Question: I need to use SpinRite on my notebook which has no CD-ROM.
How can I install and run SpinRite from a USB thumbdrive? Such that I could boot the notebook up with a thumbdrive and start SpinRite.
Are all USB thumbdrives capable of booting? I don’t even know how to make them boot.
Answer: I tried the following.
Download and install “HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool – v2.1.8” fromhttp://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197Click on Blue “Primary Download site” — not Green “Downloads” advertisementsor fromhttp://www.19systems.net/HP-USB-Tool-v2.1.8.exe
Download “Windows 98/DOS boot files” fromhttp://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=196Click on Blue “Primary Download site” — not Green “Downloads” advertisementsor from http://www.19systems.net/Win98-Boot-Files.zip
Unzip Win98 files into a temporary folder such as Win98boot
For pre-Vista Run “HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool”.For Vista and beyond, right click it and “run as administrator”
Use it to format the USB drive and enable the option to make it bootable with files from Win98boot
Copy spinrite.exe to the formatted USB drive
On the target notebook, edit boot sequence so that boot from USB is ahead of HDD
Boot the notebook with it and at DOS prompt, run spinrite.exe
You can now run SpinRite on a CD-ROM-less machine.