Web Apps Since 2004.

Is your website boring?  Kick it up a notch.  Encodable apps easily drop into your website to make it modern, fun, and interactive, with features like file uploads, user accounts, paid subscriptions, protected pages, live chat, visitor logging, mailing lists, and more.
All Encodable apps include:
• Easy setup
• Lifetime license
• Free tech support
• Full customizability

« previous: Encodable.com: One Million Visitors Served! | next: How To Create a BIOS Update Boot CD (or Floppy) using Linux »

How to Fix Invalid Opcode Error in SpinRite

# Filed on Nov 30, 2009 by AnthonyDiSante / 12 replies

I recently tried to run SpinRite on a large SATA disk.  It booted OK and I was able to select the partitions and choose the SpinRite run level, but as soon as it tried to start the scan, it printed an "Invalid Opcode" error followed by a bunch of register addresses or memory locations.  This was on the "Selecting Drive For Use" screen.  SpinRite (and the system) was locked up at that point.

It turned out to be an easy fix: I just had to go into the BIOS, to the SATA mode setting, and change it from IDE to AHCI.  When I did this and then booted SpinRite again, I noticed that a bunch of the drive fields (hardware addrs, hardware irq, etc) were now listed as "unknown", but SpinRite was able to scan the disk now.

Comments:

01. Apr 29, 2010 at 06:23pm by Sn3akyP3t3:

A GX755 required setting for me was to change from default RAID AHCI to RAID ATA, so kinda the opposite for me.

02. Jul 4, 2010 at 02:08pm by Chris:

On a Toshiba Satellite L300 I had to change the setting from "AHCI" to "Compatibility" which I’m assuming would be ATA mode.

03. Mar 14, 2011 at 11:09pm by MickO:

I did the opposite. I changed AHCI to IDE and the invalid opcode disappeared

04. Mar 17, 2011 at 12:20pm by Voraz76:

Switching to Raid ATA Automatic fixed the opcode for me on a Optiplex 755.  Thanks guys

05. Mar 28, 2011 at 10:16pm by KerryH:

On a Toshiba Satellite L355 I had to change the setting from "AHCI" to "Compatibility" also and then Spinrite worked perfectly.  Thanks for the help and answers (from a while ago!)
Kerry

06. Aug 8, 2011 at 03:57pm by JimP:

Like Voraz76 I also have an Optiplex 755 and switching from AHCI to ATA in the BIOS fixed the problem. 

Thanks very much everyone!

07. Aug 31, 2011 at 02:58pm by LukeV:

A change from AHCI to ATA on an Optiplex 760 solved the same issue for me. Thanks for the posts guys!

08. Dec 26, 2011 at 09:39pm by CharlieP:

I have a Toshiba P775-S7320 and had to do as the other folks with Toshiba’s.  I changed to ’Compatible’ mode.

Thanks for all the help in this blog.

09. Mar 1, 2012 at 01:55pm by j:

Thank you for the help everyone, this post was exactly what I needed.  My samsung laptop required ahci auto to be turned off and then ahci had to be disabled after that.

10. Jan 24, 2013 at 12:34am by CB:

This puts me in a bind.  I’ve got an Optiplex 780 and want to run SpinRite on a 4000 GB HD. This is over the 2.2 TB limit on MBR patitions, so I think I HAVE to have AHCI enabled b/c the drive has GPT GUID partitions instead of MBR ones.  (good grief that’s a lot of acronymns!).

But SpinRite won’t even start; I get a suggestion to run FDISK and an invalid opcode msg just trying to boot off the CD.  It’s so early on in the boot process that the FreeDOS kernel msg is still on the screen.

Any suggestions?
I hope I got all the technical bits right; that’s just the result of an hour’s research.  This is all kinda new to me.

11. Jan 24, 2013 at 01:27am by AnthonyDiSante:

I have the same problem on several 2TB and 3TB drives.  The OS (Linux) handles them just fine, but SpinRite doesn’t.  It seems like it has to be a bug in SpinRite, but Steve Gibson (SpinRite’s creator) occasionally mentions a forthcoming SpinRite update during his SecurityNow podcast, and it always sounds like it’s a distant-future kind of thing, so I get the impression that he doesn’t think this is a big problem.

I’ve switched to using the badblocks command (by booting a Linux LiveCD or LiveDVD, e.g. one of the Ubuntu discs) for full-disk scans on these larger hard drives.  There’s some mention of that, and other SpinRite alternatives, in this thread:

http://serverfault.com/questions/51681/does-spinrite-do-what-it-claims-to-do

12. May 31, 2013 at 03:07am by danwat1234:

On my G50VT laptop I had to change from AHCI to compatibility mode, otherwise after a few minutes of it being halted at the DOS screen before the Spinrite logo appears, the Opcode error occurs.

But, with compatibility mode I’m stuck in PIO 4 mode and no S.M.A.R.T.! It would take about 4 days to Level 4 scan my 750GB drive versus a few hours with a full pipeline..

Reply to this message here:

Your name
Email (why?)
Website (if you have one)
Subject
search posts:

[ home | archives ]

Shopping Cart

Client Quotes

Thanks again for a great product and great support - beyond expectations.
– Greg S.
Thank you VERY much for all of your help.  You've really impressed me.  We have support agreements for other software that costs thousands of dollars / year (just for the support), and most of them aren't as helpful as you have been.
– Keith Y.
Just one word: Fantastic.  10-minute job to plug FileChucker into my app, and it now works a treat.  It's through the hard work by people like yourselves that make my job so much easier.  Congratulations on an outstanding product... Many many thanks.
– Sean F.
Nice script, it's saving the day on our project.
– Aaron W.
FileChucker is helping drive the backend of several high profile entertainment sites for people like Shania Twain and Dolly Parton.  We're also using it to drive backend file uploads for a multi-billion dollar banking institution.  It's a great product.  We've tried other "chucking" upload solutions with progress bars using flash and php, but nothing works as reliably as FileChucker.
– Michael W.
I just want to say you guys really stand alone in that you have a quality product and you provide genuine customer service.  It's sad but those qualities are seldom found separately, much less together.  Thanks again for your time and help.
– Alex S.
You've done a wonderful job with FileChucker and UserBase, and they have made a big difference to how our website runs.
– Nicholas H.
I looked all over trying to find a simple cgi script.  I found that FileChucker was by far the best.  If you have issues with your hosting service's php.ini max upload size then this is the way to go.  Looking forward to future enhancements.
– Bob C.
I just installed the demo of your product and got it up and running in no time.  I searched high and low for a decent login script and thank God I found yours.
– Adrian F.
Why didn't I just do this from the get-go?  So much easier.  Thanks for your work.  FileChucker makes my work easier.
– Dominic M.
I just wanted to say that yours is the first product that I've tested so far that hasn't failed on handling uploads.  This is going to work for a print company, so they are handling nothing but large files and all the other solutions I've tried so far have not been reliable.  So far yours has been 100% successful in my tests.
– Kevin H.
FileChucker is working great...  Clients love it.  Vendors love it.  We love it.
– Gerry W.
The amount of customization in the program is incredible.  I was able to integrate it into my existing page layout relatively simply.  I was also able to easily customize the look/feel to match the current site.
– Jason M.
I want to thank you for your efforts on Userbase. It has become an integral part of our business and has allowed us to branch out and begin using automation on a lot of our processes. Userbase has become the gateway to advancement for our company's processes for our clients and employees.
– Guy Smith, Critical Signal Technologies
Our members think your software is fantastic...  I would recommend your software and your company to anyone.  Thanks for all your help.  It has been a pleasure dealing with you.
– Tommy A.
FileChucker is a great drop-in solution for file uploads, and worth every penny of its very reasonable cost.  Encodable's support is excellent to boot.
– Loren A.
The work, the thought and the organization you put into this app is incredible.
– Bruce C.
Do you know how rare it is to have a "canned" shopping cart that can easily do complex pricing options on a single item?  Basically, they don't exist!  I have looked.  Everywhere!  And the few that might even come close to CornerStore's functionality cost a fortune!
– Tashina P.