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Originally Posted by winjer

How does the recover process work exactly? I've been too busy to look into it yet...

go here for all the details : http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

main points :
[COLOR=#000099]SpinRite can run on any PC compatible system with a 32-bit Intel or AMD processor and a color screen. The previous SpinRite v5.0 is available to v6.0 owners who need to run SpinRite on older 16-bit 8086/80286 systems and/or monochrome screens.
SpinRite is self-contained, including its own bootable FreeDOS operating system. It can be used on any operating system and any file system. This means it can run on drives formatted with Windows XP's NTFS and all other older FAT formats (in addition to all Linux, Novell, and all other file systems.) It can be used to pre-qualify and certify unformatted hard drives before their first use. Drives on non-PC platforms, such as Apple Macintosh or TiVo, may be temporarily relocated to a PC motherboard for data recovery, maintenance and repair by SpinRite.
SpinRite provides complete interaction with IDE-interface PATA (parallel ATA) and SATA (Serial ATA) drives, and it can also be used with any other type of drive — SCSI, USB, 1394/Firewire — that can be made visible to DOS through the addition of controller BIOS or add-on DOS drivers. To obtain the best performance, IDE drives can be temporarily removed from their external USB or Firewire cases and attached directly to the PC motherboard.
Note: See the SATA knowledgebase article for specific information about SpinRite v6.0's operation with SATA drives and controllers

and

[COLOR=#000099]At its maximum depth of operation, performing a complete read/write/read/write for data recovery and surface analysis/verification, SpinRite can obtain extremely high speeds of up to 2 gigabytes per minute, or 120 gigabytes per hour. However, that is SpinRite's maximum speed and many things can cause it to run slower and, in some cases, much slower . . .


If SpinRite hits areas of the drive that require attention, it will pause to take as much time as required to recover data, verify the region, and cause the drive to replace any damage with new spare sectors. If the system's or drive controller BIOS does not support UDMA (ultra direct memory access), all data transfers will probably be slower, if the drive does not support read and/or write caching and/or read-ahead, SpinRite's operation will be slower. And if the drive is non-IDE or running over a USB or Firewire link, SpinRite will likely run slower.


So 2 gigabytes per minute is a best-case speed with a modern drive, high-performance 80-pin cabling, and motherboard or controller supporting Ultra DMA transfers.


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i've been running my laptop 24/7 for the last 3 months, and its almost done..


later
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