Just curious on any comparisons or experience with Spinrite vs. MHDD. Which one works better? Of course, on is almost $100 and the other is freeware.

From what I can tell, a Spinrite Level 3 or 4 does about the same thing as MHDD erase, scan+erase waits, scan+remap except Spinrite is non-destructive.

Which is recommended for normal maintenance on a drive? For burning-in a brand new drive before using?

Thx.

A brand new drive does not need any burn in because it is already passed one (which is much "better" then mhdd/spinrite/whatever) while being manufactured...

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Dmitry

I haven't used Spinrite and I'm not fully aware of its features. However , I'm using MHDD script engine to read and write SA modules. I doubt one can do this with Spinrite...

Spinrite is a serious case of hype. Although it can recover data in some instances (I used it sucessfully, specially in floppies, as some HDD tools don't work on that), it is mostly technological vodoo, promising things it simply can't do. That's why all those scan levels are plain bullshit.

And that's why it is also too slow. Don't try it on a 20GB drive, let alone a 200GB one.

Spinrite is no match for MHDD. In what concerns to recovering data from some bad sectors, it is no match for HDD Regenerator either. Unfortunately, this later one doesn't work on floppies.

You may find a bit more about Spinrite in http://www.grcsucks.com

Daniel