Disk repair utility?

[BFlurie]

Nuts & Bolts, which I don't know what the status is anymore (Symantec), has Disk Minder (Windows & DOS), which is excellent -- but wasn't freeware. It recovered most of the files off my torpedoed HD. Look into that Disk Mechanic or something (not freeware either) I see mentioned all the time -- don't have a shortcut 'cause I'm still looking for a backup of my Favorites folder. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/frown.gif

[shadow]

Dont forget about Disk Edit, for major disk troubles, in your Norton utilities folder, a DOS only program. Check out the help file sometime. Copy DiskEdit.exe and DiskEdit.hlp to a floppy, boot to DOS, start it up and hit F1 for the help file.

[Krymson]

For my old mac, I have a norton disk repair utility called Disk Doctor. It scans my hard disk for errors, and repairs them for me. I was wondering if there would be something similar for pcs, cuz I looked all over and and all i found were utilities that would clean up my registry and delete useless files on my hard drive.

[daveleau]

Disk Doctor is still with Norton I believe. I do not use Norton though. Ontrack has a set of utilities called Fix It Utilities that I use for registry repair and disk maintenance/diagnosis/repair. It is a nice utility set that I like better than Norton b/c it takes up less resources and has a better reg repair than any others I have used.
Dave

[Richard_Cranium72]

http://grc.com/spinrite.htm

[wyvrn]

I just looked up the pricing for Spinrite, I wanted to buy it. But 89 bucks for a 97kb program??? Give me a break. I would understand if it was head and shoulders above the competition, but other companies out out comparable products which I can pick up for 30 bucks max. And 40 bucks to upgrade spinrite to the new version. No thanks. Have a nice day. :-(

[bdunn]

"I just looked up the pricing for Spinrite, I wanted to buy it. But 89 bucks for a 97kb program??? Give me a break. I would understand if it was head and shoulders above the competition, but other companies out out comparable products which I can pick up for 30 bucks max. And 40 bucks to upgrade spinrite to the new version. No thanks. Have a nice day. :-("

You are very wrong. It is head and shoulders above the competition and worth every penny I paid for it and the subsequent upgrades to the current version. It has saved thousands of dollars for me. And if there is ever a new version I'll upgrade again Especially if it can work its magic on NTFS partitions as the current version cannot.

[Win_98]

I find this program not so useful due to it Jacked up price, I be better off recovering bad sector and move it onto a new 30GIG for about the same price as that. BTW: I THINK Partition Magic and Drive image IS 10 time more useful then this. some of my old harddrive was shutting down/ turning back on and causing bad sector. turn out that it was overheating, kept it cool and it was ok again. all bad sector disappeared after a reformat. TA DA! Ding! dING! WHOEVER MADE THIS PROGRAM IS A GREEDY SNOB, MORE OR LESS. THIS REALLY TICKS ME OFF.

[G]

Dear Krymson,
As referenced by Richard_Cranium72 and defended by bdunn, SpinRite V5.0 is an excellent piece of software. This program will analyse the integrity of your hard drive by manipulating the magnetic flux of your hard drive. Ultimately, it is beneficial to be forewarned about any impending problems with your hard drive. If the number of bad sectors are creeping up then SpinRite will inform you of this fact. It will not give you spurious results. Even if damaged sectors are detected; there is the possibility that these sectors, if massaged enough, can become reusable.

You have joined sysopt.com because it is informative and, in all probability, you want to know more about computers. Start from the bottom and work your way up. Save your money on software that, more often than not, is rubbish, causes more problems than it solves or gives the illusion that it has made fixes and the like.

SpinRite kicks, unfortunately you cannot know this unless you buy it, as there is no demonstration version for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, in defence of grc.com, when I purchased SpinRite V5.0, if the purchaser was not totally pleased with SpinRite they could ask for a refund. How true the refund policy is I do not know, but I do not believe you will think you have made a mistake. Finally, the support is friendly and very responsive.

If you are looking for Windows clean up utilities and fixers they are much the same. Symantec (Norton) are normally ok.

What else can I say? Buy SpinRite V5.0.

All the best, G

[wyvrn]

I can get a new hard drive for 90 bucks. I still have not filled up my 20 gigger from last year, and I upgrade h/d every two years or so anyway just to keep up with the speed. I backup any important data and do not leave it to chance. Scandisk or a format has solved any problems I have had in the past. I still do not see a reason to spend 90 bucks on spinrite, even though it looks like a kick *** product.


It has saved thousands of dollars for me

bdunn, would a simple backup have done the same thing. I am curious because if a $90 program can demonstratively save me 1000's of dollars where an otherwise free solution could not, then I will buy it.


[This message has been edited by wyvrn (edited 12-13-2000).]

[Krymson]

I think that spinrite might be alright if i ever start up a server with a bigass hard drive, but right now Ill just stick with the free/shareware utilities. Thanks for the replies.