How to fix Spinrite

[+Warwagon MVC]

How to fix Spinrite’s Division Overflow Error when scanning larger drives

As some of you who use spinrite very frequently may have noticed, spinrite will usually crash when scanning larger drives (in my experiences it's been on drives over 640GB). Once spinrite gets to a certain point in the scan, it will throw up a red screen with a “Division Overflow Error'. This usually occurred over 50% into the scan depending on the size of the drive.

After researching the error online, it appears that it’s not a problem with spinrite but an issue with the FreeDOS (MS-DOS) clone that Steve Gibson bundles with spinrite.

To get around this issue, you have to create a bootable Disc or USB stick with MS-DOS instead of FreeDOS.

To make things easy on you I’m going to walk you through how to make a bootable MS-DOS USB key with spinrite. (Since most computers can now boot from USB drives)

First we are going to download a utility made by HP called “HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool”. This tool allows you to easily format a USB

stick and turn it into MS-DOS bootable drive all at the same time.

You can download it from here

http://files.extreme.../file.php?f=197

Next we need the MSDOS files to go onto the stick. I would love to link you to the files needed but, Unfortunately Neowin would probably lock or delete my thread if I did. All I will tell you is to Google “How to Make a MS-DOS Bootable Flash Drive”. The first link should have the files you need.

Next extract those files to the folder of your choice.

Now open the HP USB Disk storage format tool (if you are on Vista or 7 run the application as administrator.)

Select the usb drive you wish to use. Put a check in “quick format” and “Create a DOS start-up disc and using DOS system files located at.

Now Click browse and find folder you extracted the MS-DOS files to.

Now click start.

That’s pretty much it, all you have to do now is take your spinrite.exe file and put a copy of it on the root of the usb stick you just formatted.

Now let’s test it out.

Put the usb stick in your computer, tell your computer to boot from the newly formatted usb device and once you are at a DOS prompt type “Spinrite” and press enter.

If spinrite loads then get out of your chair and do the happy dance. If spinrite does not load, then you may have missed a step. Try it again. You'll eventually get to the happy dance!

[jimmyfal]

shshshshs, don't tell anyone else about spinrite!

[+Warwagon MVC]

shshshshs, don't tell anyone else about spinrite!

It's ok, a few members here think spinrite is snake oil anyway :)

[jimmyfal]

It's nice to know that in this sea of really smart computer guys, there are a percentage,that in this instance anyway, don't know what the **** they are talking about.

[Teebor]

Spinrite has always been one of those programs I have told people to buy based on its reviews and functionality but I've never actually had the opportunity to use it myself.

One day I will !! yes I will !!

[doubledeej]

I know I'm late to the party here, but I can confirm that running SpinRite under legitimate versions of DOS do NOT eliminate this error. I'm on my 5th drive in a row that causes SpinRite to crash, and I'm running off of a real honest-to-goodness Microsoft startup disk. Same division error.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I know I'm late to the party here, but I can confirm that running SpinRite under legitimate versions of DOS do NOT eliminate this error. I'm on my 5th drive in a row that causes SpinRite to crash, and I'm running off of a real honest-to-goodness Microsoft startup disk. Same division error.

Don't know what to tell you but that error has pretty much vanished for me now.

[Christopher Mercer]

I know this was posted a couple years ago but this is the first time I have come across this error. I was so glad to find this post. Thank you for posting how to do this. I hope that it works. So far all seems to be working well, just a matter of seeing if that error shows up again. Spinrite has always worked well for me, except for when I tried to revive a dead drive, so i'd like to trust that its still a good program.

I'll let you know in the next day or so if it worked for me. Thanks again.

[Christopher Mercer]

Sorry to double post, but to update my previous post, I used the OP's instructions, installed MS DOS drivers to a 1 GB USB flash drive, copied the spinrite file to the root of the flash drive, booted up the flash drive to the MS-DOS command prompt, typed in spinrite.exe and it ran, but unfortunately, I still had the division overflow error. This was run on a 1TB drive. I don't know what difference it makes but either way, I had the same results running spinrite on this drive. Thanks for the suggested solution, but it did not appear to work in my situation.

[Art_X]

email steve gibsons support people and tell them to update the software, as paying customers you have the right to working functional software

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

Have they ever updated spinrite to work with newer SATA controllers?

I bought it but got a refund due to it not detecting any drive's on my system(s).

[Art_X]

I have tried it on the few 500GB sata drives i have and it works, I have never hit that error, but you would think they would update it as drives get bigger and bigger, but I guess they dont really care too much about their paying customers

[+Warwagon MVC]

I have tried it on the few 500GB sata drives i have and it works, I have never hit that error, but you would think they would update it as drives get bigger and bigger, but I guess they dont really care too much about their paying customers

Steve Gibson said that Spinrite 6.1 is in the works and will be a free update to all existing customers. As far as spinrite not detecting the drive, if you go into the bios and switch it from ahci to IDE that usually works.

[Ted Vetzal]

I am a paying customer and I did contact GRC. Turns out it is an issue with the BIOS on the MB. Ran it in another computer and it had no problems with my 2TB Seagate drives.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I am a paying customer and I did contact GRC. Turns out it is an issue with the BIOS on the MB. Ran it in another computer and it had no problems with my 2TB Seagate drives.

Hooray!

[Wytchwood]

I'm going to give this a try, as I'm at the pulling-my-hair-out stage, not that techy a person but know my way around windows. I've created a Bootable MS-DOS CD, figured out how to change my CD-Rom in BIOS from AHC1 to ATA, changed BIOS to boot to CD-ROM, but now when I reboot to MS-DOS through CD-ROM drive, it's giving me an error about CD-ROM drivers not found (Banana wtf?)so I got the MS-DOS driver for my CD-ROM downloaded from Dell but I don't know how to get MS-DOS to recognise the driver. I'm in way over my head here and feel I bit off a lot more of that banana than I can chew. I believe SpinRite is probably a really good program and I wanted to use it as a maintenance tool, but with all the hoops I'm having to jump through, I'll give the USB flash method a try when I am less aggravated. Have to say though I agree with Soul Taker, it shouldn't have to be this difficult for the average windows user at $89.00.

[Dashel]

zOMGz errors

[Ardwych]

(A fairly inane comment, was it not, Dashel?)

 

Here we are in January Two Thousand and Fourteen (2014) and Spinrite's behaving in much the same way with large disks.

I have it giving an error something like 'MBR preceding EFI' on 1 and 2 TB disks. How so?

Any more evidence of motherboard idiosyncrasies, or AHCI/IDE alternatives?

Mention was made of version 6.1 being developed back in March 2013. There's certainly no news of it on the site.

Anyone have any insights?

[Ardwych]

UPDATE

I've worked through a number of posts on Steve Gibson's own site and it turns out that as of December '13 he has put SpinRite on hold in favour of another ground-breaking authentication project he has devised.

It's on hold for an estimated six to eight weeks, after which time it's likely that he'll resume work on the new 6.1 version of SpinRite, aided by research work already conducted with his users on SpinTest, a precursor to the new edition.

[+Warwagon MVC]

WOW 47,999 views!! It's pretty much at the top of every google search..

 

Oh and my multi monitor mouse how to is at 69,085!!!

[robowarrior0]

hello warwagon

 

i did the same used HP USB DISK STORAGE FORMAT TOOL TO MADE MY USB BOOTABLE WITH WINDOWS 98 FILES AND LATER ON PUTTED SPINRITE.EXE INTO THE USB

 

2.)THEN I BOOTED WITH USB AS 1ST PRIORITY AND TYPED SPINRITE IN THE PROMPT SPINRITE STARTED AS USUALLY BUT STILL I GOT THE SAME ERROR WHICH WAS EARLIER

 

Error "Division Overflow error at 5672 "

plese help me or suggest me the way

[+Warwagon MVC]

hello warwagon

 

i did the same used HP USB DISK STORAGE FORMAT TOOL TO MADE MY USB BOOTABLE WITH WINDOWS 98 FILES AND LATER ON PUTTED SPINRITE.EXE INTO THE USB

 

2.)THEN I BOOTED WITH USB AS 1ST PRIORITY AND TYPED SPINRITE IN THE PROMPT SPINRITE STARTED AS USUALLY BUT STILL I GOT THE SAME ERROR WHICH WAS EARLIER

 

Error "Division Overflow error at 5672 "

plese help me or suggest me the way

 

could be some sort of incompatibility with that PC's Bios. Try hooking it up to a different PC if you can.

[Old_Chief]

I know this is an old thread but I thought this was interesting. I had this issue on a client's 1 TB Seagte and tried Spinrite. I had not experienced this error in the past so when it popped up my search took me the usual places. I tried the real MS Dos solution without success then I tried the 'plug it in to another motherboard' solution.

I have an old Dell 8400 sitting here and I had run Spinrite on drive in it before so I opened it up and plugged the recalcitrant drive in. Same error. :o

This made me question the motherboard bios theory so I tested a WD 1 TB drive I had sitting on the desk. The test worked perfectly and ran to completion; so much for the bios being the issue. :s

I contacted Gibson Research and they suggested I plug it directly in to the MB. I told them it was plugged directly in. I amwait a reply to that and will update when I get one. :/

Chief

[+Warwagon MVC]

I know this is an old thread but I thought this was interesting. I had this issue on a client's 1 TB Seagte and tried Spinrite. I had not experienced this error in the past so when it popped up my search took me the usual places. I tried the real MS Dos solution without success then I tried the 'plug it in to another motherboard' solution.

I have an old Dell 8400 sitting here and I had run Spinrite on drive in it before so I opened it up and plugged the recalcitrant drive in. Same error. :o

This made me question the motherboard bios theory so I tested a WD 1 TB drive I had sitting on the desk. The test worked perfectly and ran to completion; so much for the bios being the issue. :s

I contacted Gibson Research and they suggested I plug it directly in to the MB. I told them it was plugged directly in. I amwait a reply to that and will update when I get one. :/

Chief

 

This might not be fixed until Spinrite 6.1 which he will start working on again shortly.

[John135]

Sorry for posting in an old thread, but this is the only one that shows up when trying to use SpinRIte.

 

I tried both the CD image and even tried the USB flash drive version suggested my TC.

I still keep getting the "Division Overflow Error" error on this 1T HDD I'm trying to test/check, ~1/2 way threw it it shows up.

 

I'm using latest version of SpinRIte, so I don't know what to do, anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!