[ale] [OT] way cool, running spinrite and testing a physical hdd in a virtualbox vm

Edward Holcroft eholcroft at mkainc.com
Mon May 27 21:44:53 EDT 2013


Can someone explain to me wtf I would subscribe to a Linux list to get
these incessant Windows tips?



On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 6:57 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) <
atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I wanted to share the results of an interesting experiment that I'm doing.
>
> I'm upgrading a hard drive and wanted to run exhaustive spinrite testing
> on it before putting it into service. Normally, this requires booting the
> computer from the spinrite cd and giving it total control over the pc and
> the hdd so the diagnostic can run. I didn't like the idea of giving up the
> use of this pc for 3-4 days to analyze this 1TB drive. I had heard that you
> can run spinrite in a vm if you're careful. Based on a mention of it on
> Steve's podcast, I found the instructions and I've got it working. That's
> the good news. The bad news is that it's running 4X slower than normal. So,
> it will take 14 days to process this drive, but I still have use of my pc,
> if I keep doing it this way.
>
> This involves attaching a physical disk drive to virtualbox as though it
> was a virtual drive. This is called raw disk access, and it can be very
> dangerous. You must make absolutely sure that the vm doesn't access any
> drives that your host os is accessing. It's also very powerful though. Even
> if you don't want to run spinrite, these procedures might be useful for
> other purposes. I did this on windows, but you could probably do something
> similar on mac and linux.
>
> First, you attach the hdd you want to test to a port on your motherboard.
> At this point, I don't know how to do this with usb. I tried to access the
> usb ports in virtualbox. When I turned on usb 2.0, it said it needed an
> extension pack, so I gave up on that. Usb would be much slower than sata
> anyway. So, I have the new hdd attached to a sata port on the mb.
>
> Next you want to take the disk offline so the host os doesn't do anything
> to it. This part is windows centric, so you guys can tell us how to do this
> in linux if you know.
>
> The following page lists the procedure to take the disk offline.
>
> http://blog.nerdimmunity.com/**2012/06/25/spinrite-vmware-**and-windows-7/<http://blog.nerdimmunity.com/2012/06/25/spinrite-vmware-and-windows-7/>
>
> * Run an elevated command prompt (as Administrator), then run “diskpart”.
> Once in diskpart, issue these commands.
> * list disk
> * find the disk you want to work on
> * select disk # (Replace "#". In my case select disk 3.)
> * list disk (Again. The selected disk should have an asterisk by it.)
> * offline disk
> * attribute disk clear readonly
> * rescan
>
> You can verify the results by doing a list disk again.
>
> See this image: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.**
> com/u/9879631/spinrite-in-vm.**png<https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9879631/spinrite-in-vm.png>
>
> In the upper left is the diskpart screen where I've verified that disk 3
> is offline. In the middle left is an image of the Windows disk
> administrator which also shows that this disk is offline. Now that you know
> the host os won't be messing with the hdd you're working on, you can use
> the following procedure to set up your vm and attach it to that physical
> disk.
>
> http://romaimperator.com/?p=29
>
> Here's a warning from this webpage about raw disk access in a vm. Make
> ABSOLUTELY sure you follow the procedure correctly.
>
> Warning
> Raw hard disk access is for expert users only. Incorrect use or use of an
> outdated configuration can lead to total loss of data on the physical disk.
> Most importantly, do not attempt to boot the partition with the currently
> running host operating system in a guest. This will lead to severe data
> corruption.
>
> Once you're done following this procedure, you should have a vmdk file
> that is directly linked to the physical hard drive in question.
>
> In my case, it is srvm-wd1tb-disk3.vmdk .
>
> So, the name shows what it's doing and which physical disk it's accessing.
>
> You then create a vm to run spinrite. I used OS: other / dos and RAM: 32
> MB. You do not have to create a virtual disk drive for the vm to boot from
> if you boot from a spinrite cd. The upper right of the image I mentioned
> shows my virtualbox configuration for this vm. Note that, in the storage
> section, I have my hosts CD drive connected, and also the vmdk file that I
> mentioned. So, all the storage components the vm has access to are actual
> physical drives.
>
> Once you're done with all that, you boot the vm, which boots from the CD
> in the physical drive, since that's first in the boot order. Spinrite
> starts up, and the only hard drive it thinks it has access to is the
> physical drive you've attached. At this point, you can proceed to test the
> drive, albeit very slowly.
>
> The lower right part of that image shows spinrite running. The lower left
> part of the image shows it pegging one of my cpu cores at 100%.
>
> After spinrite is done, or after you stop its function, power down the vm.
> Don't allow spinrite to reboot, which it will try to do if you press escape
> at the end.
>
> Well, that's it. I'm using a program that requires exclusive control of a
> hdd, inside a vm, while still using my pc. Very cool. Yes, I know you can
> use something like badblocks while linux is running, but that wasn't my
> purpose here.
>
> Misc notes:
>
> * Do not shut down the host, change the drive cabling, and reboot. This
> will change the disk numbering. Even if you just reboot, it would be wise
> to check that the disk numbers are the same if you continue prior activity.
> * You can clone the vm to run other copies of spinrite simultaneously. I
> think they could all boot from the same cd rom, or you could boot from an
> iso. Attach each vm to a different physical drive, which must also be
> offline. When you clone the vm, select the box to change all mac addresses
> on network adapters, although it may not matter for this purpose. Also,
> select a full clone, not a linked clone.
> * I found a web page related to doing this on a mac, but have no way to
> try it. I haven't tried it on linux either.
>
> http://jtsdigs.com/blog/2013/**2/3/spinrite-on-a-mac-yes-you-**can<http://jtsdigs.com/blog/2013/2/3/spinrite-on-a-mac-yes-you-can>
>
> * Finally, IMPORTANT - when you're done testing the drive and the vm is
> powered down, detach the vmdk file pointing to the physical drive from the
> vm. Go to the file menu in virtualbox and start the virtual media manager.
> DELETE the vmdk file that attached to the physical drive so you don't
> accidentally use it again and delete the vmdk file itself if virtual media
> manager doesn't do so. Otherwise, you could end up messing up the next
> thing you attach to that port on your motherboard.
>
> Hope you find this interesting and helpful.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ron
>
>
> --
>
> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
> call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
> mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new email messages very
> quickly.)
>
> Ron Frazier
> 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
> linuxdude AT techstarship.com
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