Move HDD head at random

1

I am trying to find a tool to move the head of my hdd up and down as much as possible. I have tried CrystalDiskMark, but the head only moves on the outer edge of the disk.

Is there some way (a tool maybe?) to perform more extreme reads? E.g. turning of all caches and demanding a sector from the outer area and then from the inner area and so on?

Franz Kafka

Posted 2013-01-13T13:51:11.063

Reputation: 267

There is a freeware test program called HDDscan that includes a "butterfly read" option. Try that. Be aware though that when operated "open" the heads will likely soon crash (due to dust) and it will then stop working, because it will not be getting the embedded servo signals from the platter. – Jamie Hanrahan – 2015-03-09T16:58:19.903

The whole point from the on-disk logic is to avoid that. Which means that if I take an old SCSI drive and ask for sectors 1, 999999 and 2 -> drive reads 1, 2, and 999999. – Hennes – 2013-01-13T14:12:22.353

1And deliberately shorten the life of your drive? Why? – Xyon – 2013-01-13T14:24:59.883

1@Xyon It's an 20GB disk, that I opened for educational purposes, but a demonstration of the worst file seek scenario would be nice. – Franz Kafka – 2013-01-13T14:29:14.743

Answers

3

HD Tune (amongst others) is a hard disk benchmarking tool that claims to have a 4KB Random Seek test that should do what you are after.

If your head is only moving in the first area of the disk then make sure that your partition spans the entire disk.

Mokubai

Posted 2013-01-13T13:51:11.063

Reputation: 64 434

Asked: 2013-01-13T13:51:11.063

Viewed: 102 times

Active: 2013-04-20T22:30:28.527