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    Simpler, clearer alternative to CHKDSK? Disk health checking

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by toronto, Jan 23, 2012.

  1. toronto

    toronto Notebook Deity

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    Windows 7 Home Premium, 64-bit

    I'm trying to help someone in another city who may have a disk problem. I want him to run a hard disk diagnostic to check for bad sectors, etc.

    CHKDSK is part of Win7, but it's confusing. I tried it myself, and after finally accessing the right log in the Event Viewer, it's sure not obvious to a non-technical person as to whether the disk passed or not. Plus, it's a pain to locate the right log.

    Is there a tool he could download and run, that would provide simpler, clearer results about whether the disk has errors or not?

    (Such a free application could either be installed to the system or a portable app to run from a USB key.)
     
    toronto, Jan 23, 2012
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  2. tijo

    tijo Sacred Blame

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    Most HDD manufactuers offer a utility to check the health status of their drives, seagate does, hitachi and wester digital as well, you can easily find the HDD manufacturer with a monitoring utility like crystal disk mark.
     
    tijo, Jan 23, 2012
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  3. MrDJ

    MrDJ Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    try HD Tune which has never let me down yet.
     
    MrDJ, Jan 24, 2012
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  4. woofer00

    woofer00 Wanderer

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    Chkdsk errors throw explicit blatant errors if there's a serious issue. If there's no fatal error, check the wininit entry. For more info, Check Disk (chkdsk) - Read Event Viewer Log - Windows 7 Forums

    edit:
    I'd also note that 3rd party tools that run within windows sometimes cannot scan the entire drive. It's best to run before the OS boots.
     
    woofer00, Jan 24, 2012
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  5. toronto

    toronto Notebook Deity

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    I downloaded the bootable DOS version of Seagate's Seatools, as it said it can also test non-Seagate brands. It booted fine, but said it did not detect any hard drives, which was strange. It did not detect the WDC hard drive in my laptop.
     
    toronto, Jan 24, 2012
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  6. toronto

    toronto Notebook Deity

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    woofer00, thanks for the reply. You posted as I posted, so I missed it until now. Thanks, I didn't know that chkdsk would display something obvious if there were serious errors (I assume that includes bad sectors?)

    I know about the wininit log, but it's incomprenensible to a non-expert, which is why I created this thread. I wish it would have obvious statements at the top, such as what errors were found, what was fixed or not, or whether everything passed okay.
     
    toronto, Jan 24, 2012
    #6