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

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

Hi Edward,

Being able to access a raw hard drive in a vm could be useful whether 
you're running Windows, Linux, or Mac.  The procedures would be very 
similar, and this could serve as a starting point for figuring out how 
to do this on those other systems.  Not only that, many on this list are 
required to work with Windows systems as part of their duties.  The 
message was labeled with [OT] after all.  I'm sure some in the audience 
will find the information useful, if for no other reason than as a 
jumping off point to do research as to how to implement similar things 
on other systems.

Sincerely,

Ron


On 5/27/2013 9:44 PM, Edward Holcroft wrote:
> 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 
> <mailto: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/
>
>     * 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
>
>     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
>
>     * 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
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Edward Holcroft | Madsen Kneppers & Associates Inc.
> 3020 Holcomb Bridge Rd. NW | Norcross, GA 30071
> O (770) 446-9606 | M (678) 587-8649
>
> MADSEN, KNEPPERS & ASSOCIATES USA, MKA Canada Inc. 
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-- 

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
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Ron Frazier
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linuxdude AT techstarship.com
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