ValiDrive

What is ValiDrive?

ValiDrive conducts a data preserving, 576-region spot-check to test the readability, writability, and true storage presence of any drive of any size connected to any Windows' USB port.

Why was this created?

During the development of SpinRite v6.1, (GRC's premier mass storage maintenance and data recovery system), we detected that fraudulent and sub-standard quality USB flash drives had become a real problem. These “no brand” drives claim high-capacity and low cost. They are readily found on Amazon, eBay, etc. Was this too good to be true? Yes. It is not true. Their low-quality makes their use risky, and many deliberately misrepresent their size, claiming to be far larger than they actually are.

This misrepresentation is diabolical because a drive with much less actual storage will not be detected during normal use by any operating system. So users will be storing data to such drives believing that their data is safe until they later attempt to read it back and find that it was never stored. Such files will appear in the drive's directory as if they are stored, but only their directory entry will have been made.

ValiDrive was created to perform a quick “sanity check” of any USB “thumb drive”, “pen drive”, SSD or spinning mechanical drive that can be accessed through USB. Also, once we saw the wide range of flash drive performance, a performance analysis was added to ValiDrive's summary report.

All data SHOULD be preserved

ValiDrive has been thoroughly tested and it is very careful to restore the data in the 576 regions it tests. No data has ever been lost during extensive pre-release testing. But it's conceivable that a damaged drive might fail during ValiDrive's testing. So, if you have critical data on the drive that's about to be tested it might be best to copy it elsewhere for absolute safety.

Beyond ValiDrive

Rather than spot-checking 576 regions of drives, GRC's commercial product, SpinRite, performs complete and exhaustive testing of every byte of storage claimed by any drive. This has been shown to be useful for long term drive maintenance, and SpinRite is usually able to recover data that operating systems and other recovery tools cannot. GRC's SpinRite web pages and testimonials tell the whole story.

Additional assistance

GRC's web forums located at forums.grc.com are filled with well-mannered and knowledgeable tech enthusiasts. Any problem or question you might have can be answered by the terrific people there.

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Additional ValiDrive information is available at GRC's website

Please check GRC's ValiDrive page for additional information and usage tips.