USB Support in SpinRite 6.1

[DanR]

Will SpinRite 6.1 Have Improved USB Support?

Sadly: NO, it will not.

Anyone expecting/hoping for improved USB support in SpinRite 6.1 will be disappointed.

NOTE: The BIOS has been around for a long time before USB came to be. Thus, most BIOS do not know USB. The very rare exception is a newer BIOS that does have some USB knowledge and support.

As a result:

USB support will be limited to only what the BIOS can see and access, which will often vary from system to system. Many systems will only be able to see the USB boot drive. The BIOS is the “authority” here.

Therefore:

USB support in SR 6.1 is and will forever be:

- Typically limited to only the USB drive(s) the BIOS can see and access
- With s-l-o-w scan speeds due to BIOS I/O speed limitations
- Subject to keyboard unresponsiveness during scans (when a USB keyboard and the USB drive being scanned are on the same USB controller)
- Often confusing
- Often problematic
- And DEFINITELY NOT FIXABLE!

Accessible BIOS drives will typically be limited to just the first 2.2 TB of capacity, with the exception of the rare BIOS that is able to access additional capacity. And . . . scan times for TB size drives will be very, VERY l-o-n-g due to the BIOS I/O (slow) speed limitation.

Edit 05-14-2024: Note: When running in VirtualBox, VB's BIOS will be able to reliably access all of a USB drives capacity.

Thanks to Scott for this tip: https://forums.grc.com/threads/how-...uefi-only-machine-part-1-of-5.1613/post-12416

This will not change until SR 7, when native USB driver support will resolve all of these issues.

Thus USB support in SpinRite 6.1 should be considered a NO GO in most cases.

April 2025 edit: The above also applies to external eSATA drives on machines equipped with an external eSATA port. And, yes, SAS drives also, typically. Without native drivers for these drives, SpinRite 6.1 will be crippled/limited by the BIOS per the above discussion.

There is also the prospect of a SpinRite Win app that would immediately precede the development of the fully capable SpinRite 7. This Win app would presumably be for external drives only, utilizing Windows drivers (as ValiDrive does) and taking dedicated control of external drives (as ValiDrive does), to scan external external drives in the background (at the max speed a controller-drive combo is capable of) while the user does other things with Windows in the foreground. This presumably free (for SpinRite owners) app would fulfill the rest of Steve's long ago promise to SpinRite 6.0 owners, which SpinRite 6.1 was not able to deliver on.

 

[ShadowMeow]

Does the Zimaboard's BIOS have the same limitations for USB drives?

 

[gleclaire]

Does the Zimaboard's BIOS have the same limitations for USB drives?

The Zimaboard has the same issues.

If you have an M1-M4 mac you can use use qemu which runs faster. See https://forums.grc.com/threads/how-to-run-spinrite-on-an-apple-silicon-mac-part-2-of-2.2063/

 

[coffeeprogrammer]

I’m running SpinRite 6.1 in Virtual Box on Windows 10 on a spinning 2TB SATA drive using a cheap SATA to USB adapter from Amazon. This is the first time I am using SpinRite 6.1 for a real scan since it was done. I have two questions:


This virtual box on Windows method is known to work? There are no issues? It will find problems if there are any?


It seems like it takes about one day per terabyte, is that the same speed at which it would take if the drive was plugged directly into a motherboard and booted into a real dos system?


I basically just followed the directions that someone posted to the Forums. Thank you.

 

[Bplayer]

I’m running SpinRite 6.1 in Virtual Box on Windows 10 on a spinning 2TB SATA drive using a cheap SATA to USB adapter from Amazon. This is the first time I am using SpinRite 6.1 for a real scan since it was done. I have two questions:


This virtual box on Windows method is known to work? There are no issues? It will find problems if there are any?


It seems like it takes about one day per terabyte, is that the same speed at which it would take if the drive was plugged directly into a motherboard and booted into a real dos system?

Yes, it works. No issues. Yes, it will find problems if there are any.

You could experiment with the type of controller used in the VM. The default is IDE, but another type may work, and be faster. Running it on a PC that can be booted and having it directly connected to the motherboard will be faster.