SpinRite on an HP Box?

[frijole]

I have a HP MediaSmart box with 4 drives. I also have an eSata doc that i can plug into my desktop.

 

Has anyone had any issues or know of any reason not to use it in the following scenario? 1-shut down the server, 2-pull out each of the four disks and 3-use SpinRite running on my desktop to do a maintenance scan of each of these drives,

 

I like to use SpinRite as a preventative measure for my laptop and desktop drives but I haven't done this with my WHS drives yet.

 

Any advise would be appreciated. I've seen some threads where SR was recommended as a fix, but I didn't find anything that mentioned possible issues so I thought I'd ask the question directly. If it was discussed, any pointers to the thread would be helpful.

 

Thx,

F

[britishbob]

Listening to Steve Gibson some time ago he said that Spinrite was data neutral. it fixes the disc irrelevant of the date or file system format.

[frijole]

That was my understanding too. It's just that with all the possible time involved in reloading and rebuilding i just wanted to make sure to ask just in case anyone ran into something worth mention.

 

Anyone else? Even the smallest issue?

 

Encouraging if not, but would love to hear if so.

 

Thx,

F

[jmwills]

Either way, the server will be down so why not just run SR from the server?

[whsvet]

I have used SpinRite twice on my homebuild WHS with no problems. I have run it directly on my WHS by booting from the CD drive. Spinrite is "operating system agnostic." It operates at the sector level and does not mess with the file structure. I've used it on multiple desktops and laptops. Even used it to recover a "dead" iPod hard drive!

[frijole]

I assume the run from server would be for a box with optical or bootable usb drive, keyboard and monitor, right? I have the HP MediaSmart. If there were a way to boot this box straight to SR, I sure would be interested to learn more though.

[whsvet]

Yes, that's right. I can connect a keyboard, mouse, and monitor to my system, then boot from the CD. Not sure how you would do this on the headless systems, other than remove the harddrives and connect them to another computer.

[mosh00]

I have a HP MediaSmart box with 4 drives. I also have an eSata doc that i can plug into my desktop.

 

Has anyone had any issues or know of any reason not to use it in the following scenario? 1-shut down the server, 2-pull out each of the four disks and 3-use SpinRite running on my desktop to do a maintenance scan of each of these drives,

 

I like to use SpinRite as a preventative measure for my laptop and desktop drives but I haven't done this with my WHS drives yet.

 

Any advise would be appreciated. I've seen some threads where SR was recommended as a fix, but I didn't find anything that mentioned possible issues so I thought I'd ask the question directly. If it was discussed, any pointers to the thread would be helpful.

 

Thx,

F

 

 

I have done exactly that. When I thought I was having some HD problems, I shut down the server and ran SpinRite on each drive. Nothing was found and everything has been running fine since the scan. The only down side is the amount of time it takes to do a full scan (option 4) on each drive. I have 4 1.5TB drives. My server was down for almost a week while I scanned each drive. It was a pain as I store all my music and documents on the server. Otherwise no problems at all.

[pcdoc]

I used to use Spinrite years ago. The issue it "may" not work with EARS drives, and it has been know to scramble a drive beyond repair. I would use it cautiously and personally I would rather replace the drive if you have to get to that level of repairs. Just my two cents...

[mosh00]

I used to use Spinrite years ago. The issue it "may" not work with EARS drives, and it has been know to scramble a drive beyond repair. I would use it cautiously and personally I would rather replace the drive if you have to get to that level of repairs. Just my two cents...

 

 

Very good point on the EARS drives. I will be curious to see myself.

 

I have had nothing but positive experiences with SpinRite. Has recovered 2 failed drives. Both were from PC’s of family members/friends that had not been backing up. Once I recovered the data, I replaced the drives as they had bad sectors. I agree if a drive is found to be bad, I would just replace it once the data is recovered. Personally, I would never trust the drive again.

 

In my case with the WHS, I thought I was having an issue with a drive, but it turned out not to be. As I didn’t know which drive the potential problem was with, I scanned all 4. No problems found. Gave me piece of mind. As all 4 of the 1.5TB drives were relatively new and had just been placed in my new EX495, I didn’t want to have to replace them. It was about $400.00 worth of drives at the time.