Is there away to check the health of a HDD?

shizz

I have an old computer which has crashed a few times, once due to the old HDD failing, other just with windows errors. It's fairly old (2004? i think) but I've always got it up and running again. Anyway, the oldest thing in it is the motherboard and processor. Today I was sending music to it via my external HDD and I left it and came back to find a blue error screen, I can't remember the error but it was a kernel one of sorts if that means anything, I couldn't restart so I pulled the plug. It started up again fine and I went away sending the rest of the music. It then froze again when it was near the end. I pulled the plug again and it started up fine. While it was frozen the HDD activity light was on fully.

So anyone any ideas what could be at fault. I know the computers on its last legs but we've no need to buy a new one so if I can continue to fix this its grand.

Could the HDD be at fault? Its pretty new.

Thanks.

bonzodog2

CrystalDiskInfo may give you info on your disk, others on this forum might know better than I on interpreting the results.

download link

ricman

see here http://www.google.ie/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=hd++utility or go to the company website
Seagate.com etc download free hd test utility.Its more likely you have a virus, or there may be 1 or more files on the drive that are damaged ,which cant be copied.Do a virus scan on the pc ,then the external drive.You may just need to reinstall windows.I just reinstall every 2 years ,cos xp gets slower ,more unreliable over time.
There s a few files i cant copy on my external hd,if i try win explorer crashes.Otherwise everything is fine.
most companys maxtor etc have free diagnostic test programs to download.
there may be some bad sectors on a drive ,but its still ok to use it.

Hal Emmerich

How to perform disk error checking in Windows XP
(checkdisk)

Im assuming it's XP.

Stop pulling the plug aswell, hold the power button down untill it turns off, 5 or 6 seconds.

shizz

ricman wrote: »

see here http://www.google.ie/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=hd++utility or go to the company website
Seagate.com etc download free hd test utility.Its more likely you have a virus, or there may be 1 or more files on the drive that are damaged ,which cant be copied.Do a virus scan on the pc ,then the external drive.You may just need to reinstall windows.I just reinstall every 2 years ,cos xp gets slower ,more unreliable over time.
There s a few files i cant copy on my external hd,if i try win explorer crashes.Otherwise everything is fine.
most companys maxtor etc have free diagnostic test programs to download.
there may be some bad sectors on a drive ,but its still ok to use it.

I only just reinstalled windows xp so I don't think ill do it again. Ill download and rn some tests later on. Thanks for your help.

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

How to perform disk error checking in Windows XP
(checkdisk)

Im assuming it's XP.

Stop pulling the plug aswell, hold the power button down untill it turns off, 5 or 6 seconds.

Ill look into this aswell. Ah i see ill try doing that if it reezes again.

Capt'n Midnight

you want something that will do SMART reporting

SMART has been built into every IDE drive that's still within it's design life and you can do short (a few minutes ) or long tests ( could take bleedin ages on a big drive ) many drives also allow you to do conveyance tests should also take a few minutes

hdtune should be fine for windows

best to use the manufactureres utilites for the brand of drive

for linux use smartctl


also SMART will only predict half of drives that will eventually fail

CreepingDeath

There's a free version of HDTune here HDTune Link

It displays the SMART statistics of the drive, eg. number of read errors, write errors, times booted up etc...

ressem

Acronis has a free program:
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/drive-monitor/

You install it and it monitors the disk in the background, and alerts you if it thinks you have a problem with the disk in your computer.

Hal Emmerich

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

you want something that will do SMART reporting

SMART has been built into every IDE drive that's still within it's design life and you can do short (a few minutes ) or long tests ( could take bleedin ages on a big drive ) many drives also allow you to do conveyance tests should also take a few minutes

hdtune should be fine for windows

best to use the manufactureres utilites for the brand of drive

for linux use smartctl


also SMART will only predict half of drives that will eventually fail

The seagate utility in ricmans post does smart reporting.