Re: [gentoo-user] [Waaay OT] Defrag tool for windoze

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 17:10 on Monday 15 November 2010, J. Roeleveld 
did opine thusly:

> On Monday 15 November 2010 15:50:37 Jacob Todd wrote:
> > Sounds like something is wrong with te drive, and spinrite.can probably
> > fix it.
>
> I don't see what Spinrite can do to help with defragging a harddrive for MS
> Windows?
>
> I like the bit where it explains "how it prevents a disk crash":
>
> "It first reads the data out of a region, then exercises that region with
> patterns of data that SpinRite has determined are the most difficult for
> the drive to read and write. In this way, any weak and failing areas
> within the region are located and removed from use while none of the
> drive's original data is being stored there. Only after the region has
> been made absolutely safe, will the drive's original data be restored to
> that area. "
> (quoted from the website for Spinrite: http://www.grc.com/sroverview.htm )
>
> supposedly this is "unique" (Just hope the system doesn't freeze up or the
> power goes while it's doing this....)
>
> How is this different from:
> 1) take a backup
> 2) check for bad sectors (badblocks)
> 3) restore backup
>
> This is also less risky as the data is backed up somewhere safe

spinrite claims to make the head do other things than what the drive firmware 
makes it do. Meaning that spinrite can extract data that the drive itself in 
normal conditions cannot. This reasoning is sound.

Remember that a drive is an analogue device, not a digital one (only the 
*output data* is digital).

There is some doubt as to whether spinrite can even function in this wise with 
modern drives though.



-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com