Does anyone (@SGgrc) know if there's a way to run SpinRite on the Mac (arm or Intel) short of installing - and paying for - Windows? I really want to use it on some drives I have but I do not want to - and will NOT - buy Windows... #SpinRite

@SGgrc@infosec.exchange
@sggrc@bird.makeup @leo

Steve,

I'm about ready to pull the trigger on one of those #ZimaBoard #SBC computers you talked about in SN#892, but before I do, I was wondering if there is a way to set it up with #SpinRite as the boot OS, and still be able to network Remotely in to "view/control" the SpinRite display, instead of connecting up a keyboard and monitor?

I think you mentioned you had some remote control solution to talk to your "DOS" version of SpinRite...?

🤖 Walt (long-time SN watcher)

@leo The mention was for my use of #SpinRite on an SSD. The woman I am married with calls me Dr. SpinRite because I so frequently pull it out of my tool kit. Too bad Steve is not here with the rest of the Twit family. But, then again, we would rather he continue getting 6.1 and then 7 out rather than chatting with us.

rebooted #Gentoo because I decided to recompile the entire system after a major gcc update. Don't have to do that of course, but sort of nostalgic for the old days when we thought it was necessary - or maybe it actually was? I never figured that out.

emerge --empty-tree [at]world took like a day and a half, but finished without any errors. That was a surprise.

Uptime was only about 10 1/2 days. fsck'ed the disks - no problem (but can't wait to have #SpinRite 6.1 check them).

#Linux #LinuxLife

@jessebrownfl

You'll need an NNTP news reader to access the newsgroup (grc.spinrite.dev) however the summary of how to access the alpha builds can be found here:

https://www.grc.com/x/news.exe?cmd=article&group=grc.spinrite.dev&item=40926&utag=

Thunderbird works well enough.

You'll need your #Spinrite licence key to download the builds as they are functional (dynastat will attempt to fix bad blocks) however I wouldn't use it on important/customer drives in read/write mode at this stage.

Spinrite 6.1 continues to boot from DOS but has totally rewritten code to talk directly to storage controllers and so is more capable on modern hardware.

It ignores disk partitions and formatting and works directly at a block level at up to 32K blocks per read. It's faster! 🙂

It still requires legacy booting (no UEFI support as yet) and doesn't touch 4Kn drives. Everything else is supported including large capacity drives, SSD's and will fall back to BIOS support if it's available on the test PC for other media types.

If you make it into the newsgroup shout if you need help. Skim the last few weeks messages to get the lay of the land 🙂

As soon as SR 6.1 is released 7.0 will be developed using its own RTOS and be completed BIOS independent and support UEFI and the other missing features.

The current Alpha release fixes are documented on:

https://dev.grc.com/Steve/spinrite-v6.1/-/wikis/Alpha-Release-History

After an update, when the output of #NeedReboot includes all the browsers, the sound system, X, the window manager, all the daemons, and even emacs, that is a good time to reboot into #SystemRescue and fsck the disks. (Related: can't wait for #SpinRite 6.1)

#PreviousUpTime: 17 days, 16 hours
#CurrentUpTime: 12 minutes.

#Linux #Fluxbox #Gentoo #GRC

#FollowFriday #FF
Just found we can now follow Steve Gibson (of #Spinrite / Gibson Research / grc.com fame).
It's a bot account with his posts coming, apparently...
@sggrc