Running Spinrite from a USB drive?

I tried the following.

1. Download and install "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8" from http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197
   ^{Click on Blue "Primary Download site" -- not Green "Downloads" advertisements}
   or from http://www.19systems.net/HP-USB-Tool-v2.1.8.exe

2. Download "Windows 98/DOS boot files" from http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=196
   ^{Click on Blue "Primary Download site" -- not Green "Downloads" advertisements}
   or from http://www.19systems.net/Win98-Boot-Files.zip

3. Unzip Win98 files into a temporary folder such as Win98boot

4. For pre-Vista Run "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool". For Vista and beyond, right click it and "run as administrator"

5. Use it to format the USB drive and enable the option to make it bootable with files from Win98boot

6. Copy spinrite.exe to the formatted USB drive

7. On the target notebook, edit boot sequence so that boot from USB is ahead of HDD

8. Boot the notebook with it and at DOS prompt, run spinrite.exe

You can now run SpinRite on a CD-ROM-less machine.

Also, You can run the spinrite installer and choose to install onto a drive. and "Hold down the letter of the drive on the keyboard and press install" then it boots right into spinrite (Just tested)

I could not get SpinRite 6.0 to boot from my USB drive by using its built-in installer. I tried the accepted answer but it didn't work because HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool reported "Device media is write-protected" (but for some reason it was writable by everything else).

Here's what worked for me:

1. Download Rufus, a tool for making bootable USB drives. At the time of this writing its version is 2.17.1198.

2. Run Rufus with the following settings:

   • 
   • MBR partition scheme for BIOS or UEFI
   • FAT32
   • 16 kilobytes
   • SpinRite 6.0
   • [Unchecked] Check devices for bad blocks
   • [Checked] Quick format
   • [Checked] Create a bootable disk using FreeDOS
   • [Checked] Create extended label and icon files

3. Run the SpinRite 6.0 installer and create an .iso file.

4. Mount the .iso file and copy SPINRITE.EXE to the USB drive.

5. Boot the drive.

6. DOS should start. Run spinrite.exe.