Buzz Out Loud Lounge forum: Molly's Laptop woes

It might not have been the smartest move, but if he comes back all befuddled, I'll tell him about it.

I listen to Security Now! and it gets promoted a lot on that, so I have this half belief it's all hype but at the same time, if I had an *important* drive crash, then I might consider it.

Yeah, it would be better at $50, but I have a Mac, so I don't know if it would work for my machines or not, (I've not really dug around), but I've not had anything fail (yet) on any of the 6 computers my family has had in the last 10 years.

As mentioned in my other post Spinrite is OS independent. You download the program, create the ISO, make a Bootable CD and then boot from the CD. It doesn't run "on" the system. All the information is on the CD.

I should know it's saved my butt on numerous occasions.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Steve Gibson, GRC or its affiliates.

That being said, Spinrite is a very good hard drive recovery and maintenance program.

To answer some queries.
1. Spinrite is OS independent. It uses its own OS (FreeDOS I think) so you boot from the cd that you create.

2. Regarding running IN Windows wouldn't make any sense because of the overhead with other processes plus if your harddrive has failed you can't get into Windows.

3. Cost. Imagine the cost of having to pay someone to recover an important drive. It's alot more than $89.00.

Again: read disclaimer above. I'm just someone who's seen what this program can do and been saved by it.

Jimmy from Barbados

PS. Think of it as an investment, like an IRA, Mutual fund or some such thing. You don't necessarily need it now but you will definitely need it later

First, I assert the same disclaimers as tango_fox1; no affiliation blah blah blah.

Second, he is absolutely right about SpinRite. There is simply no other product like it. I have a few points I'd like to make about it:
1) I have seen Spinrite pull disks back from the grave many times. I'm still amazed at its ability to get data from drives that nothing else can read. The only requirement is that the drive is recognized by the BIOS.
2) people perpetually misunderstand Spinrite's real purpose, which is to <b><i>maintain</i></b> drives rather than recover them. I have 1 and 2 GB drives in my Linux firewall that are still running perfectly after 8 years... no need to change them 'cause they're doing the job. I run Spinrite on them about 2 times a year. As you can imagine, it doesn't take long on drives that size.
3) the cost really isn't the major factor some people think it is, mainly because you will be able to use it many years longer than any other software you own.

I recommend everyone who has a PC also have Spinrite. Run it every 6 months and you may never experience a hard drive failure. No guarantees of course, but my experience is all positive.