Perform a full hard drive check with Spinrite when reloading your computer.

This is an excellent example as to why you should always perform a full drive test before reloading a computer's hard drive.

In this example I was able to detect that the drive is about to fail and inform the user about it as well as some other issues with the system. The customer then saved money by paying only for a diagnostic on the system, instead of a full reload that could have failed in a month or two.

[DefconComputers]

@lovelytuber Spinrite is more hardware specific than OS specific. There are cases in which the hard drive controller is not supported by spinrite and it does'nt give the SMART data, which I use quite a bit to determine if the drive is starting to have issues. There is a free utility called HD tune that does basically the same as spinrite but needs a Ultimate boot disk or windows to be running.

[DefconComputers]

@v8nman You have a point here. The problem nowadays is that alot of software and unfortunately system builders are bluring the lines on what a MB is, and are inventing in my opinion non-sense marking and rounding down to make their numbers higher. I generally stick with these to make it more universal and easier to understand for new people.

For those who want it clarified a MB is a megabyte where a Mb is a megabit.
8Mb is 1MB, and Mb SHOULD be used in speed where MB should be in storage.

[Rcountrycomputer]

What I found with spinrite, is that sometimes like with that old dell machines like the old dell\ you have there, sometimes the scan will go really slow in that machine but will go MUCH faster if you put it in a different machine. Could just be that machines motherboard. Also Level 4 goes MUCH slower lan level 2. So try level 2 first see how fast that goes. As far as ECC all drives do error correction, it just depends on what is the normal ECC rate is for that drive.

[lovelytuber]

thanks mate well i have a question is spinrite not compatible with win vista and win 7?
what do you use to scan these machines(vista and 7) i use ultimate boot and hiren boot
do you think these softwares contain reliable harddisk scanners
if not what do you use to scan the hard disk from bad sector
thanks

[vnman]

@DefconComputers Mb per second is only relevant in networking. Everything else should be read as Bytes per second in terms of transfers.

Your processor does not read in bits, it reads in bytes.
Your memory does not read in bits, it reads in bytes.
Your HDD, even at the sector level, is 512 bytes.

Why would anyone read anything (but networking) in Bits.

[ImperialArmour]

Is there a way to make Spinrite run in RAID or AHCI? I only get into the the program screen after setting it to IDE from the BIOS from my original RAID configuration.

[GoldenPlaypen]

Thanks for this I'm running it on a laptop that will boot periodically for me trying to determine if a virus has gotten to the Master Boot or if its the Hard Drive I tested the RAM and that passes so hopefully I can repair this one.

[mohammedtoufeeqahamed]

Please provide me the link to download Spinrite

[vnman]

I don't want to sound like a jerk, but any good computer technician should know the difference between MB and Mb.

[nick]

this system is so old why would you even waste the money

[nick]

I would never go to you. Spin rite is snake oil