SpinRite MBR warning message - and question

[nonce]

Just bought SpinRite 6.0. My son recently bought a brand new HDD ( Seagate BarraCuda Desktop 1TB 7200rpm ). But since it seems to make his computer crash I was a bit interested to try out SpinRite on it (before creating an errand with support). Understand that there could be lots of other explanations to why Windows (10) is crashing for him - but I also wanted to try out SpinRite (might come in handy in the future as well - with other drives).

When I got SpinRite to spin - I get this warning "MBR followed by EFI" for the drives I want to investigate - and it makes me hesitate on going forward. Can someone elaborate on this message?

I've read the SpinRite dev. roadmap (https://www.grc.com/miscfiles/GRC-Development-Roadmap.pdf) and I guess that I need to wait for version 6.1 based on this:
"Awareness of MBR and GPT partition formats and file system independence "
Right? Or is it ok to continue anyway (or do I need to wait for 6.1/7.x)?

If SpinRite 6.0 is not the tool (and since 6.1 is not completely ready yet) - do you have any other ideas of how to figure out why the HDD is making his Win 10 to crash (often while playing games like Fortnite). When he disconnect the drive physically (after moving the game files to a SSD drive) - then Windows does not crash.

Thanks in advance!

(Also @Steve - thanks for SN! Weekly listener since 2 years back when I first heard about it. Also met you at a SQRL presentation you held this year - really nice!)

 

[AlanD]

Is there anything in the Event Log at the time of the crashes which might give a clue?

Start/Run "eventvwr"

 

[Steve]

Can someone elaborate on this message?

Yes. It's safe to proceed. That's a GPT (GUID Partition Table) drive that also has an MBR for compatibility. v6.1 will be way more aware of this, but v6.0 will still work.

 

[PHoganDive]

A remote possibility is the power supply is at its limit and the extra drive is making it marginally unstable. I've had power supplies cause random intermittent crashes that were almost impossible to pin down, until swapping to a different supply 'fixed' it.

 

[nonce]

A remote possibility is the power supply is at its limit and the extra drive is making it marginally unstable. I've had power supplies cause random intermittent crashes that were almost impossible to pin down, until swapping to a different supply 'fixed' it.

Yeah, found no errors with SpinRite (man it was fun to run though ). So next thing is to look at the Event logs and also try some more power...

Thanks for the feedback and the ideas.

 

[oaxacabruno]

Yes. It's safe to proceed. That's a GPT (GUID Partition Table) drive that also has an MBR for compatibility. v6.1 will be way more aware of this, but v6.0 will still work.

Could I ask about a similar (or maybe the same) situation: SR 6.0 describes the partition I'd like to scan as "MBR followed by EFI", as the OP describes. However, in my case, when I select the partition, the Details pane on the right also contains the warning message that says "Invalid Partition for Drive Size; This partition exceeds the size of this drive as defined by the system's BIOS...." with instructions not to proceed. Is this an error message that v6.0 will display for any GPT drive that has an MBR for compatibility, (meaning it is safe run v6.0), or does my drive have an additional problem that indicates I should wait for 6.1?

 

[DanR]

Could I ask about a similar (or maybe the same) situation: SR 6.0 describes the partition I'd like to scan as "MBR followed by EFI", as the OP describes. However, in my case, when I select the partition, the Details pane on the right also contains the warning message that says "Invalid Partition for Drive Size; This partition exceeds the size of this drive as defined by the system's BIOS...." with instructions not to proceed. Is this an error message the v6.0 will display for and GPT drive that has an MBR for compatibility, (meaning it is safe run v6.0), or does my drive have an additional problem that indicates I should wait for 6.1?

What is the size of your drive? If it is greater than 2.2 TB, then SpinRite 6.0 would only see and work on the first 2.2 TB. SpinRite 6.1, however, would work on the entire drive.

 

[oaxacabruno]

What is the size of your drive? If it is greater than 2.2 TB, then SpinRite 6.0 would only see and work on the first 2.2 TB. SpinRite 6.1, however, would work on the entire drive.

BIOS tells me that the drive is a Seagate ST1000LM014-1EJ164; apparently a 1 TB SSHD hybrid drive. So, since it's less than 2.2 TB, it sounds like I can use SpinRite 6.0 on it despite the "invalid partition for drive size" warning?

 

[DanR]

Ahh ... A hybrid drive: An HDD with a large SSD cache. Those are known to pose problems for SpinRite.

I will have to defer to someone more expert to answer your question re SpinRite.

 

[danlock]

One of my drives is a SSHD, 2TB, with a 64MB NAND cache (Seagate FireCuda).

I don't have any answers for @DanR and await replies from more-knowledgeable SpinRite people.

AFAIK, SpinRite doesn't care about the file system on the disk and reads the S.M.A.R.T. info and reads/writes/repairs the raw sector data present on the disk.

 

[DanR]

AFAIK, SpinRite doesn't care about the file system on the disk and reads the S.M.A.R.T. data and the raw data from the disk's sectors

Correct. SpinRite is both file system and OS agnostic. It only sees/cares about, and operates on, the raw data on the disk.

 

[George Shaw]

I'm looking for the same answer. Mine is a 1TB Samsung SSD 840 EVO. I get the "Invalid Partition for Drive Size; This partition exceeds the size of this drive as defined by the system's BIOS...." message as described above when selecting the drive. I'd like to run SpinRite on it to see if it improves the speed as the early part of the drive is much slower than the later part, based on running ReadSpeed.

 

[PHolder]

I'm looking for the same answer

The answer is the same. You have a GPT partition on the drive, and SpinRite 6 doesn't understand GPT partitions. You can take steps to backup the partition table, and then blank it, and it would work, and then you could restore the backup. Alternatively, and most likely, you can wait for SpinRite 6.1 to be released.

 

[jefeTechVeg]

One of my drives is a SSHD, 2TB, with a 64MB NAND cache (Seagate FireCuda).

I don't have any answers for @DanR and await replies from more-knowledgeable SpinRite people.

AFAIK, SpinRite doesn't care about the file system on the disk and reads the S.M.A.R.T. info and reads/writes/repairs the raw sector data present on the disk.

Yes I'd like an answer to how well SpinRite 6.0 handles SSHD drives...I recently bought the 1TB flavor of the Seagate FireCuda SSHD as a cheaper way to upgrade my PS4 HDD and I wanted to check the integrity of the drive with SpinRite. I booted up SpinRite and started Level 4 on the drive and it got through 25 megabytes and is now frozen. I'm afraid to make anymore attempts until further guidance...Thanks in advance!

 

[PHolder]

how well SpinRite 6.0 handles SSHD

This is a hybrid technology ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_drive .) As far as SpinRite is concerned, you should treat it not like a spinning media drive, but as an SSD. Based on that advice, you probably should NOT be attempting a level 4, as that is likely to cause excess wear and tear on the SSD portion of the drive. You should limit any use to level 2.

Never the less, I don't have any idea why it would have hung while running a level 4 scan. We would be interested to hear your report on the results of a level 2 scan.

 

[jefeTechVeg]

Thanks! I will try the level 2 and post some results.

 

[AlanD]

Just bought SpinRite 6.0. My son recently bought a brand new HDD ( Seagate BarraCuda Desktop 1TB 7200rpm ). But since it seems to make his computer crash I was a bit interested to try out SpinRite on it (before creating an errand with support).

If SpinRite 6.0 is not the tool (and since 6.1 is not completely ready yet) - do you have any other ideas of how to figure out why the HDD is making his Win 10 to crash (often while playing games like Fortnite). When he disconnect the drive physically (after moving the game files to a SSD drive) - then Windows does not crash.

There has been some discussion in the Newsgroups recently about SMR drives causing problems when the cache fills up faster than the HD can write it. I don't think the Barracuda is an SMR drive, but disk intensive activity like Fortnite might fill up the buffers whereas the SSD can cope with the fast data rate.