The DEBUG utility was originally named DEBUG.COM in early versions
of MS-DOS, but it was renamed to DEBUG.EXE starting with MS-DOS 3.2
The DEBUG utility was originally named DEBUG.COM in early versions
of MS-DOS, but it was renamed to DEBUG.EXE starting with MS-DOS 3.2
Then even after std lowlevel it was worth using Spinrite to check if interleave value was proper. And if it wasn't it was worth letting it first before anything else. Same when changing a faster CPU as it could speed up IO so much that no interleave would not needed any more and get faster IO.
Spinrite was such a great tool and time saver fixing or making preventive periodic maintenance to customers disks, even though it chugged hours even 30M disks. And just because not to take absolutely any risk it was necessary to make full backup first, which that took quote long also. LapLink was a great tool for that, before LAN became more common.
But it's when you consider taking first full drive backup times. It still takes 'forever' when you'd rather like to get on with fixing single disk issues. Or like when you wait RAID rebuilds too.
We did plan our maintenance tasks so, that there was something else useful we could do while obligatory backup and Spinrite was running. Upgraded another devices EPROM's, PC BIOS or dot matrix printer EPROM, cleaned printer heads, chaff and dust from chassis, changed colour ribbon to it. Ran updates to software we had sold etc. And went lunch with the customer:)
Still, with 4k block sizes, it goes like shit off a shovel.