#14

Brian Marsh

Brian Marsh

Hello Steve,

Long time listener of SN, had and loved SR6 for years... First time in the forums.

Recommendation: top 5 external drive testing "docks".
Since USB is space limited. Is external ESATA the way to go? Any better recommendations?
Maybe a Steve's approved tester base hardware kit?


#15

Steve

Steve

Brian Marsh said:
Recommendation: top 5 external drive testing "docks".
Click to expand...
Until we get to SR7, USB should be avoided wherever possible. SRv6.1 is still stuck using the BIOS for USB. That will be one of the many welcome changes coming in SR7. The use of the BIOS, while not limiting the drive's size on newer BIOSes, prevents SpinRite from accessing any of the drive's quite useful "metadata". So any form of direct connect (to SATA) would be much preferred.
Brian Marsh said:
Since USB is space limited. Is external ESATA the way to go? Any better recommendations?
Click to expand...
Yes. If eSata is available that will definitely be a plus.
Brian Marsh said:
Maybe a Steve's approved tester base hardware kit?
Click to expand...
There has been a lot of discussions of this since its release. It's known as the "ZimaBoard". The smallest one is likely all that's needed, for $119. I think that even Amazon offers it now. You would want the extra $4 "Y" adapter for SATA and you'll want to get a beefier 12V suppy if you want to power a pair of larger 3.5" spinning drives. MANY of SpinRite's testers have purchased these and it is my SpinRite development platform... so everything now and in the future will be guaranteed to run on it. It's a terrific little standalone solution! (y)


#16

Guy

Guy

Can we get a list of current options to run SR 61 under if we wanted to modify our AUTOEXEC.BAT file?

Thanks.


#17

ColbyBouma

ColbyBouma

Guy said:
Can we get a list of current options to run SR 61 under if we wanted to modify our AUTOEXEC.BAT file?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
That is documented in Section D of the FAQ that's built-in to 6.1. Here are some screenshots from SpinRite 6.1 Release 2a:
BZC73827.PNG

BZC73840.PNG

BZC73849.PNG

BZC73855.PNG


#18

R

Raoul

Hi,
Just got my hands on some old/used 36 x 3TB SAS drives to have a play with in the homelab, heard about SR from SN and so figured it was time for me to purchase.
I couldn't see anywhere on SR's FAQ page stating SAS as being supported and so just wanted to know before I purchased. I'll probably purchase anyway LOL.
I only saw SCSI mentioned when it comes to the low-level question in the FAQs.

I'm assuming SCSI and therefore SAS are supported, but just wanted to be sure is all.

ta


#19

P

PHolder

Raoul said:
I couldn't see anywhere on SR's FAQ page stating SAS as being supported
Click to expand...
That's because is isn't. Don't purchase it with the thought you can use it on this set of drives unless there is some way to proxy the SAS drives as something like IDE or SATA.


#20

G

GeorgeC

I purchased sr 6.1 but it doesn't boot from the memory I installed. I went to the memory and it has the data. I have XPS 8960 the BIOs has 3 booting 1 windows the other 2 (I forget their name) tried it/them, and booting goes to windows.

Why it does not boot from the memory?


#21

D

DanR

George Chryssanthou said:
Why it does not boot from the memory?
Click to expand...
A Dell XPS 8960 PC is a Win 11 PC that is UEFI boot only. As such, it cannot run SpinRite 6.1.

There is a free tool, BootAble, to check this before buying SpinRite.

SpinRite comes with a "No questions asked" quick refund if desired. Just contact customer support. :)

https://www.grc.com/cs/customerservice.htm


#22

P

PHolder

George Chryssanthou said:
doesn't boot from the memory I installed
Click to expand...
I'm going to guess there is a communication barrier here, as memory normally refers to RAM memory, but I think you're referring to a flash USB storage device or similar?

In any case, many modern PCs do NOT support booting into the legacy BIOS at all. This is a general trend in hardware, which SpinRite is a bit behind on. SpinRite 7 will address this in the future, but there is no schedule for when. (Or more specifically it will happen when it happens.) There is the utility from GRC called Bootable which is designed to help you test if you can configure your hardware to do a legacy boot. https://www.grc.com/bootable.htm

Some things that can be done: You may have to disable secure boot, but if it's enabled and you also use Windows drive encryption (Bitlocker, which can be enabled without you realizing it) you NEED to get a copy of your drive encryption key and have it on hand to re-enable secure boot later. After disabling secure boot, then you would need to enable the CSM (compatibility support module) in the BIOS. This basically supplies the legacy BIOS capability to the UEFI infrastructure (which is what "modern" boot is based on.) If you can't find CSM in your motherboard configuration, you will not be able to get legacy boot to work. Your final option would the be to check out any option for executing SpinRite in a virtual machine, as is documented elsewhere in these forums.


#23

C

cj0

Does SpinRite (6.1 r4) mark bad sectors as bad (similar to chkdsk does)? And how does that work? Criteria? When is a bad sector marked as bad and when not?

Can a "table banger" drive (from a user that didn't know that rotating drives are sensitive to and damaged by vibrations), that is now out of re-allocation space, be made to any use?

PS I'd love the "dd" USB media creation, a fake (diskutil unmount /dev/diskX && dd if=spinrite.img of=/dev/diskX) one-line command on the download page would be a time saver for me as an infrequent dd user


#24

P

PHolder

cj0 said:
Does SpinRite (6.1 r4) mark bad sectors as bad
Click to expand...
SpinRite, in its default configuration will attempt recovery on a sector, but ultimately, recovered or not, it rewrites data to it. It then becomes up to the drive's firmware to make the decision on how to react to the write request. I don't know if it's known what the drive would do in this case if it were out of re-allocation space. I think either many drives silently fail the writes or SpinRite doesn't check for or report on these failures. (@Steve should comment specifically on this, either here or in the official FAQ on the site.)


#25

A

alexT

GeorgeC said:
I purchased sr 6.1 but it doesn't boot from the memory I installed. I went to the memory and it has the data. I have XPS 8960 the BIOs has 3 booting 1 windows the other 2 (I forget their name) tried it/them, and booting goes to windows.

Why it does not boot from the memory?
Click to expand...
From memory ? You mean RAM ??


#26

M

mappo

I run SR and MemTest86 to validate newly purchased RAM and storage (or when the computer's behavior is "non-linear").
It just occurred to me that SR makes a RAM check initially. Is that check as good as MemTest86 (which would mean I could streamline my workflow significantly)?


#27

D

DanR

mappo said:
Is that check as good as MemTest86 (which would mean I could streamline my workflow significantly)?
Click to expand...
SpinRite's Ram test is very limited.

MemTest386 will test 100% of your systems memory.

SpinRite 6.1's Ram Test only tests the ram area that SpinRite will be using. This is only a very, very small portion of the system's ram memory.


#28

peterblaise

peterblaise

SpinRite 6.1 System RAM Test is also single-threaded.


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