zyzzle wrote on 2022-12-20, 04:11:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-12-16, 18:00:

I would second SpinRite. It can be very useful for last ditch recovery, short of sending it to Drive Savers or somewhere similar […]
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I would second SpinRite. It can be very useful for last ditch recovery, short of sending it to Drive Savers or somewhere similar.
However, if your drive is larger than say 250GB or so you will likely have issues getting it to work properly.
As far as I know Gibson still hasn't released a 6.1 update that is supposedly supposed to recify this issue.

With all of that being said, if the data is critical then find a new media. Electro-mechanical drives don't last forever.

That ship has sailed. It's been almost *19 years* since that buggy version 6 was released. I suspect we'll be waiting 190 more years before the fabled, nirvana magical "release 6.1" or mythical "release 7" is released. This makes Spinrite totally useless on pretty much *any* modern drive now. Sad, as it was good software.

Wonder why Gibson Research chose to alienate its customer-base so severely? They're useless at this point.

If you listen to the Security Now podcast regularly, you'll get these answers. I'm not in a spot now where I can type long, but I can say that SR is in alpha and available to registered users who know how to get it. So finally, it is close to release. I agree it's been way too long, but he had his reasons.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-12-16, 18:00:

If you listen to the Security Now podcast regularly, you'll get these answers. I'm not in a spot now where I can type long, but I can say that SR is in alpha and available to registered users who know how to get it. So finally, it is close to release. I agree it's been way too long, but he had his reasons.

I do not listen to any podcast, but thanks for confirming this. Had no idea Gibson Research was even still around at this point. The seemingly on-track-to-be-released v 6.1 will be like a get-out-of-prison card. Finally, after 19 years, might the bugs of 6.0 be squashed? Hoping that the answer is affirmivie.

zyzzle wrote on 2022-12-22, 10:25:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-12-16, 18:00:

If you listen to the Security Now podcast regularly, you'll get these answers. I'm not in a spot now where I can type long, but I can say that SR is in alpha and available to registered users who know how to get it. So finally, it is close to release. I agree it's been way too long, but he had his reasons.

I do not listen to any podcast, but thanks for confirming this. Had no idea Gibson Research was even still around at this point. The seemingly on-track-to-be-released v 6.1 will be like a get-out-of-prison card. Finally, after 19 years, might the bugs of 6.0 be squashed? Hoping that the answer is affirmivie.

The main improvements, from what I've heard, will be:
-no more size limitation. So it can be run on multi-terabyte drives
-vastly improved speed so running on larger drives is more feasible
-more SSD friendly
-bug fixes
-I think I heard something about improvements in scanning over USB but I can't remember for sure.

I still need to get the motherboard model I use for SR 6.0. I keep forgetting while I'm at work.

Hoping wrote on 2022-12-18, 16:10:

What motherboard did you use? I could not find a good board.

Finally remembered to check. Intel DG31GL

clueless1 wrote on 2022-12-22, 18:05:

Hoping wrote on 2022-12-18, 16:10:

What motherboard did you use? I could not find a good board.

Finally remembered to check. Intel DG31GL

Great, it's a shame those aren't common around here. But I will be very. Watch out if I come across any Intel motherboard.

If you want to store something important, you can't store it on one drive. Make duplicates. That will also solve the problem of "refresh". It's simple as that.

Kerr Avon wrote on 2022-12-18, 15:07:

Wouldn't it be better to have copied everything off the hard drive, then replaced it with a new, non-faulty one?

My bad, I forgot the generation gap here..

The fixed-disk in my dad's story wasn't exactly portable. It was big as a cabinet.
And very, very expensive.

Here's a video to give an idea how massive the technology was back then.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTkL4FQL2FI

The fixed-disk wasn't exactly the same as in the video, though.
It rather had removable platters, if I understand correctly.

I see, thanks. It didn't occur to me that the disc drive was as big as a 1960's science fiction computer!

As you say, it's a generation thing. Nowadays we can measure SD cards in terabytes.