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Is there a true and reliable application that can detect if my harddisk health is good or not? I installed fresh windows 7 today and it seems that the computer is not respoding sometimes or kinda slow (and this is without )
Amir Ashkenazi
Posted 2011-08-24T11:08:50.117
Reputation: 159
6
For more thorough testing, download testing tool from the hard drive manufacturer. Their say is as final on HDD health as test tools go.
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If manufacturer of your HDD is:
Hitachi - check this link. There are two diagnostic programs: Drive Fitness Test and OGT Diagnostic Tool.
Drive Fitness Test is for all SCSI, IDE and SATA drives except for Ultrastar 10K300, Ultrastar 15K73 and DK32xx disk drives which should be tested with OGT Diagnostic Tool. Advanced Test is recommended when you are using Drive Fitness Test.
Descriptions of Error Codes you will find in the documents to which links are given below (use Foxit software (free software) to read the PDF's):
Drive Fitness Test User's Guide - on page 28 OGT Diagnostic Tool User's Guide - on page 13
Seagate - test your HDD with SeaTools. Long Test is recommended.
Descriptions of Error Codes you will find in the document to which link is given below:
Toshiba / Fujitsu - check this link and use software from Diagnostic Tools section. Comprehensive Test is recommended.
Western Digital - test your HDD with Data Lifeguard Diagnostic. Extended Test is recommended. Descriptions of Error Codes you will find in the document to which link is given below:
Zds
Posted 2011-08-24T11:08:50.117
Reputation: 2 209
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Included Microsoft's Chkdsk (checkdisk) works acceptably well.
m0skit0
Posted 2011-08-24T11:08:50.117
Reputation: 1 317
ScanDisk? This isn't Windows ME. :) – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2011-08-24T11:50:05.420
Meh... Chkdsk or whatever you want to call it... Windows users... :P – m0skit0 – 2011-08-24T12:10:39.607
Use the /R flag to check the drive surface for bad sectors. – Breakthrough – 2011-08-24T16:15:17.543
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One of the best, that I already use to test my external hard drive is SeaTool, from Seagate:
"SeaTools is a comprehensive, easy-to-use diagnostic tool that helps you quickly determine the condition of the disk drive in your external hard drive, desktop or laptop computer. It includes several tests that will examine the physical media on your Seagate or Maxtor disk drive and any other non-Seagate disk drive."
PS: It is developed by Seagate but actually can test any HDD models or manufacturers that not only from Seagate.
Diogo
Posted 2011-08-24T11:08:50.117
Reputation: 28 202
2
I've used Spinrite to not only detect for bad sectors, but also to recover data on sectors that was previously unreadable. Spinrite will also show the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive when it runs.
Stacey Richards
Posted 2011-08-24T11:08:50.117
Reputation: 1 292
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In general, a good deal of disk health checks involve reading SMART information - smartmontools does this, and gsmartcontrol is a front end to that. If you want to check your drive health, this is probably what you should try.
However, from my experience, hard drive failure is usually less 'slowness' and more accumulating wiredness like odd errors and file transfer failures.
Journeyman Geek
Posted 2011-08-24T11:08:50.117
Reputation: 119 122
2Hi Amir: Without what?? I'm in suspense! :) Anyhow, you may want to reword your question. Right now, the answer is "Yes, there are tools to help you determine if your drive is healthy.", which is primarily the job of the OS (Windows), your drivers (RAID, AHCI, etc.), and the drive itself (SMART). What makes you think it's bad sectors slowing the computer down? What have you tried so far? – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2011-08-24T11:58:42.223