SpinRite 6.0

[Sasq]

MFM was 17 sectors per track and RLL was 26 sectors per track.

Way back when, the HDD controler card actually did a lot more then just act as an interface.

Personaly I had a miniscribe 3650 (40MB drive) that with an RLL card blew out to a whopping 60MB. Damn I could see forever on that drive.

[spadnos]

Right Sasq.

Before IDE, hard drives were more like a component stereo system - you had a controller card which took data from the computer and put it into a suitable form for storing on disk, and the drive itself, which was basically a magnetic surface and the read/write heads, with supporting electronics.

The data is stored as a magnetic polarity change on the disk (a flux reversal). If there's a change at the right time it's a 1, if there's no change it's a 0, for example. RLL (Run Length Limited) storage is a way (currently used on every hard disk, I think) of storing more information on the disk - it's kind of like compression. Since the drives could store their rated capacity in flux reversals, if you could encode data with fewer reversals per byte, then you have a higher data capacity for the same number of flux reversals.

IDE drives have the controller and the magnetics in one unit (hence the term "Integrated Drive Electronics"), so you now have to use external (usually software) compression to get any more data on the disk.

- Steve

[DirtFarmer]

Originally posted by spadnos

(hence the term "Integrated Drive Electronics")- Steve

hmmm, and i thought i stood for "Inferior Drive Electronics", thanks for straightening that out.

[Guyver]

I was installing a new HP rp3410 system at work, and noticed that IDE appears to be just a red-headed step-child of the SCSI format. Limited to 2 devices on the chain, with the system adapter at ID 7. HP-UX 11.11 with an IDE DVD-ROM drive, the controller interface shows as ID 7 - most drivers appear to be designed to hide this.

This may explain how SATA drives can be attached to S-SCSI controllers, yet not vice-versa.

Who all remember the Micropolis drives with the voice-coil armature drivers, that sounded like R2-D2 will under heavy load?

[Paddy]

sorry, how does this SPinRite work?

[spadnos]

Originally posted by Paddy
sorry, how does this SPinRite work?

IT makes every effort possible to read a track of data, writes that data to another section of the drive, then formats the track it just read. Once formatting (of each track) is complete, it puts the data back where it originally was. If it encounters any bad areas, then it will mark the newly found errors (eg. mark bad sectors as used in FAT).

If it encounters any errors (it works at a very low level, generally detecting any error reporting mechanisms, and getting as "close to the bone" as possible), it reads any parts of data that it can, and puts those in the new location. Unlike the OS, which will work at a "cluster" level, this works at the sector level, or possibly even at a byte level, depending on the type of error. Think of it like EAC for ripping data off hard drives.

This basically accomplishes a reformat of the drive surface, without destroying any data. The reformat used to be useful as a way of "refreshing" the disk surface. I would assume that disk surfaces today might need the same treatment from time to time, but I'm not sure how much is accomplished by the drive controller.

- Steve

[cjolley]

It also writes and reads many different combinations of bit patterns to each sector, to ensure that the sector can reliably hold all the paterns.
Apperently if the disk has some kinds of impending problems, some bit patterns will "stick" and others not.
I only ever used it to change the interleave on MFM drives. It could make a major difference in the speed of the drive.
But that is not an issue now.
Chuck

[JerryMouse]

I began using SpinRite back in the good ol' DOS days when I had a mere 30MB HD. At that time, SpinRite was the only utility that allowed me to recover data in a bad sector. Years later, when I began using XP, I was disappointed SpinRite didn't have a version compatible with NTFS, so this is great news for me.

Written by Spadnos:

I guess I can try to resurrect the IBM Deathstar drives I have.

Ha ha, yeah, I've had one of those sitting around in an anti-static bag in my closet. I'll have to drag it out and see what I can recover from it.

-- Jerry

[TransformX]

Is it worth $89 ?

[Kooldino]

Cool. I'll keep this program in the back of my mind.

[spadnos]

Originally posted by TransformX
Is it worth $89 ?

If you have $89 worth of data (that's not easily recreatable), and/or $89 worth of disk drives, and there's a possibility of one or more of these drives failing in some way, then yes, it's worth $89.

In certain types of drive failures, this can recover data that otherwise would require a data recovery service, which is usually $500-$5000.

- Steve

[Nowhere]

Is SpinRite so good that it is safe to assume that if I try this and it'll fail, no other software means will work? (and the only option left will be professional data restoration company...so, in practice, no option left for predictable amount of time :> )

[spadnos]

Originally posted by Nowhere
Is SpinRite so good that it is safe to assume that if I try this and it'll fail, no other software means will work? (and the only option left will be professional data restoration company...so, in practice, no option left for predictable amount of time :> )

For the most part, yes.
There were other programs available, but they weren't anywhere near as effective. (OnTrack had something, I think)

- Steve

[Taz]

Originally posted by Guyver
I was installing a new HP rp3410 system at work, and noticed that IDE appears to be just a red-headed step-child of the SCSI format. Limited to 2 devices on the chain, with the system adapter at ID 7. HP-UX 11.11 with an IDE DVD-ROM drive, the controller interface shows as ID 7 - most drivers appear to be designed to hide this.

EIDE supports ATAPI, ATAPI borrowed it's command structure from SCSI hence the similarity

[Wombat]

Not necessarily. I believe my Promise TX2 was EIDE, and it did not support ATAPI.