Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!udel!princeton!phoenix
From: greg@phoenix (greg Nowak)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Hard drive problem (SPINRITE II)
Message-ID: <14042@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 22 Feb 90 16:39:58 GMT
References: <1617@crash.cts.com>
Sender: greg@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
Reply-To: greg@phoenix (greg Nowak)
Organization: Cabal of Fools; Phoenix Gang
Lines: 23
In-reply-to: elund@pro-graphics.cts.com (Eric Lund)

In article <1617@crash.cts.com>, elund@pro-graphics (Eric Lund) writes:

>So I will reiterate my plug with the exception:  Spinrite II is excellent as
>long as you let it run its course and don't interfere with it, no matter what
>it tells you!  It's hard not to fiddle with it when it takes 8 hours to run.

This is the longest version of Spinrite, the only one that can restore
sectors marked bad to service. You can also use faster options to work
in two hours... I usually run the 8-hour job overnight.

>As for Norton's Disk Doctor, it's worse.  Where as Spinrite II gave me new
>space, Norton methodically marked every one of my sectors bad.  However, it
>performs well on floppy media, reconstructing boots et al.

Were you, perhaps, keeping your machine on its side? This can cause
hard disk problems in recognizing the physical format. Also, NDD and
Spinrite do different things: NDD doesn't do a reformat, but just
marks sectors bad; Spinrite will give you a new physical format. I've
been happy with both, and use them both now.

...!rutgers!phoenix.princeton.edu!greg

                           Greg Nowak/Phoenix Gang/Princeton NJ 08540