BurnInTest Professional 6.0 - Windows

[brentmd]

Quick question:

We purchased and are using BurnInTest Professional 6.0 for Windows. We created a WinPE ISO so that we can boot from CD-R.

We have a Linux server that already has filesystems created. If we boot that server using the WinPE ISO will it be able to do a hard drive test? Or will BurnInTest Windows version not work with Linux partitions? This would be testing outside the normal OS installed.

[David (PassMark)]

I assume these are not FAT/NTFS formatted?

So you won't be able to use the Windows version of BurnInTest to do a non-destructive test of a disk that is formatted with the typical Linux file system (e.g. EXTx). You should be able to treat them as blank physical drives an overwrite all the disk's content however.

The Linux version of BurnInTest should do a better job on Linux systems.

[brentmd]

PassMark,

Just to confirm: If we were to use the WinPE BurnInTest 6.0 on a live Linux production system. If we run the disk test it will actually wipe the production data because it isn't NTFS?

If we purchase the Linux version and run the disk test it won't overwrite production data right? It will only test the unused portion of the disks and won't interfere with live data.

Thanks,

Brent

[Tripredacus]

Just to confirm: If we were to use the WinPE BurnInTest 6.0 on a live Linux production system. If we run the disk test it will actually wipe the production data because it isn't NTFS?

From what I remember, it would only erase the data if you did the physical (CRC) disk test on it. The same would be for any file system, even one formatted NTFS. By default, the WinPE would be able to see the drive letter but not be able to read the disk. So the standard test would probably fail due to file system incompatibility. I did look to see if anyone had tried to get WinPE to read one of the Linux file systems, but I came up empty.

I know that there are ways to get a standard Windows 7 system to read a Linux FS, but it would be some work to see if it would work in WinPE, and then it wouldn't be known for sure how BIT would work under those conditions.

[David (PassMark)]

We haven't tried it either. So it is just educated speculation.
Clearly Windows in WinPE isn't going to be able to read a Linux EXT file system. So it won't know what files are already on the disk. This would only leave the option of doing a test on the physical drive, which means treating the drive as unformatted, which would destroy any data on the drive.

If you boot into Linux. e.g. with a self booting Slax solution,
http://www.passmark.com/support/bitl...ot_cd_slax.htm
then the Linux O/S will be able to recognize the Linux file system and you can use the normal file based disk test.

[brentmd]

PassMark,

Thanks for your response. If we just install the Linux CLI version of BurnInTest onto a Linux server that is already formatted. Will it just test the unused portion of the disks and leave the data intact?

For example: I login into Linux server. Install Linux 3.0 CLI onto server. Run disk test. Will it interfere with the current data or just test unused data and leave the live data intact.

Thanks,

Brent

[David (PassMark)]

There are different options for the disk test, but by default it won't touch, or destroy any data.