Summary of Recent Data Recovery Methods; Spinrite 5.0

[lexluther]

My experience with Spinrite 5.0 and failing HD/floppies.

(I have no grudge to bear, purpose of post is payback for good info
gotten here; represents one user's experience, but is also meant to
counteract all the Sprinrite hype)

I had a 3 gig hd with about 5-10% bad sectors. Other HD recovery
programs stalled or would take forever to scan disk.

I had already recovered using simple xcopy most of the hd's data, with
guestimate of 5% of files that gave read errors.

After a review of most of the DR software out there, I chose not to
clone with dispatch due to it's long processing time, already recovered
most data and DP had no special recovery capabilities other than
skipping bad sectors.

Tried Drive Rescue; pcirecovery-both stalled. Get Data Back gave 24 hour
estimate- extremely slow in dealing with bad sectors.

Since I had pretty much nothing to lose, I tried Sprinrite 5.0, which I
got for free.

First I tried it on several floppies. Out of about 10 floppies I was
able to get the data back on about 6. One floppy was made totally
unusable by SR-system would not even recognize floppy was in drive. 3
others scrambled data so bad, no sense could be made of it-so much for
it's statistical processing of bad sectors, ha. Most of the floppies,
even those that I was able to recover data from, went belly up after
trying to use them first time. But about 60%, at least I got the data.

On the hard drive, totally different story. SR started going fairly
rapidly on the first portion (first 5% of drive) which, according to the
program contained no bad sectors. It got increasingly slower and slower,
with estimated finish times increasing steadily from 9 hours to 36
hours,when it then froze up (locked up my system) and I had to reboot.
The drive was toast after using SR 5.0 to "recover" the data. This drive
could have been on the verge of dieing anyways, who is to say.

Conclusion: xcopy data off failing drives, then clone if important data
still remains. ONly use Spinrite on drives that there is nothing to lose
on. My experience also leads me to believe that the extremely long
processing time of Spinrite and it's numerous rereads probably put more
stress on the drive than is acceptable even for routine maintenance.
It's data recovery abilities aren't any better than Norton's Disk Doctor
in my experience and it MAY kill off drives that are marginal during the
recovery process.

 

[Joep]

My experience with Spinrite 5.0 and failing HD/floppies.

(I have no grudge to bear, purpose of post is payback for good info
gotten here; represents one user's experience, but is also meant to
counteract all the Sprinrite hype)

As far as I know there's no Spinrite hype here.

I had a 3 gig hd with about 5-10% bad sectors. Other HD recovery
programs stalled or would take forever to scan disk.

I had already recovered using simple xcopy most of the hd's data, with
guestimate of 5% of files that gave read errors.

After a review of most of the DR software out there, I chose not to
clone with dispatch due to it's long processing time, already recovered
most data and DP had no special recovery capabilities other than
skipping bad sectors.

It's called DiskPatch - 3 Gb shouldn't take that much time at all - and
there's a bit more DiskPatch can do than skipping sectors it can't read
immediately. But you need to make up your mind: You either clone a disk as
fast as possible (as, as you will later the say the disk may die if you
spent too much time on it) - or - you try to actually recover data from the
problem sectors which takes time.

Tried Drive Rescue; pcirecovery-both stalled. Get Data Back gave 24 hour
estimate- extremely slow in dealing with bad sectors.

Yes, all that software uses Windows API to read a disk and basically they're
waiting for Windows to discover it can not read the disk. Bottomline is that
this type of software is not really equiped to deal with 'bad' disks and
that they're primarely written with file system issues in mind.

Since I had pretty much nothing to lose, I tried Sprinrite 5.0, which I
got for free.

On the hard drive, totally different story. SR started going fairly
rapidly on the first portion (first 5% of drive) which, according to the
program contained no bad sectors. It got increasingly slower and slower,
with estimated finish times increasing steadily from 9 hours to 36
hours,when it then froze up (locked up my system) and I had to reboot.
The drive was toast after using SR 5.0 to "recover" the data. This drive
could have been on the verge of dieing anyways, who is to say.
Probably.


Conclusion: xcopy data off failing drives, then clone if important data
still remains.

Yes, that's common sense. If you can still copy files using normal methods
then do so. Using file copying software, other than sector by sector disk
cloning software which copies all sectors regardless what's in them, allows
you to prioritize and get the most important files first.

ONly use Spinrite on drives that there is nothing to lose
on. My experience also leads me to believe that the extremely long
processing time of Spinrite and it's numerous rereads probably put more
stress on the drive than is acceptable even for routine maintenance.

You're mixing things up. Using SR on a disk with 10% bad sectors isn't
routine maintenance. It's the 10% bad sector causing the delay. So, when
used for routine maintenance you probably wont get those times.

It's data recovery abilities aren't any better than Norton's Disk Doctor
in my experience

That's because you didn't look close enough. NDD and SR do fundametally
different things.

and it MAY kill off drives that are marginal during the
recovery process.

That's pretty obvious, but can happen with any software.

 

[lexluther]

As far as I know there's no Spinrite hype here.

I was alluding to the SR web page, not this group.

It's called DiskPatch - 3 Gb shouldn't take that much time at
all - and there's a bit more DiskPatch can do than skipping
sectors it can't read immediately. But you need to make up your
mind: You either clone a disk as fast as possible (as, as you
will later the say the disk may die if you spent too much time
on it) - or - you try to actually recover data from the problem
sectors which takes time.

So I made a typo, shoot me? DiskPatch according to it's own
manual, simply tries to reread the bad sectors and skips them if
they are unreadable. If I am wrong about that let me know. IOW,
what does DP do that is unique to recovering bad sectors? Also,I
find rather suspect the claims that once a drive is cloned,
together with it's skipped sectors, that it "often" is repaired
such that it is like it was before all those bad sectors became
unreadable, or so their docs. imply.

Yes, all that software uses Windows API to read a disk and
basically they're waiting for Windows to discover it can not
read the disk. Bottomline is that this type of software is not
really equiped to deal with 'bad' disks and that they're
primarely written with file system issues in mind.

Yes, these are examples of more software that makes big claims but
cannot deliver. They all talk the talk, but haven't found a one
that can walk the walk, although I haven't tested that many.

Probably.

Up until using SR, however, I had no problem accessing the drive
ANd there are other several complaints by others in past posts
that SR killed their drives. The jury is out, and until someone
attempts comprehensive independent tests (which may be
unlikely/difficult), it will continue to be out.

Yes, that's common sense. If you can still copy files using
normal methods then do so. Using file copying software, other
than sector by sector disk cloning software which copies all
sectors regardless what's in them, allows you to prioritize and
get the most important files first.

The big mistake I made was not giving xcopy a command line option
to make a log of the files it could not get. That's assuming there
is such an option, I never checked.

You're mixing things up. Using SR on a disk with 10% bad sectors
isn't routine maintenance. It's the 10% bad sector causing the
delay. So, when used for routine maintenance you probably wont
get those times.

NO, I clearly understand the diff. between using SR on a failing
drive and on a good drive. I just think it really doesn't do much
in either case and is potentially harmful on good drives or drives
that have some life left, by overexercising the drive and thus
increasing the odds it will fail. Besides "smart" technology if it
works and I am no expert does what SR is supposed to do
automatically in the case of giving you warnings a drive is about
to fail. As I used it it was ok, since I had already gotten most
everything I could from a drive that may have been faulty and the
size of which was such that I wasn't going to use it again
anyways.

That's because you didn't look close enough. NDD and SR do
fundametally different things.

Yet, in my limited experience the results, amount of data
recovered, are about the same. To think of it, that might be one
of the big faults of SR, that it does nothing to address logical
errors on the drive whilst it is repeatedly attempting to read,
again and again "bad" areas on the drive. When SG says in his
manual for SR 5 to use checkdisk /f FIRST, before using SR, that
tells me he either doesn't know how to write a manual or knows
little about recovering data from failing drives. And, before you
say it, I disagree that he specifies that that is for maintenance
scans only. The way the manual reads the user is directed to use
checkdisk /f, which doesn't even work on most of todays systems
(no mention is made of scandisk), PRIOR to using SR. That, imo, is
clearly a bad direction/error instruction.

That's pretty obvious, but can happen with any software.

Not so obvious to SG fans. They think that SR is some kind of
magic elixir, that will make their bunny rabbit keep going and
going and going, when in fact it is making their bunny rabbit run
marathons to see if he will develop arrythmia.

 

[Joep]

I was alluding to the SR web page, not this group.

Then take your business there ...

So I made a typo, shoot me?

No, simply illustrates you're a crappy 'reviewer'.

DiskPatch according to it's own
manual, simply tries to reread the bad sectors and skips them if
they are unreadable. If I am wrong about that let me know.

Yes, you said no other way than skipping. Re-reads can be successfull often.

IOW,

what does DP do that is unique to recovering bad sectors?

You didn't say it had to be unique.

Also,I
find rather suspect the claims that once a drive is cloned,
together with it's skipped sectors, that it "often" is repaired
such that it is like it was before all those bad sectors became
unreadable, or so their docs. imply.

Yep, we seen that a number of times; disk can be booted from once cloned,
while before the clone they couldn't even be mounted. The fact you find this
suspect memerely illustrates your lack of knowledge on the subject.

Yes, these are examples of more software that makes big claims but
cannot deliver. They all talk the talk, but haven't found a one
that can walk the walk, although I haven't tested that many.

Well, the software you mention here make claims on recovery of data after
deletion of files, partitions, reformatting and such - all issues related to
logical structures.

Up until using SR, however, I had no problem accessing the drive
ANd there are other several complaints by others in past posts
that SR killed their drives.

The last straw, doesn't prove a thing. You said the disk was flaky.

NO, I clearly understand the diff. between using SR on a failing
drive and on a good drive.

It didn't show.

I just think it really doesn't do much
in either case and is potentially harmful on good drives

Nope, if reading a disk kills it, it wasn't a good disk.

or drives
that have some life left, by overexercising the drive and thus
increasing the odds it will fail.

You either want the data - you need to read it (or exercise it so you will)
or ditch the disk.

Besides "smart" technology if it
works and I am no expert does what SR is supposed to do
automatically in the case of giving you warnings a drive is about
to fail.

No, you're not an expert that's obvious.

As I used it it was ok, since I had already gotten most

everything I could from a drive that may have been faulty and the
size of which was such that I wasn't going to use it again
anyways.

Yet, in my limited experience the results, amount of data
recovered, are about the same. To think of it, that might be one
of the big faults of SR, that it does nothing to address logical
errors on the drive whilst it is repeatedly attempting to read,
again and again "bad" areas on the drive. When SG says in his
manual for SR 5 to use checkdisk /f FIRST, before using SR, that
tells me he either doesn't know how to write a manual or knows
little about recovering data from failing drives. And, before you
say it, I disagree that he specifies that that is for maintenance
scans only.

You're mixing threads from this group with the various you had in the grc
newsgroups as you are desperately trying to crap your way out of this.

The way the manual reads the user is directed to use
checkdisk /f, which doesn't even work on most of todays systems
(no mention is made of scandisk), PRIOR to using SR.

This manual is for an older version written when chkdsk was current.

Not so obvious to SG fans. They think that SR is some kind of
magic elixir,

No, you think that they think that.

Joep

 

[Rod Speed]

Then take your business there ...

Why should he ? And its unlikely they would let him post there anyway.

Here is an entirely appropriate place to comment on the web site hype.

No, simply illustrates you're a crappy 'reviewer'.

Pathetic, really.

Yes, you said no other way than skipping.
Re-reads can be successfull often.

You didn't say it had to be unique.

Yep, we seen that a number of times; disk can be booted from once
cloned, while before the clone they couldn't even be mounted. The
fact you find this suspect memerely illustrates your lack of
knowledge on the subject.

Well, the software you mention here make claims on recovery of data
after deletion of files, partitions, reformatting and such - all
issues related to logical structures.


The last straw, doesn't prove a thing. You said the disk was flaky.


It didn't show.


Nope, if reading a disk kills it, it wasn't a good disk.


You either want the data - you need to read it (or exercise it so you
will) or ditch the disk.


No, you're not an expert that's obvious.

As I used it it was ok, since I had already gotten most

You're mixing threads from this group with the various you had in the
grc newsgroups as you are desperately trying to crap your way out of
this.


This manual is for an older version written when chkdsk was current.


No, you think that they think that.

Even Gibson claims that.

 

[Joep]

Why should he ? And its unlikely they would let him post there anyway.

Well, for starters they are actually letting him post there. And sure, lexie
can post here but sofar he didn't seem to stir a lot of ghosts yet.

Here is an entirely appropriate place to comment on the web site hype.



Pathetic, really.

Childish, picking one little item from a post and commenting on that.

Even Gibson claims that.

Don't have sleepless nights if even (?) Gibson claims that. Still there are
plenty of SR fans who haven't lost touch with reality to the degree
Lexluther claims they have.

Anyway, his review is a crappy review if it is a review at all.

 

[Rod Speed]

Well, for starters they are actually letting him post there. And sure,
lexie can post here but sofar he didn't seem to stir a lot of ghosts yet.

Irrelevant to whether he is welcome to post here.

Childish, picking one little item from a post and commenting on that.

I choose to comment on the silliest bits. You get to like that or lump it.

And your post was remarkably childish anyway.

Don't have sleepless nights if even (?) Gibson claims that.

Nothing to do with sleepless nights, just pointing
out the problems in your rather childish claims.

Still there are plenty of SR fans who haven't lost touch
with reality to the degree Lexluther claims they have.

Irrelevant to your claim that no one has.

Anyway, his review is a crappy review if it is a review at all.

And yours was a crappy response.

 

[Joep]

yet.

Irrelevant to whether he is welcome to post here.

As always your mangled mind manages to take a thread into a completely
different and irrelevant direction. I will not follow.

Bye Rod.

 

[Rod Speed]

Some gutless ****wit desperately cowering behind

As always your mangled mind manages to take a thread into
a completely different and irrelevant direction. I will not follow.

Even you should be able to bullshit your way out of your
predicament better than that pathetic effort. Obviously not.

 

[Joep]

Some gutless ****wit desperately cowering behind
yet.


Even you should be able to bullshit your way out of your
predicament better than that pathetic effort. Obviously not.

Even you should be able to bullshit your way out of your
predicament better than that pathetic effort. Obviously not.

 

[Jane]

Who or What is Rod Speed?

Rod Speed is an entirely modern phenomenon. Essentially, Rod
Speed
is an insecure and worthless individual who has discovered he can
enhance his own self-esteem in his own eyes by playing "the big,
hard
man" on the InterNet.

Why is Rod Speed worth a FAQ?

You need to brush up on your NetSpeak. Rod most certainly isn't
worth a FUQ in anybody's opinion except his own.

Rod certainly posts a lot. Why is that?

It relates back to the point about boosting his own self esteem by
what amounts to effectively having a wank in public. Rod's
personality, as exemplified by his posts, means he is practically
unemployable which means he sits around at home all day festering
away
and getting worse and worse. This means he posts more and more try
and boost the old failing self esteem. Being unemployed also means
he
as a lot of time on his hands to post in he first place.

But maybe Rod really is a very clever and knowledgable person?

Clever? His posts wouldn't support that theory. As far as being
knowledgable, well, Rod has posted to various aus newsgroups
including
invest, comms, and politics. He has posted to all as a self
professed
expert" and flames any and all who disagree with him. Logically,
here's no way any single individual could be more than a jack of
all
trades across such a wide spread of subject matter.

But maybe Rod really is an expert in some areas?

Possibly. However, his "bedside manner" prevents him from being
taken seriously by most normal people. Also, he has damaged his
credibility in areas where he might know what he's on about by
shooting his self in the foot in areas where he does not. For
example, in the case of subject matter such as politics, even a
view
held by Albert Einstein cannot be little more than an opinion and
to
vociferously denigrate an opposing opinion is simply small
mindedness
and bigotry, the kind of which Einstein himself fought against his
whole life.

What is Rod Speed's main modus operandi?

Simple! He shoots off a half brained opinion in response to any
other
post and touts that opinion as fact. When challenged, he
responds
with vociferous and rabid denigration. He has an instantly
recognisable set of schoolboy put downs limited pretty much to the
following: "Pathetic, Puerile, Little Boy, try harder, trivial,
more
lies, gutless wonder, wanker, etc etc". The fact that Rod has
been
unable to come up with any new insults says a lot about his outlook
and intelligence.

But why do so many people respond to Rod in turn?

It has to do with effrontery and a lack of logic. Most people who
post have some basis of reason for what they write and when Rod
retorts with his usual denigration and derision they respond
emotionally rather than logically. It's like a teacher in a
class
room who has a misbehaving pupil. The teacher challenges the pupil
to
explain himself and the student responds with "**** off, Big Nose!"
Even thought the teacher has a fairly normal proboscis, he gets a
dent
in his self-esteem and might resort to an emotional repsonse like
"yeah? well your dick wouldn't fill a pop rivet, punk", which
merely
invites some oneupmanship from the naughty pupil. Of course, the
teacher should not have justified the initial comment with a
response, especially in front of the class. The correct response
was
"please report to the headmaster's office right NOW!"

What is a "RodBot"?

Some respondents in aus.invest built a "vritual Rod" which was
indiscernable from the "real" Rod. Net users could enter an
opinion
or even a fact and the RoDBot would tell them they were pathetic
lying
schoolboys who should be able to do better or some equally pithy
Rod
Speedism.

Are you saying that Rod Speed is a Troll?

You got it!

 

[Rod Speed]

Even you should be able to bullshit your way out of your
predicament better than that pathetic effort. Obviously not.

Pathetic little desperately cowering gutless
****wit cant even manage its own lines.

 

[Joep]

Pathetic little desperately cowering gutless
****wit cant even manage its own lines.

Sure Wodney, you're hilarious. Anything to add? Please use one or more of
the following: "Pathetic, Puerile, Little Boy, try harder, trivial, more
lies, gutless wonder, wanker" ... Give it yer best shot Wodney!

 

[Rod Speed]

Some gutless ****wit desperately cowering behind
you'd expect from a desperately cowering gutless ****wit.

 

[Odie Ferrous]

Some gutless ****wit desperately cowering behind
you'd expect from a desperately cowering gutless ****wit.

Hi Rod.

 

[Rod Speed]

Some gutless ****wit desperately cowering behind
Odie Ferrous <[email protected]> just the puerile
shit you'd expect from that desperately cowering gutless ****wit.

 

[Joep]

Some gutless ****wit desperately cowering behind
you'd expect from a desperately cowering gutless ****wit.

You didn't use all of them! Try again!

Joep

 

[Joep]

Hi Rod.
--

OMG ... LOL!

 

[Rod Speed]

Some gutless ****wit desperately cowering behind
you'd expect from a desperately cowering gutless ****wit.

 

[chrisv]

Some gutless ****wit desperately cowering behind
Odie Ferrous <[email protected]> just the puerile
shit you'd expect from that desperately cowering gutless ****wit.

Kook.