Validrive instructions

  • DNS Benchmark v2 is Finished and Available!
    Guest:
    That's right. It took an entire year, but the result far more accurate and feature laden than we originally planned. The world now has a universal, multi-protocol, super-accurate, DNS resolver performance-measuring tool. This major second version is not free. But the deal is, purchase it once for $9.95 and you own it — and it's entire future — without ever being asked to pay anything more. For an overview list of features and more, please see The DNS Benchmark page at GRC. If you decide to make it your own, thanks in advance. It's a piece of work I'm proud to offer for sale. And if you should have any questions, many of the people who have been using and testing it throughout the past year often hang out here.
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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.

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Adam P

New member
Oct 12, 2023
2
0
My reading of the instructions for Validrive would lead me to believe that the random 4k blobs are written and read to their various locations without regard for whatever data might be there already, but there doesn't seem to be an explicit statement about whether or not this is safe to run on a drive which has already been put into use. Will this utility scatter corruption through existing files or not?
 
I don't know if anyone has tried this yet, but I ran ValiDrive on a 1TB Kingston flash drive- mine tested as valid. The entire device was encrypted before the test, and has decrypted fine since. Of the few tested flash drives so far all were valid. Two dead flash drives which Windows no longer recognizes of cause did not run. I did see some large differences between read and write timings, but that has been explained. Perhaps an odd test case, I ran ValiDrive against an Apricorn 128GB Secure Key (after unlocking it) and it passed. Another great utility, thanks Steve!