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42858
March 30th, 2013 14:00
Spinrite 6.0
i have a dell dimension e520. the bios reads "serial ATA AHCI bios ver. iSrc 1.02.23 8/01/06. operating system is windows XP. the boot message says that the computer will boot from the CD rom, but when i try to run Spinrite from a CD, the error message is "Error reading partition table drive 01, sector 0". information on the PC says the bios is dell 2.0.4 10/25/06. can this bios be changed so that Spinrite will run? i have another Window XP PC at home which runs without problem from the CD, so it must be a bios problem. Spinrite must run at boot up and in MS DOS.
thanks for any ideas.
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speedstep
9 Legend
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47K Posts
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March 30th, 2013 15:00
The E520 is SATA
Spinrite is for ATA Drives not SATA Drives.
SATA Does not support DOS in any way shape or form.
Spinrite is 25 year old software and not a dell product.
jackshack
6.4K Posts
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March 30th, 2013 15:00
What model is the other computer, and how old is Spinrite 6.0? If the other computer uses parallel IDE/ATA hard drives, Spinrite should work without a hitch. Your E520, however, uses SATA drives, and when the computer was shipped, it was likely configured to the RAID On setting so that the AHCI would be enabled. DOS does not recognize the AHCI unless it has been modified to work with AHCI. So far as a DOS program is concerned, your hard drive does not exist unless you reconfigure to RAID Autodetect/ATA. That setting is compatible with Parallel IDE/ATA drivers and should let the program see the drive.
I wouldn't use it, however. Older utilities can alter sectors on the drive that can prevent your computer from booting when you attempt to set things back to the way they were.
speedstep
9 Legend
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47K Posts
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April 1st, 2013 16:00
Other than Damage Sata Drives they should not be "fixed" with spinwrite Drives have sector remapping routines that spinwrite would break.
campbowie
2 Posts
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April 1st, 2013 15:00
for jack shack. thank you for your reply. Spinrite 6.0 from 2006 is the latest edition. I have used it for years from the late 1990's. the home machine is from HP and Spinrite works perfectly. Steve Gibson says it should work on any machine with any operating system, and i trust him. How is it possible to reconfigure from RAID On to RAID Autodetect/ATA? is this a bios download (if so, from where) or is there a switch on the motherboard? if i make the change, i probably would not want to change back to RAID On. You mention DOS being modified to recognize AHCI. is this necessary if the RAID switches are changed and how would one do this?
jackshack
6.4K Posts
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April 1st, 2013 16:00
Provided your computer was manufactured more than about two years ago, it should have an item for SATA operation in the System Setup (BIOS) menu. On a Dell, you reach System Setup by pressing F2 during the self test after starting the machine. SATA operation can usually be set to RAID On, RAID Autodetect/ATA, and sometimes RAID Autodetect/AHCI. The AHCI interface has become standard on the newer machines, but the older computers still have the ATA setting so that they can remain compatible with the old parallel IDE/ATA interface for the older operating systems.
MS DOS has not been updated for nearly twenty years, and so still uses the older PATA IDE/ATA drivers. Your computer will allow this if it has a SATA controller setting for the RAID Autodetect/ATA that I have mentioned. Just remember that the program can make changes to the drive that could be detrimental to the operation of your current OS.