How to test a Hard drive

[Blackhawk556]

what software tools do you people use to test whether a hard drive is going bad? I downloaded seagate seatools and ran the (SMART, short drive self test(fail), long drive self test (fail), short generic(pass), long generic(fail). Is this a good software to check health of HDD?

what do you guys recommend??? should I use something else

[Matt C]

http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/chkdsk.htm

But the first thing you need to do (if you haven't already) is back up your data.

[Blackhawk556]

http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/chkdsk.htm

But the first thing you need to do (if you haven't already) is back up your data.

the drive is clean right now no info. should i worry about other stuff?

[Matt C]

the drive is clean right now no info. should i worry about other stuff?

Not really, I would check the error logs but that is a bit more advanced. Try running chkdsk. Anyways HDs do fail so keep your data backed up and you won't have a (big) problem if and when yours does. HDs are cheap so it's not really worth paying someone to look at it, cheaper to just replace it.

[Blackhawk556]

Not really, I would check the error logs but that is a bit more advanced. Try running chkdsk. Anyways HDs do fail so keep your data backed up and you won't have a (big) problem if and when yours does. HDs are cheap so it's not really worth paying someone to look at it, cheaper to just replace it.

I ran chkdsk, it's actually running right now. will i get an error message or something if the HDD is bad? what should i be looking for to determine whether the HDD is bad or not?

[Blackhawk556]

so far: "0 bad file records processed, 2 EA records processed, 44 reparse records processed"

nothing seems bad so far

[Matt C]

so far: "0 bad file records processed, 2 EA records processed, 44 reparse records processed"

nothing seems bad so far

Let it finish and post what you get.

[Blackhawk556]

ok it finished but it didn't give me any error codes or anything at all. it did say "the volume is clean"

does that mean the HDD is fine then? if yes, why would seatools say it failed some of the tests?

[JDay]

what software tools do you people use to test whether a hard drive is going bad? I downloaded seagate seatools and ran the (SMART, short drive self test(fail), long drive self test (fail), short generic(pass), long generic(fail). Is this a good software to check health of HDD?

what do you guys recommend??? should I use something else

The SMART test is actually ran by the drives hardware, if that says anything is failing it's time to get a new drive and move your data over. Make sure SMART is enabled in the systems BIOS and it will tell you at boot if a drive is failing.

[JDay]

I ran chkdsk, it's actually running right now. will i get an error message or something if the HDD is bad? what should i be looking for to determine whether the HDD is bad or not?

No, chkdsk only checks for data corruption on the drive. If there's no data on it you will not get any errors.

[odysseus]

As mentioned, if you are not already - backup your data. Next check SMART details. Certainly you can do a chkdsk (assuming Win) and see if the table structure is allocated correctly. Next, and if you have time, you can do a sector by sector read/write test. After that point, what's it worth? Backup your data, HDD fail overtime and there is always a risk. Oh, again, backup.

[1JimMarch]

Well the easy way is via Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.

The disk setup routines check SMART data and report any problems.

If SMART catches any glitches, it will report them to the user via popups while the system is running, plus record them to log files. All automatically.

[G17GUY]

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=502&sid=18&lang=en

try Old Data Lifeguard Diagnostic

[Satex]

Check if your drive supports S.M.A.R.T. and if it does, grab a free utility to read it.

[Darklyte27]

Its nice to back up your pictures, MP3's and other important docs on 2 separate hard drives besides your main computer.
Such as a external drive so you have back ups of your backups.