Spinrite -- the Continuing Saga

I figured I'd give Spinrite a serious chance to recover the data on my old harddrive.  I did finally get Spinrite to recognize the existence of the larger "F:" 250 Gig partition in the external USB SATA holder, and appeared to do it's voodoo on the thing, but with no apparent effect.  In fact, in the external thingie, Spinrite seemed convinced there's nothing wrong with the drive.

Vista recognizes F:, too, but has decided it's a "Raw" partition, rather than an NTFS partition, and can't read even a bit of it.  Vista's error checking stuff can't even access the drive, and neither can Chkdsk.

After my last podcasts, I put the old drive back into the regular drive bay, and let Spinrite run without interruption.  I let it run for about a week.  It started having problems at 76.0994 % complete.  A week later, it had managed to scan all the way to 76.0997 % complete.  You do the math. 

Just didn't seem like it was gonna happen, not without leaving the laptop tied up for another month or two.  So I put the new drive back in.  Maybe someday I can devote some workable hardware to trying to recover the drive.  Sure could use the data.

This is not to say that Spinrite couldn't recover the data, just that it'd take way too long.  I felt compelled to try a week.  I might have gone for a bit longer, but I have too many commitments for the hardware right now, and can't spare the time.  I think Spinrite might be quite worthwhile for someone with enough spare equipment to just let it run, but it isn't worthwhile for me.

"He came to me asking help and advice/And from here no one knows where he goes"

Okay, I need "help and advice," and I can't find my way back to the Three-Acre Wood.  But my question has nothing to do with a honey jar being stuck on my nose.  That, I've kinda gotten used to.  Anyway...

Failed hard drive.  2.5" SATA.  Spinrite wants to run on that drive for three weeks, estimated.

I have a Thermaltake BlacX external SATA enclosure, works with either USB or eSATA.  With USB, Spinrite doesn't have enough low-level access to be able to work on the drive.  My only current option is to put the old drive back in my good laptop (Dell Inspiron 1525) for three weeks, and be stuck using my old Toshiba 320CDT, which only runs Win98SE, and does that very slowly.

I could buy an eSATA card to put in my equally-aged desktop machine (currently collecting dust in the basement), perhaps, and plug the eSATA cable into the card.  I suspect that might give the desktop sufficient access for Spinrite to work on the drive in the BlacX, and I sure don't mind if my dusty Desktop is tied up for three weeks (or whatever) fixing the drive.  But I don't want to spend money on the eSATA card if it's not likely to work for the only purpose for which I'm liable to need it.

So, anybody know enough about SATA, eSATA, and Spinrite to be able to tell me the odds of the card-in-the-Desktop idea is liable to work?

Yes, I know, GRC has support newsgroups.  I've never had any luck posting questions to the GRC newsservers.  Something about their password setup I just ain't getting.

Thanks.

Griz

Wanted to share this

More info came in on a DonorsChoose.org project to which I donated.

--- BEGIN QUOTE ---

Grizzly,

They're here! 

Mrs. Coudron, the teacher, sent you photos of the classroom project  you supported  in Owatonna, MN: "Writing In A Flash!"

See photos of the classroom project in action at http://www.donorschoose.org/photos/209375

All thanks to you  ... nicely done!

 Mrs. Coudron has other projects waiting to come to life:
"Create a Reader, Follow an Author!" http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=208024&utm_source=letter&utm_campaign=letter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=ProposalSuggestions


**************************

If you have any other questions for us, please first consult our Frequently Asked Questions in case the answer to your inquiry is published there: http://www.donorschoose.org/help/donor_faq.html

If you cannot find an answer to your question there, please get in touch with us by using our Contact Us form:
https://secure.donorschoose.org/contact/contact_form_donor.html


DonorsChoose.org, 347 West 36th Street, Suite 503, New York, NY 10018.

Gifts that Keep Giving

Just got a note from DonorsChoose.org, about a previous donation I'd made via Grizzly's Giving Page.  Tried to promote the Page via the podcast, but never inspired anybody but me to donate.  Oh well, still a cool idea.

--- BEGIN QUOTE ---

Dear Mr. Smith,

DonorsChoose.org used $10.00 of your credit balance to support a classroom project!

The project is "Pete And Repeat" and will provide 25 students with 87 hours of learning. You can learn more about this classroom project at http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=209052.

We deeply appreciate your support of students through DonorsChoose.org and we look forward to sending you a "thank you" from this classroom! In case you'd like to help another classroom, you can choose a project here: http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/search.html.

There are a few possible reasons why DonorsChoose.org account credits totaling $10.00 were issued to you:

    * You funded a project, but the project did not reach full funding or the teacher no longer required the materials.
    * You redeemed a gift certificate, but did not spend the full amount available.
    * You made a Quick Donation and requested that DonorsChoose.org choose the classroom project(s).

In order to ensure that every dollar donated to DonorsChoose.org is put to work in the classroom quickly, account credits expire after 30 days. If any expired credits remain, they too will be applied to a classroom project in your name.

For Quick Donations, account credits are applied to classroom projects as soon as possible.
   
Sincerely,

The DonorsChoose.org Team

www.DonorsChoose.org

DonorsChoose.org is a 501(c)(3) charity incorporated in the State of New York. EIN Number: 13-4129457.

**************************

If you have any other questions for us, please first consult our Frequently Asked Questions in case the answer to your inquiry is published there: http://www.donorschoose.org/help/donor_faq.html

If you cannot find an answer to your question there, please get in touch with us by using our Contact Us form:
https://secure.donorschoose.org/contact/contact_form_donor.html


DonorsChoose.org, 347 West 36th Street, Suite 503, New York, NY 10018.

All the Mod Cons

Recently, I managed to misplace my scruffy, old, Nokia Tracfone.  Forced to get a new one, I carefully researched the ones on sale at Tracfone.  Picked the second-worst, since I'd heard bad stuff about the worst ones.  Got one that includes double minutes for the life of the phone, a Motorola 376G, something like that.

So much for the life of the phone.

Spent all day wandering around my recently partly remodeled bedroom, trying to figure out where the heck I left my cellphone.  Still stuff to install, so it's still chaos.  That's why I put off moving anything in here for the past few years. 

Dug through the boxes I'd put stuff in so it'd be out of the way while I was moving furniture and whatnot.  No luck.  Even grabbed the cordless from the livingroom, dialed my cell, just to see if it'd ring and I could find it that way.  No ring.

And then I thought about the fact I'd gotten motivated today ... and did laundry.  Left jeans pocket.  It had finished the spin-dry cycle.  I gather machine washing a cellphone is a Bad Thing.

So I just got to do another websearch.  Apparently, if I let it dry out for a few days, it might start working again.  And it might not.

I hate these tiny, new phones you crazy young people have these days.  My next phone will be cheaper, and bigger.  (sigh)

Griz

What the ... ?

Just wanted to share this with you. 



Oh, and the show's worth listening to.  I particularly liked the non-fiction part.  Fascinating stuff.

There's one part where Jim Campanella mentions a study partly funded by a manufacturer of Bluetooth hardware.  The study found that "regular users" of cellphones are 50 % more likely to get cancer.  What's a regular user?  "Once a week."

Not as dire as it sounds.  Think about it.  What sort of people are "regular users" of cellphones?  People in First-world countries, like the US, like Japan, and so on.  Is being a "regular user" the only characteristic they have in common?

The cover story is very edgy, but worth a listen.

Enjoy.

Griz

The Collective Feed is Back?

I've had the NaBloPoMo Collective Feed up and running since December, when I last did the National Blog Posting Month thing.  Actually completed the whole 31 days, which is pretty cool.  And that after completing NaPodPoMo (the podcasting version) in November.  I type 60 wpm on a good day, so compared to podcasting, blogging is easy.  Of course, other folks work harder at it, with pictures and real stuff to talk about.  Me, I'm more of a technical guy.  Like starting the Collective Feed.  Anyway....

Since December, the Collective Feed has kind of lain fallow, with posts from the original December NaBloPoMo participants still being aggregated, but probably not that many folks paying attention.

Well, LeftCoastCowgirl asked me the other day to fix the feed.  Turned out it was a technical problem between Google, which now owns and operates Feedburner, and Yahoo Pipes, the mechanism I use to do the aggregation.  I couldn't fix it, but I think Google & Yahoo got their acts together.  So far so good, anyway.

Since today is the first day of February, there's a whole new group of folks hoping to complete a whole month of posts -- 28 posts in 28 days, in this case.  Made sense, I thought, to clear the list of all the folks that aren't currently doing NaBloPoMo, and add any of the new folks that wanted to participate.

I do hope any of you folks from the original group who aren't doing it this month won't be offended.  And hey, this might just motivate you to join in once again.  Hey, if you did 31 days, 28 days oughta be a piece of cake, huh?

The Feed, found at http://feeds.grizzlysgrowls.com/nablopomo, only shows the latest post from each participant, making it easy to keep up with all the different blogs, even if there end up being lots of folks participating.  And I started a group on the NaBloPoMo site, http://www.nablopomo.com/group/collectivefeed, which explains how easy it is to join the list.  I manage all the technical stuff myself, but hey, that's what I do for fun.

Hey, wait, it's 02/01/2009 -- I just did my first NaBloPoMo post!  See how easy it is?  Only 27 more days to go!

Griz