A:No. GRC's code typically settles down very quickly then goes for years without problems or bugs. But ValiDrive briefly checks with the Internet (via an anonymous DNS query to protect your privacy) whenever it runs to make sure you're running the latest and greatest. If we discover and fix any problems, or if we add some new features, ValiDrive will pop-up a notice to let you know something's new from headquarters.

A:This false-positive detection was encountered by two of ValiDrive's pre-release testers after v1.0 had been released; it was resolved by v1.0.1.

A:This is the result of the escalating war between malware and anti-virus software. Essentially, any new software that has not yet had time to be proven to be safe is considered to be unsafe under the “better to be safe than sorry policy.” The perceived safety of code is no longer about what it does or what it might do – it's all about “reputation” and reputation takes time to acquire. Unfortunately, reputation is the best general defense we have today. Once ValiDrive has established itself, as our DNS Benchmark, InControl and GRC's many other freeware utilities have, it won't cause any more trouble. But it may take a week or two.

A:ValiDrive does something that causes inexpensive flash drives great trouble: ValiDrive only transfers 4k bytes of data at a time and it constantly alternates between reading and writing.

Writing to NAND flash memory requires the generation of high voltage, but reading requires low voltage. Before any NAND chip can write data into NAND flash memory it must internally generate a high voltage. This uses a “voltage pump” which takes time to charge up, and lower-end solid state drives do this much more slowly. Then, before reading, that high voltage must be dumped.

Since operating systems typically write entire files and even multiple files at once, a single “voltage charging” cycle can be amortized across the entire large write. But ValiDrive only reads and writes 4k bytes at a time, which forces constant read and write cycling. So this presents a worse-case environment for any flash memory which requires an extended time before it becomes ready to write.

For additional information about this, see the Discussion section at the bottom of ValiDrive's Understanding the Report page.

A:ValiDrive deliberately performs a quick and cursory “spot-check” across a drive's mass storage media for the express purpose of verifying the presence of storage. It is not meant to, and does not, provide a comprehensive deep test of mass storage media. For one thing, doing that would require far more time; and GRC's commercial SpinRite product, which also performs world-class data recovery, was created for exactly that purpose.

A:ValiDrive's drive map contains 32 x 16 squares. So it tests 576 evenly-spaced 4k byte regions of any drive for a total of 2,359,296 bytes, or about 2.36 megabytes. If a drive contains internal RAM caching, ValiDrive will detect that and may increase its testing region size, as necessary, to bypass such caching; but this is not commonly encountered.

A:The two programs are complimentary but very different. ValiDrive quickly checks for the presence of any storage at 576 locations across a drive's storage media. SpinRite thoroughly, deeply and fully examines, verifies, and exercises any drive's storage media, while also performing comprehensive data recovery if necessary. So, ValiDrive is a “quickie” test to see whether any storage is present, whereas SpinRite is the heavy hitter that verifies every byte of a drive's storage to verify its integrity and reliability.

A:To run ValiDrive under Parallels/ARM Windows 11, in Windows, right click on the Validrive file and choose properties. Then change the emulation type to Safe Emulation. Click OK, then Apply. After that you should find that ValiDrive will run without complaint.