Support for USB HDD Drives (which have no SATA connection)

[BP9906]

I recently bought SpinRite 6.1 for a few scenarios and drives I've accumulated over the years knowing that at some point I'd be able to recover the data.
Recently had a WD MyPassport Drive from 2018 start acting weird. Used it on MacOS for Timemachine to do backups every 3-6 months since then. Now it wont complete a backup. Ran Spin Rite 6.1 on my SpinRite machine, got the 137GB warning and nothing found.

I would connect the MyPassport to SATA but by asking AI tools (Gemini and Claude and ChatGPT) they all say the board on the MyPassport has no SATA at all. As a result I'm stuck. I'll have to hold onto this drive and not power it up and just wait for SpinRite 7 to support USB drives at 2TB-ish or higher.

 

[DanR]

Ran Spin Rite 6.1 on my SpinRite machine, got the 137GB warning and nothing found.

That, unfortunately, is a limitation of the BIOS on that specific machine.

If you have a another machine available you should try that. A different machine with a different BIOS may not have that limitation.

 

[BP9906]

That, unfortunately, is a limitation of the BIOS on that specific machine.

If you have an another machine available you should try that. A different machine with a different BIOS may not have that limitation.

It’s an HP EliteDesk 800 G2.
Suggestions? Is it trial and error?

 

[DanR]

It’s an HP EliteDesk 800 G2.

Ahh . . . That is a 2015 vintage PC. Now I think I know what the problem is..

A series of mysterious crashes in SR 6.1 development led to the discovery of a coding error in certain AMI BIOS. When accessing a USB drive beyond the first 137 GB of its capacity, this BIOS code error would manifest itself by randomly (And most improperly!) writing to ram. When SR code in RAM was overwritten SR would crash. A more serious implication is if this errant BIOS writing to RAM altered a buffer used by SR for temporary data storage, then data corruption would result. Hence an absolute 137 GB limit was enforced for all USB drives.

It was subsequently learned that most PC's copy the BIOS firmware code to RAM and execute it from RAM. In these instances, SR can now detect the code error in RAM, patch it on the fly (each time SR runs) in RAM (if present) and lift the 137 GB limitation.

There are only a few systems however, that only execute the BIOS firmware from ROM. Your old HP appears to be one of them. SR cannot patch the BIOS code in these systems. Thus, SpinRite will rigidly apply the 137 GB limitation in these systems.

If you have access to a newer system there is a very, very good chance that it will not be subject to the 137 GB limitation.

 

[peterblaise]

"... asking AI tools (Gemini and Claude and ChatGPT) they all say ​

the board on the MyPassport has no SATA at all ..."​

Probably accurate for WD.

But I'd shuck the drive and check anyway.

Solder on a SATA connector:

https://share.google/aimode/LCtYGzAvDXkfYN1RT

- - - - -

"... Ran Spin Rite 6.1 on my SpinRite machine, got the 137GB ​

warning and nothing found ..."​

Try other computers until the 137 GB USB BIOS threshold is not
presented.

 

[BP9906]

Ahh . . . That is a 2015 vintage PC. Now I think I know what the problem is..

A series of mysterious crashes in SR 6.1 development led to the discovery of a coding error in certain AMI BIOS. When accessing a USB drive beyond the first 137 GB of its capacity, this BIOS code error would manifest itself by randomly (And most improperly!) writing to ram. When SR code in RAM was overwritten SR would crash. A more serious implication is if this errant BIOS writing to RAM altered a buffer used by SR for temporary data storage, then data corruption would result. Hence an absolute 137 GB limit was enforced for all USB drives.

It was subsequently learned that most PC's copy the BIOS firmware code to RAM and execute it from RAM. In these instances, SR can now detect the code error in RAM, patch it on the fly (each time SR runs) in RAM (if present) and lift the 137 GB limitation.

There are only a few systems however, that only execute the BIOS firmware from ROM. Your old HP appears to be one of them. SR cannot patch the BIOS code in these systems. Thus, SpinRite will rigidly apply the 137 GB limitation in these systems.

If you have access to a newer system there is a very, very good chance that it will not be subject to the 137 GB limitation.

Thanks for the detail. No I don’t have any old machines. Looking for suggestions on a mini PC. I know about the older zima boards. Looking to keep it under $100 for just SR.

 

[DanR]

Thanks for the detail. No I don’t have any old machines. Looking for suggestions on a mini PC. I know about the older zima boards. Looking to keep it under $100 for just SR.

Unfortunately I do not have any suggestions. AI demands for RAM and storage drives has driven the price of used PCs (and new PCs) up.

 

[BP9906]

I came across another thread about running it in a VM. I run Proxmox with pfsense and so I could try a usb connection to a VM.

 

[peterblaise]

Unofficial, for our SpinRite DOS/FreeDOS diskette:

USBCHK.COM for SpinRite 6.1 (and compatible with 6.0) - Detects
and bypasses a 137 GB limit and memory corruption bug in some
American Megatrends (AMI) USB BIOSes. USBCHK asserts that this
BIOS (any vendor) can access USB drives and unknown BIOS drives
over 137 GB by changing their interface description to SCSI.

Quick setup (all files must be in the current directory):

Run USBCHK.

Run DRVCHK nn where nn is the BIOS number (80, 81 ...) of a
drive connected to a USB port.

Run HSHCHK mm where mm is the BIOS number of the same
drive connected to a non-USB port.

If all steps pass, add USBCHK or USBCHK > NUL to AUTOEXEC.BAT.

Or then run manually:
USBCHK
SPINRITE ... with any command line options

Run each utility with /? to confirm its command-line options.

 

[Scott]

I came across another thread about running it in a VM. I run Proxmox with pfsense and so I could try a usb connection to a VM.

USB access works well under VirtualBox and QEMU; haven’t tried any other virtualization solutions.