Drive maintenance with "Spinrite" ?

[bawldiggle]

Is there any merit in using Spinrite to "maintain" HDD discs ?

This podcast by the "Spinrite" developer makes a lot of sense to me ... or am I missing something ?

I would appreciate any informed advice.

Thank you

 

[Britton30]

I've not used Spinrite so I'm speaking from what I've gleaned from the GRC site. As I understand it the main and most useful purpose is for recovering data from a flummoxed drive or possibly repairing it.

Here's more info.
https://www.grc.com/sr/themovie.htm

 

[bawldiggle]

I have a choice whether to shell out $100 for Spinrite or $1,000 to lop some nuisance trees in our front yard.
Messing about with PCs is winning.

Russell

 

[Britton30]

$100 is better than paying a tech 10-30 times more for data recovery if you need it. From the reviews on grc.com Spinrite has worked miracles in some cases. I've used Steve Gipson's tools for a lot of years and I think he's an honest person. Very, very wordy at time, but honest.

I would enjoy doing the tree lopping myself. Of course I need a chainsaw.

 

[Mark Phelps]

Even though I have used Spinrite myself (YEARS ago!!), trusting it to "maintain" hard drives implies that you believe the claims about being able to "repair" bad sectors.

NOT saying it can't do it -- but I've done some research on this, and the claims just don't hold up. Expecting software to repair what is essentially a hardware problem is unreasonable.

 

[bawldiggle]

Hi Mark ... thanks for your input

As I understand it (from various videos by the developer) Spinrite does not repair sectors but reassigns data from dodgy sectors to new sectors.
I like the idea of "maintenance" and "monitoring" the state of my HDDs.
In my other life I was involved with equipment maintenance and stress testing was a normal part of maintenance.
As I gleaned from the Spinrite developer... Spinrite subjects each sector to stress testing ... which explains the long time to run Spinrite over a disc.
See Spinrite FAQs

In this life ... she-who-must-be-obeyed never backed up despite my "pushing" (nagging) and sure enough the HD went down and she lost decades of family-snaps. This all happened before I got interested in PC health ... now I wonder if the guru who pronounced the HD dead, actually was more interested in selling her a new rig. The old disc wouldn't even spin (all beyond my expertise at the moment). If the "snaps" can be retrieved ... :thumbs up: ... otherwise the old beast (3 years old ... er.. not SWMBO) will be getting a new HD + an extra for data, and use the rig to play Win-7, free Macrium and Linux (Mint) ... I hope.

 

[Britton30]

Well I don't think Spinrite can resurrect a drive that won't spin, that seems more like a motor or controller problem.
If Gipson is to be believed Spinrite does what had to be done in the early days of hard drives. All HDDs have bad sectors, nowadays we get them with the bad ones marked bad, or mapped. Formerly the bad sectors were printed on the drive labels and the installer would do that.
I know more about orbital mechanics than sector mapping though.

 

[A Guy]

I have Spinrite from years ago, never used it. Might I suggest investing the money on a 2nd internal drive where you can regularly create backup images with the program of your choosing? I personally use Acronis True Image 2010, but many here like the free Macrium Reflect. I think backups are invaluable, and should you lose a HDD, pop in a replacement and restore your complete image back in minutes. You might even be able to get the 2nd drive AND Acronis for less than Spinrite alone

A Guy

 

[Britton30]

Russell I found this (short) video about Spinrite. Steve Gipson's articles and videos go on and on and on after a point is explained.
There are other videos on this page too.
Spinrite Data Recovery and Harddrive Maintenance Software 1080P Walkthrough Guide - YouTube