'Green' HDD slowing down my system
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Is this a program that runs with the OS itself? or is does it require to be booted from USB or what not?
SpinRite is an "instant" purchase, and you will get a link to an ISO file which is personalized with your name and serial #. This ISO contains a self-contained OS (FreeDOS) that boots from Floppy (yeah right), CD/DVD or USB as you require. The only requirement for it to work with your disk is that it be visible to the BIOS… it looks only at disk sectors, so it doesn't care what (if anything) is on the disk from an formatting perspective. (Its well known to be useful on PVR disks, for example, if removed from the PVR and temporarily installed in a PC.) The current version does not work [well or at all] with Macs, but he has a 6.1 version which will be a free upgrade for current purchasers and will boot on current Macs.
This is probably a stupid question, but would it be possible to use this in conjunction with, say, a PE of windows? I have one here which has speech. If not, as a blind user this would be pretty hard for me to use. Does the guy take suggestions? As this is just a bootable dos interface does it not just use the command line?
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This is probably a stupid question, but would it be possible to use this in conjunction with, say, a PE of windows? I have one here which has speech. If not, as a blind user this would be pretty hard for me to use. Does the guy take suggestions? As this is just a bootable dos interface does it not just use the command line?
Hmm… He does take suggestions, and I will make one on your behalf to see if he has any ideas. He generally codes exclusively in assembler, which means he doesn't make many demands on the OS, which is good for what his utility does, but would be bad for interfacing to a speech interface. The issue is you don't want to be testing the disk at the same time as the OS would ever write to it, and Windows is very hands on with the disks when its running, unfortunately. Also, you don't want bad drivers getting in the way of the tests, and/or causing unwanted caching, etc. Never the less its a great question and I will get back to you if he gets back to me.
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This is probably a stupid question, but would it be possible to use this in conjunction with, say, a PE of windows? I have one here which has speech. If not, as a blind user this would be pretty hard for me to use. Does the guy take suggestions? As this is just a bootable dos interface does it not just use the command line?
Hmm… He does take suggestions, and I will make one on your behalf to see if he has any ideas. He generally codes exclusively in assembler, which means he doesn't make many demands on the OS, which is good for what his utility does, but would be bad for interfacing to a speech interface. The issue is you don't want to be testing the disk at the same time as the OS would ever write to it, and Windows is very hands on with the disks when its running, unfortunately. Also, you don't want bad drivers getting in the way of the tests, and/or causing unwanted caching, etc. Never the less its a great question and I will get back to you if he gets back to me.
So I heard back quickly, and I'm afraid the answer is not all that we would have hoped:
Unfortunately SpinRite cannot run from with Windows PE.
He would need to find and load a DOS-based screen reader to run SpinRite … or get visual assistance.
Thank you for your cooperation, time and patience.
Sincerely,
Gibson Research
Technical Support -
This is probably a stupid question, but would it be possible to use this in conjunction with, say, a PE of windows? I have one here which has speech. If not, as a blind user this would be pretty hard for me to use. Does the guy take suggestions? As this is just a bootable dos interface does it not just use the command line?
Hmm… He does take suggestions, and I will make one on your behalf to see if he has any ideas. He generally codes exclusively in assembler, which means he doesn't make many demands on the OS, which is good for what his utility does, but would be bad for interfacing to a speech interface. The issue is you don't want to be testing the disk at the same time as the OS would ever write to it, and Windows is very hands on with the disks when its running, unfortunately. Also, you don't want bad drivers getting in the way of the tests, and/or causing unwanted caching, etc. Never the less its a great question and I will get back to you if he gets back to me.
So I heard back quickly, and I'm afraid the answer is not all that we would have hoped:
Unfortunately SpinRite cannot run from with Windows PE.
He would need to find and load a DOS-based screen reader to run SpinRite … or get visual assistance.
Thank you for your cooperation, time and patience.
Sincerely,
Gibson Research
Technical SupportI do believe there is still jaws for dos over at http://www.freedomscientific.com
How it works I have no idea, having limited experience with it, however. And how it would integrate I am also not sure.
