Starting Point When Drive Size Isn't Recognized

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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.

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Cloning Docks should not be cloning firmware, that's just bad. Firmware modules are configured differently to each drive, when they get cloned onto the wrong drive that runs the risk of opening up soo many problems. Like your seeing here. When a 5TB Seagate drive thinks it's a 500GB Western Digital drive, that's very bad. Without a backup of the original firmware modules, I don't see a way to fix it.
 
I imagine the cloning dock programmers, probably some
kids just out of technical school, no real-life end-user
field experience, never have any quality control testing
over their work, no one chaperoning them, no one
looking over their shoulder, no time to patiently test a
variety of cloning conditions, no stack of ersatz drives to
mix and match and mess up, and at best, they probably
slapped two identical drives into them to test, and
never noticed that the firmware got copied.

It's actually a neat feature if needed, like now, to clone
the firmware BACK from a 100%-matching working drive.

I'll keep my firmware cloning dock forever, marked with
a big red X, reminding me never to use it to clone except
when wanting to send firmware to an otherwise
unresponsive 100%-matching drive.
 
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