drive maintenace utility

[tracey]

Can someone suggest a [SpinRite like] Disk Drive Maintenance Utility in Windows 7 for SATA drives?
I am currently using Victoria537 and am very happy with it.
However it seems to lack 1 feature that I would really like to use:
While running the Write or Verify routine, I would want an auto-function/feature that run-time repeatedly refreshes weak/weaker blocks to strengthen the magnetic signature (see potential enhancement request below).
Victoria537 DOES have a Loop-Test, but this must be run manually.
With dozens of weak/weaker block this laborious and time consuming.

Steve Gibson (creator of SpinRite) stated that when the drive writes to (an allocation-unit / a block), it leaves a magnetic signature that needs to be periodically refreshed (magnetic signature decreases in strength over time). The read function does not have sufficient power to refresh the magnetic signature. Refreshing the magnetic signature requires the more powerful/stronger write function.

I have used SpinRite in decades past on IDE drives which DOES refresh weak/weaker (blocks/allocation-units) run-time, but does not run in windows and only processes 1 block at a time.
It takes about 1700+ hours processing a USB3.0 500GB drive 1 block/allocation unit) at a time.
I have been using Victoria537 processing 256 blocks at a time and the Write/Verify function finishes in about an hour.
Please advise.
Thanks, Tracey
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Below was an enhancement I was trying to formulate in my mind (for Victoria537) but with events in the Ukraine I do NOT think enhancement requests would be any kind of priority.
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enhancement request: Add an optional automatic block Refresh-Loop routine

Just FYI: My previous experience maintaining my own drives was when using SpinRite in computers used IDE drives circa Win3.x & Win9x.

Adding an optional automatic block Refresh-Loop routine when Writing or Verifying a drive would be greatly beneficial and a real time saver to the Victoria Drive Utility Users and make the Victoria Drive Repair Utility a maintenance utility as well.

Steve Gibson (creator of SpinRite) stated that when the drive writes to (an allocation-unit / a block), it leaves a magnetic signature that needs to be periodically refreshed (magnetic signature decreases in strength over time). The read function does not have sufficient power to refresh the magnetic signature. Refreshing the magnetic signature requires the more powerful/stronger write function.

I manually ran the Loop-Test on selected blocks in the RED category: see sample results Below/Last (which decreased the access time for those blocks).

I have found the Victoria Drive Utility to be very helpful relocating data to good blocks and marking bad blocks bad, so thank you very much.

By adding a run-time block Refresh-Loop, Victoria537 can also perform "Drive Maintenance" as in the case of SpinRite.
However, SpinRite does not run in Windows and SpinRite only works on 1 (allocation-unit / block) at a time.
A 500GB USB 3.0 drive takes about 1700 hours(in grid mode) when processing 1 block at a time and about 403 hours in graph mode.
The same drive can be scanned in about 1 hour using a 256 block size in graph mode.

I have some drives with blocks that have a weak magnetic signature that are scattered throughout many blocks that have a strong magnetic signature.
It is a major waste of time and energy to repeatedly refresh (all / a range of) blocks that include many blocks that have a strong magnetic signature.

And when there are many magnetically weak/weaker blocks scattered throughout the drive, it becomes laborious and time consuming to try to refresh each one of them individually or even in a select (group or range).

When Victoria Drive Utility is (Writing or Verifying) a drive, blocks with a magnetically weaker signature (gray, dark-gray, green, orange and red) are discovered/revealed.
When a magnetically weak/weaker block is discovered (and if the automatic block Refresh-Loop routine checked/enabled) run the block Refresh-Loop routine so that magnetically weak/weaker block is repeatedly refreshed (written to) strengthening magnetically weak/weaker block (on-the-fly / as they are discovered) just as if selectively running the Loop-Test on each one.

This will significantly reduce the number of magnetically weak blocks on the drive.

Block Refresh-Loop routine should have the following exit strategy.
Exit the block Refresh-Loop when (any one of the conditions is met):
(1) access time is in the light gray range, or
(2) at a pre-selected time limit (in seconds - see Loop-Test results w/time stamps: see below/last), or
(3) when access time (does not show / stops showing) {¿significant?}-improvement.
This will automatically correct all correctable blocks (some blocks are just not correctable) without remaining in an endless refresh-loop or an have excessively long overall run-time.

Exit condition #2: Maybe someone would want to choose a shorter exit Refresh-Loop time limit due to a then present time constraints and may choose to rerun the Refresh-Loop routine with a longer time limit at a later date.
A few seconds with many magnetically weak/weaker blocks can add significant over-all time to the Write/Verify process if there are many weak blocks.

Each iteration of the Refresh-Loop should NOT be logged (as is when the Loop-Test option is chosen), but it would be useful (upon exiting the block Refresh-Loop) to report the final access time and the total number of refresh-loops needed to magnetically strengthen the block.

Thanks, Tracey
Below/Last:
ST500LM021-1KJ152-073 Drive-Scan Log (3 minutes 22 seconds)
Warning! Block start at 808 066 560 (414 GB) = 1014 ms
6:55:04 Try 1
6:55:37 (after 100 Loop-Test during Verify-Refresh) Block start at 808 066 560 (414 GB) = 312 ms
6:58:26 (another 100 Loop-Test during Verify-Refresh) Block start at 808 066 560 (414 GB) = 234 ms (about 23% of original of access time)

ST500LM021-1KJ152-071 Drive-Scan Log (1 minute 2 seconds)
Warning! Block start at 126 791 680 (65 GB) = 2152 ms
10:45:28 Try 1
10:46:30 (after 200 Loop-Test during Verify-Refresh) Block start at 126 791 680 (65 GB) = 203 ms (about 9% of original access time)

[fzabkar]

This is freeware, but I don't know if it runs under Windows 10/11.

https://www.puransoftware.com/DiskFresh.html

In any case, modern drives perform background scanning to pre-emptively detect weak sectors.

BTW, if you have a sick drive whose data you wish to recover, avoid SpinRite like the plague. Use HDDSuperClone or OpenSuperClone (freeware, open source) instead.

[tracey]

Puran Software Utility appears to be a Disk Repair Utility, but Victoria537 does a great job so I do NOT need another Disk Repair Utility. I am downloading Puran Software Utility now to try it out later.

SpinRite may be the only Disk Repair Utility created that has run-time refresh routine when correcting bad blocks (kudos to Steve Gibson), but I do NOT want to run SpinRite for 1700+ hours on a drive because it can only process 1 block at a time.

I am looking for a Disk Maintenance Utility that automatically runs a manual "Loop Test" like Victoria537 (using 256 block size or greater) has during a Write/Verify process to intensify the magnetic signature of each weak block (like SpinRite does automatically and Victoria537 can do manually).

Thank you for your reply, Tracey
Just FYI: Puran Utilities website states that it is compatible with Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8/10/11 including 64 bit versions

[Arch Stanton]

SpinRite may be the only Disk Repair Utility created that has run-time refresh routine when correcting bad blocks

What does this mean exactly? How does it "repair disks"? How does this "correcting" of bad blocks work?

kudos to Steve Gibson

I consider him a con artist.

[tracey]

I think the phrase is for non-technical people.

I learned about SpinRite when floppy disks were common and hard drive size started at about 10 megabytes and CPU speed started at about 3 megahertz.

Most computer repairs of any sort (in decades gone by w/o internet) required people with technical expertise.
Between bad sectors and registry corruption, software utilities allowed the User to "fix" the simpler issues that were a common occurrence.

Being able to "fix" a bad sector issue without having to reinstall the OS-&-Software or take the computer to a repair shop is a good thing.
Plus, commercially speaking, little or no down time.
Tracey

[fzabkar]

SpinRite was written during the time when HDDs cost the earth, which meant that few people could afford a hard drive for backup purposes. It's primary use was to recalculate the optimal interleave ratio and then rewrite the whole data area to accommodate it. Even then Steve Gibson had the gall to believe that his tool could do a better job of determining the primary defects than the factory.

Deconstructing SpinRite:

https://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2929

[fzabkar]

Storage prices in 1989 (in AUD).

On January 31, 1989, 1 AUD was worth 1.1269 USD.

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