SpinRite 6.1 offers us help for solid-state drives

Topic

New Reply

BEN’S WORKSHOP By Ben Myers The latest version of SpinRite, long regarded as the go-to software to recover data from corrupted hard drives, adds testi
[See the full post at: SpinRite 6.1 offers us help for solid-state drives]

6 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, fisher75, DLivesInTexas, madhackbt, lmacri, Norio

Reply | Quote

Replies

Check with a few data recovery specialists on well-known, well-respected data recovery discussion boards and with their companies.

A while back, there was very in-depth, thorough documentation about how many recent hard drives, hybrids, solid states, etc., work.  Also, caution was encouraged about Spinrite 6.0 and 6.1 and other similar products.   Caution is necessary because such products might clash with the low-level workings of recent and present-day hardware.

I have used Spinrite 6.0/6.1 in my 100MB+ hard drive/DOS 3.3/Windows 3.11 days.  It was a hard drive report card tool for me.

Test on non-critical hardware before using such products on business hardware.

 

 

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

Reply | Quote

I recently bought Spinrite only to find out after the software arrived that it doesn’t work on any drive exceeding 2 TB (they don’t seem to advertise this fact).  I don’t think anything has changed since then. When I complained about the deficiency they refunded my money, but I wasted a lot of time finding out something that should have been  stated on the top of the page.  I like the concept of Spinrite, and if they have fixed this issue, I would buy it again.  You should have mentioned this in your article (unless I missed the mention, or you also didn’t know).

Reply | Quote

SpinRite 6.1, the newest version, can handle multi-TB drives, subject to BIOS limitations. See this post by Steve Gibson on the GRC Forum:

There’s no maximum for SpinRite. Some early testers used 16TB drives, and I have one here that works nicely.

By the way, SpinRite 6.1 also runs much faster than 6.0.

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

Reply | Quote

Could you please explain why there is difference in the data transfer rate between the “front”/”midpoint”/”end” of SSD drives? There’s no rotational delay or seek time on SSD’s, and no physical track size differences between the first and last tracks. One would think that all sectors would have the exact same access times and transfer rates. (One of the reasons that optimizing an SSD offers no benefits.)

And why would re-writing the entire SSD slow down the transfer rates on non-SATA drives?

Reply | Quote

The apparent reason is because firstly, SSD drives emulate disk drives in that the OS treats them like HDDs using LBAs [Logical Block addresses].  HDDs and SSDs are treated as if the device has a consecutive set of blocks starting at LBA 0 and ending at LBA n [where n depends on the drive size].

Low number LBAs are at the ‘front’ of the drive, high number LBAs are at the ‘end’ of the drive.

OS systems tend to allocate data with low LBA numbers first so the device  slowly fills up from the ‘front’ to the ‘end’.  So typically Windows is installed at the ‘front’ and other ‘stuff’ at the middle or near the ‘end’.

The final part of the explanation is that SSD data has been found to deteriorate so the ‘read only’ predominant nature of Windows files means that portion is likely to deteriorate more than at the ‘end’.  The ‘middle’ and ‘back’ blocks to be rewritten more often and their ‘quality’ is restored.

I think the deduction is that the SSD read rate across the drive is consistent with the interface performance, but what you see at the ‘front’ is the hidden drop in performance by the hidden read retries by the controller due to ‘bit deterioration’.

It’s well worth fully reading the Spinrite FAQ pages…

Regards – Julian

 

2 users thanked author for this post.

TechTango, rbailin

Reply | Quote

I’ve been a subscriber to SpinRite since I think V3.1, still have it.

For my everyday machines I monitor the SSDs with this: https://www.hdsentinel.com/

Dynamite program and the developer is VERY responsive.

For the record, I’m just a happy customer, I have no affiliation w/ the company.

Jim

2 users thanked author for this post.

Rand Alonin, Cybertooth

Reply | Quote

Ben, I think I’d agreee with anyone that the Spinrite 6.1 write up is not totally clear!

Personally I think I’ve deduced that the Spinrite 6.1 update only works ‘properly’ with direct SATA interface SSDs and not with USB or Nvme ones. The FAQ for Spinrite does explain this, as the 6.1 version requires a BIOS boot. Although the code apparently has direct PATA and SATA interface drivers, it relies on BIOS interfaces for USB and Nvme which slow it down! That’s why your NVME performance figures don’t seem to be ‘right’.

We all need to wait for Spinrite 7.0 which will ‘UEFI boot’ and have native USB and Nvme drivers to perform ‘properly’ for a true evaluation.

Julian

1 user thanked author for this post.

rbailin

Reply | Quote

Hey Ben,

Nice article and got me to dig out my Spinrite 6.1 USB and play a little.

I noticed that if you are using an EXTERNAL USB drive enclosure:

1. Spinrite may not recognize a drive in certain USB enclosures. No problem with others.
2. When trading USB devices you need to have them connected then RE-BOOT from the Spinrite USB to have the device recognized.

So far I’ve done one 500 GB WD 2.5″ drive on level 2 (it’s old and wanted to fully check it’s integrity) a Crucial 128 GB SSD on level 3 (this one has had problems in the past and eve had it’s cover lifted to look inside. It’s now held together with packing tape). It worked fine. I currently have a 1 Tb 2.5″ HDD running on level 3, time estimate 13+ hours!

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

Reply | Quote

Oh noes, the Gibson’s snake oil once again…

Reply | Quote

You need to justify this claim. What evidence do you have?

cheers, Paul

1 user thanked author for this post.

SueW

Reply | Quote

SSD operation is largely determined by the drive’s specific firmware. Without physically opening the drive and using the appropriate diagnostic tools, you’re basically wasting your time/incurring unnecessary wear on the drive.

Reply | Quote

And you know this because you are a drive engineer? Details please?

cheers, Paul

Reply | Quote

Paul T wrote:

You need to justify this claim. What evidence do you have?

cheers, Paul

You are welcome to read e.g. this thread at https://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2929 or many others. SpinRite may actually harm your data recovery efforts by doing writes/erases on already damaged media, or it will just return random garbage, or… Most of the marketing claims are really just – pseudoscience and pure snake oil.

Do yourself a service and use something like ddrescue for your data recovery attempts. In addition, the basic principle here being to offload the data somewhere else, not to mess with faulty media.

Reply | Quote

The first post in that thread has this to say:

insidious (ie unreported and undetectable) data corruption

If it’s undetectable, how do you know it’s corrupted?

Sounds like snake oil to me.

cheers, Paul

Reply | Quote

For a second I thought the new version was finally out. Maybe next year.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

Reply | Quote

@wavy, what do you mean? SpinRite 6.1 is the new version, released earlier this year.

A SpinRite 7 has been promised, but I don’t remember Steve Gibson (the developer) giving a time frame for its release.

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

1 user thanked author for this post.

wavy

Reply | Quote

I can see that now, many useful improvements including speed.
But still a Bios boot not UEFI.
I was hoping that purchasers of 6.1 will not be able to upgrade to 7 for free but you only will get a reduced price.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Cybertooth

Reply | Quote

Hello all, real noob here. Could I use SpinRite to recover a SSD drive that Win 10 has  somehow suddenly stopped recognizing? All File Explorer shows now is one big C drive (contains OS), but the former larger partition D drive (all saved data) is no longer visible/appears to no longer exist … 

Thank you for any light you can shed on this – sorry for my noobiness!

Reply | Quote

Are you using Win10 or Win11? What version 22H2 or 22H3? What Edition of Windows, Home or Pro?

How large is the SSD? In the search bar type “Disk Management” (without the quotes) and press Enter. When the window pops up, stretch it side to side in the display and take a screenshot of the center panel. Post the picture here as an attachment.

 

Reply | Quote

Thought I uploaded this picture on my reply but not seeing it…trying again

Reply | Quote

Thank you all: Paul T, PKCano, and Cybertooth!

What’s odd is when I ran hard drive sentinel, it did see the missing D:\ drive – but couldn’t figure out how big it was (i partitioned it to be bigger than C:\ because it was for all data files _

PIC:

Reply | Quote

That is showing a USB stick as D (7.5GB), not a fixed disk.
Where is this big drive you should have?

cheers, Paul

Reply | Quote

It has Win 10 Home 22H2, disk mgmt shows abt 237 gig size SSD – but –

When I first bought this Asus laptop new, I partitioned the hard drive to give C:\ for OS about 35% of space and the rest to D: to save data, pics, files, etc. All of a sudden can’t see the data partition/drive letter anymore in Windows File Explorer, afraid won’t be able to recover files

 

Reply | Quote

Are you trying to ‘pull our leg’ as we say in the UK?

HD Sentinel shows the drive part number which is the part number of a SATA M2 256GiB drive, so that drive never had a large D: volume allocated to it!

Reply | Quote

That C drive can not have been 35% of space as it is already using over 50% of the disk. I’d be surprised if you could get Windows and several apps on an 80GB (35%) disk.

Search C for your files.

cheers, Paul

Reply | Quote

The formatted D:\ drive was much larger than the C drive approx ~650 gig – disk mgr is now failing to show most of the space that was allocated to D: before – the total space shown is way less now

Reply | Quote

Did you have a second disk in the computer or an external one attached to it? It iappears that the disk you are showing is 256GB, not the 1TB it would have to be if you also had a 650GB partition for a D: drive. Is there a second drive that is not showing/working/installed/connected?

Run msinfo32 and see what size SDD it reports.

BTW, do you not have a backup of your data?

Reply | Quote

It’s my poor eyesight + crummy memory…it is, in fact, a 256 G SSD, after looking up make and model, ASUS Vivobook 17″ X705 Micron MTFDDAV256TBN-1AR1ZABYY 256GB SATA Solid State Drive intel core i7-8565U CPU 1.80 GHz 4 cores 8 threads

No recent backup, unfortunately (so dumb!!!), now guessing all my data previously saved in D is gone…

Reply | Quote

What device did you have attached to your laptop in the past? Plug in the USB stick or external hard drive you used before and your data should be there.

 

Reply | Quote

heretick wrote:

Could I use SpinRite to recover a SSD drive that Win 10 has somehow suddenly stopped recognizing? All File Explorer shows now is one big C drive (contains OS), but the former larger partition D drive (all saved data) is no longer visible/appears to no longer exist

It sounds like your SSD may have developed some kind of problem with the drive’s formatting and file index. Others may have a better diagnosis, but if what I said is the case, then I doubt that SpinRite will help with your issue. SpinRite is designed to “refresh” sectors where the data signals have weakened and are in danger of being lost. It’s designed to fix weak data sectors, not drive formatting gone bad.

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

1 user thanked author for this post.

heretick

Reply | Quote

Ben, When I went to purchase spinrite 6.1 as a first time buyer, I am seeing $89.00 and not $65 + tax as stated in your article. Did the price go up? Thank you.

Reply | Quote

@Sueska, I paid $89 for SpinRite when I bought it going on two decades ago. The price has been the same ever since I became aware of the program. Not sure where that $65 figure came from.

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

1 user thanked author for this post.

Sueska

Reply | Quote

Is the $65 an upgrade/discount if you already own the earlier version?

Reply | Quote

Owners of SpinRite version 6.0 (such as me) got 6.1 at no extra charge. However, owners of version 6 (and presumably 6.1) will be able to get the next version, 7.0, at an unspecified “reduced price“.

Looking around a bit, it seems that decades ago, Steve charged $39 to licensees of SpinRite 3.1 or 4.0 who wanted to move to the then-new version 5.0. (Note that the full price for new owners was $89, where it still is today!)

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

1 user thanked author for this post.

Sueska

Reply | Quote

I’d be very careful & cautious in using SpinRite as mentioned by this person:

https://www.disktuna.com/and-now-im-done-with-steve-gibson-and-spinrite/

Reply | Quote