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I tried a few utils and none of them worked. Either USB wasnt supported or the drive was 'recognized'. I am trying to figure out if i should dump the drive or not. Its only a year old but the warranty is only a year which is a pity.
How do I check external USB Drive health?
Answers
13
Another alternative would be CrystalDiskInfo You can download the portable version so you can test without installing.
Pulse
Posted 2010-06-19T03:43:39.377
Reputation: 4 389
6It can't read the SMART values for the external hard. – Ahmed Hamdy – 2016-07-23T19:07:17.590
1It can't detect my USB drive – Jared Chu – 2018-04-25T21:46:06.867
Version 7.8.3 was capable of passing the SMART status of Hitachi (HTS547575A9E384) drive over USB. – Diblo Dk – 2018-10-24T19:06:17.920
6
Most tools have trouble passing the SMART status of hard drives over USB.
Your best bet for getting the health status from the drive over USB from a generic tool is smartctl from smartmontools. A version that works on Windows with a nice GUI is available here. If this does not work, you will have to download and install the device specific management tool from the manufacturer. The management tool will have a health checker for the drive. Here is the site for western digital. Here is the site for Seagate. You could also take out the drive from the external enclosure and hook it up to your PC directly using SATA or IDE and then read the status using standard tools like HDTune or Smartctl.
smartctl support for USB is described in more detail here.
James T
Posted 2010-06-19T03:43:39.377
Reputation: 8 515
The first link (HDD Guardian) is no longer available... – Kanchu – 2018-01-02T07:15:02.520
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Give HDDScan a try. It does SMART value reporting from ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire and analyzes log pages from SCSI drives. It can also perform SMART tests on hard drives connected by any of the above-mentioned interfaces.
Lèse majesté
Posted 2010-06-19T03:43:39.377
Reputation: 3 129
This doesn't require installation as a bonus – Tom Hale – 2016-12-26T05:48:07.297
Couldn't get it to work over USB like most other tools I've tried. – SharpC – 2019-06-02T11:11:44.800
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I use HD Tune Pro (Windows, $34.95 but free trial):
Also, there is Virtual Console USB Flash Drive Tester (Windows, free):
Franck Dernoncourt
Posted 2010-06-19T03:43:39.377
Reputation: 13 518
0
One option would be to open the enclosure and just mount it as an internal drive and use any program you would use regularly then.
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Now the program I use is spinrite.
Is SpinRite compatible with USB and Firewire devices?
The best answer to this is a firm "maybe". DOS device drivers are available for most USB and Firewire controllers. If such drivers are added to a DOS boot diskette so that your USB or Firewire drive is "seen" by DOS, SpinRite will also be able to "see" and operate with it. However, the performance of the drive through the DOS drivers and the serial (USB/Firewire) cable will likely be far lower than if the external drive were connected directly to a PC's motherboard controller. If you have the ability to temporarily relocate the IDE drive inside of the external enclosure to a PC— plugging it directly into the motherboard's controller — SpinRite will be able to operate at the drive's highest possible performance.
Unfundednut
Posted 2010-06-19T03:43:39.377
Reputation: 6 650
1Spinrite has bad reputation. To summarize, what it claims to be doing either doesn't make sense to do or is outright impossible. – ivan_pozdeev – 2017-06-29T16:57:22.383
I second @ivan_pozdeev's reply -- I used it on some older disks which were beginning to fail and retrieved a minimal amount of info, but on disks less than 10 years old (and this was in 2007/2008) SpinRite did absolutely nothing. Indeed, it only seems to shorten the lifespan of modern drives. – Chris Woods – 2018-06-29T10:43:53.877
0
Building on what @James said, Seagate's SeaTools will work for Seagate/Maxtor drives and some other drive manufacturers as well. It will get SMART info, do tests and do repairs for Seagate/Maxtor.
They have Windows GUI or they a DOS version that will create bootable DOS disk.
studgeek
Posted 2010-06-19T03:43:39.377
Reputation: 1 805
2I think this question does a pretty good job on: "describe your situation and the specific problem you're trying to solve." What appears to be missing from the question, making it off-topic, is an open-ended "how do I do this?" at the end. – nobar – 2015-10-30T19:49:08.173
6What's wrong with asking about how to perform a specific task? – Tom Hale – 2016-12-26T08:51:03.650
1Closing this question is stupid. Almost any question on this site can be solved by recommending a product, that doesn't mean that the OP was necessarily asking for a product recommendation. – Hey – 2018-08-04T17:00:12.023
I tried all the tools listed and couldn't get anything to read over USB. However Kaspersky Security Cloud immediately detected the drive (More Tools → Data Protection → Hard Drive Health Monitor → Details) and I was able to get all the normal SMART params over USB. I would have loved to have added this as an answer, but all the good questions on Stack Exchange stupidly always get closed as off-topic!! – SharpC – 2019-06-02T11:27:51.580
1Never take out the WD (e.g. MyBook) HDD from the enclosure and try to mount it internally unless you like to repair unallocated partitions. I have tried it personally. – None – 2012-04-02T08:20:19.073