Hard drive diagnostics

Gents,

Was wondering if anyone could recommend some good hard drive diagnostics software. It needs to be something we can just boot from and support most, if not all, manufacturers. Something to check for bad sectors, S.M.A.R.T, etc. Also, it doesn't have to be free - willing to pay for something good and reliable.

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Comments

demonfurbie

UBCD for Windows

Hiren's BootCD 13.1 - All in one Bootable CD » www.hiren.info

its what i use, you can get them to boot from usb/cd

SteveLord

CrystalDiskInfo

HD Tune Pro

However, I believe they only run out of Windows.

jibbajabba

Every manufacturer has programs actually to test the drives. Those are normally floppy disks which can be used to create a bootable CD

Here's a selection

Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

RobertKaucher

I've always used Hitachi DFT. Burn the ISO to CD and you are ready to go!

jmreicha

RobertKaucher wrote: »

I've always used Hitachi DFT. Burn the ISO to CD and you are ready to go!

This is an excellent tool, it has worked on 90%+ of the drives I've tried it on. There is another great LiveCD, called MHDD by HDDGuru. It has the ability to remap bad sectors and gives good detail to how bad a drive is failing. It can basically perform functions that tools like Spinrite do, for free.

I will warn you though, MHDD is poorly documented so it might take some figuring out on your part.

hex_omega

Great suggestions all around Gents. I especially like the Hitachi DFT. Tried it out already.

THis is for you guys...

N2IT

Don't most laptops and desktops have drive fitness test in the BIOS?

hex_omega

They do. But they cannot be trusted all the time. Dell is excellent when it comes to this. HP has gotten better lately, but their older boot diagnostics really sucked. I have not seen diagnostics on the Toshiba and Sony units that we service.

N2IT

hex_omega wrote: »

They do. But they cannot be trusted all the time. Dell is excellent when it comes to this. HP has gotten better lately, but their older boot diagnostics really sucked. I have not seen diagnostics on the Toshiba and Sony units that we service.

Gotcha.

Yeah Lenovo's is okay

Agreed Dell's in spot on. It works very well.