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    Program to test if a hard drive is damaged?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by QueenOfSpades, May 4, 2011.

  1. QueenOfSpades

    QueenOfSpades Notebook Consultant

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    My sister dropped her 1-month old Dell laptop, and it started acting wonky after that. She bought an accidental damage warranty, so when she explained what happened, they just swapped out her hard drive - a Seagate 7200.4 500GB Momentus. Her problems didn't really go away.

    She gave the old hard drive to me, and I'm trying to figure out how to check for problems. I put it in a 2.5" enclosure, and it reads and registers fine. Can't seem to get SeaTools to work, so I was wondering if anyone knew of another program that can test hard drive functionality/health thoroughly.

    Thanks in advance.
     
    QueenOfSpades, May 4, 2011
    #1
  2. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    run chkdsk in the command prompt

    simply type "chkdsk"
     
    Hungry Man, May 4, 2011
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  3. QueenOfSpades

    QueenOfSpades Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks, just ran it, found 0 bad sectors. Does that mean the drive is fine?
     
    QueenOfSpades, May 4, 2011
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  4. MagusDraco

    MagusDraco Biiiiiiirrrrdmaaaaaaan

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    if she's still having problems with a new hdd, it's probably something else.
     
    MagusDraco, May 4, 2011
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  5. Hungry Man

    Hungry Man Notebook Virtuoso

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    What MagusDraco said. If chkdsk said it's fine it is likely fine but not necessarily.

    Someone else can suggest alternative programs.
     
    Hungry Man, May 5, 2011
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  6. Lukeman

    Lukeman Notebook Evangelist

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    Has she run the Dell Diagnostic on the laptop yet (f12 at startup, f6 for diagnostic)?
     
    Lukeman, May 5, 2011
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  7. newsposter

    newsposter Notebook Virtuoso

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    you really should define 'wonky' in real terms. No one here has any idea what you're talking about.
     
    newsposter, May 5, 2011
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  8. sugarkang

    sugarkang Notebook Evangelist

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    What kind of horrible advice is this?

    Find out who makes your hard drive. Run that manufacturer's hard drive tester. Dell will likely have their own tester as mentioned above, but also see if there's a manufacturer's version that will work.

    In addition, get yourself Crystal Disk Info. CHKDSK doesn't tell you anything and if it did, it didn't tell you anything after the year 1996.
     
    sugarkang, May 9, 2011
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  9. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Checking the SMART attributes is a good starting point, using any one of a billion tools available, but CrystalDisk Info is a good start.

    chkdsk will check for bad sectors, and not a bad thing to confirm. Windows even has a simple GUI check, just right click the drive, properties, tools, error-checking. Same thing as chkdsk but can't hurt to give it a run.
     
    HTWingNut, May 9, 2011
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  10. zippyzap

    zippyzap Notebook Consultant

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    Is the 2.5" enclosure USB? You'll probably have to hook up the drive to an internal SATA port.

    Are you trying to use the Windows or DOS version of Seatools? If it is the Windows version and you still can't get it to work after hooking it up to an internal SATA port, then try using the DOS version. You'll want to unhook all drives EXCEPT for the drive in question (and optical drive if using the CD ISO). Then, set the SATA controller in BIOS to normal IDE mode if available, because sometimes the software is unable to check drives when the controller is in RAID or AHCI mode.
     
    zippyzap, May 12, 2011
    #10