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SpinRite v6.1 Release #3 Guest:
The 3rd release of SpinRite v6.1 is published and may be obtained by all SpinRite v6.0 owners at the SpinRite v6.1 Pre-Release page. (SpinRite will shortly be officially updated to v6.1 so this page will be renamed.) The primary new feature, and the reason for this release, was the discovery of memory problems in some systems that were affecting SpinRite's operation. So SpinRite now incorporates a built-in test of the system's memory. For the full story, please see this page in the "Pre-Release Announcements & Feedback" forum.
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Be sure to checkout “Tips & Tricks” Dear Guest Visitor → Once you register and log-in please checkout the “Tips & Tricks” page for some very handy tips!
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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.
(You may permanently close this reminder with the 'X' in the upper right.)
VeraCrypt comes in handy for encrypted backups. I needed to pick an option for having hard drives lying around with backups full of keys, secrets and VPN settings, ready to work unrestricted in the corporate network. Even if there are flaws, it's a lot better than nothing. If the backup drives get stolen, I can be considered a low enough profile target. I will not be worth breaking any encryption. The drives will most likely just be wiped to be refurbished.
For Windows, I'd be inclined to use Windows' built-in BitLocker.
I'm a big fan of Cryptomator since it encrpyts file-by-file rather than a whole container. I feel this helps a lot, performance wise, when syncing to cloud storage.
I've been using VeraCrypt for quite a while on my various PCs and all in all its been great. However please note that after the release of Windows 1903 there has been an issue when encrypting the system drive with VC. The issue results in Windows locking up when the swap-file is used. I had this issue myself and it was driving me nuts, thinking my hardware was unstable. However after two different PCs started locking up, I looked for what the two had in common and I came across this post in the VC forum https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/general/thread/f6e7f623d0/
Hope this helps
Michael
