FYI: Spinrite 6 review.

[Close_Hauled]

For those wanting to recover data from a physically damaged drive:

http://www.kickstartnews.com/reviews/utilities/spinrite_v6.html

[meneer]

Nice, an upgrade option (I've still got a very old Spinrite II version :))

[Devinco]

Looks good, but does it work with IDE RAID 0, IDE RAID 1, SATA RAID 0, and SATA RAID 1 ?
I read the review and info at GRC, but couldn't find anything. :-\

[Devinco]

Well I found this disappointing answer in the Q+A section. (it is for version 5, but I didn't see anything contrary in 6):

-{ Quote: "Q: Will SpinRite work with my Drive Mirroring or RAID Array setup?

A: Unfortunately not. Drive mirroring and RAID arrays operate by inserting an intelligent controller in between the computer system and the mirrored or RAID array drives. Consequently, SpinRite is unable to directly access mirrored drives themselves. At more advanced RAID levels (such as parity, stripped drives, etc.), the individual drives do not contain complete, working, stand-alone partitions, so SpinRite is unable to operate upon such drives in a "stand alone" fashion (without the interposed RAID controller.)

However, if RAID mirrored drives can be "seen" by MS-DOS when they are removed from behind the RAID controller, SpinRite will operate upon them without trouble." }-
Too bad, I was really looking forward to buying this. This means it won't be useful for the majority of the server market or anyone using RAID. Someone with Steve's talents should be able to make something (maybe less thorough) that would help RAID users. I cannot justify purchase as most hard drives I work with are RAID. :(
Of course, if you don't use RAID (or won't in the future), then it is great. It's just that the trend appears to be going towards more RAID arrays even in home systems.