[SOLVED] Best Hard Disk Health Checkers?

[LABFE]

Looking for some advice on the best hard disk health checkers out there, either paid or freeware? I'm looking for a solid utility to run prior to performing PC tune-ups to ensure the hard disk isn't near failure.

 

[mraikes]

There are more sophisticated tools out there, but barring actual symptoms of hard drive failure, I just run Crystaldisk for a quick smart check.

 

[OaksLabs]

I use Crystal Disk Info as well, but PC Check by Eurosoft is a full blown bootable diagnostic environment, and it can be scripted to check every sector of a HDD (takes hours) along with some other tests. I highly recommend this software (using it for just hard drives is an option, but it can do so much more!!). http://www.eurosoft-uk.com/products/pc-check/

 

[Krynn72]

GsmartControl via Parted Magic boot disk. This way you don't even run the HDD in case its in a near-failure state. Run it on basically everything I touch, and has lots of other good tools as well, like temp monitors, stress tests, cloning functions with ddrescue, etc.

Its EFI bootable too, so no changing UEFI settings to boot from it, and it works the same on Macs.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

+1 for gsmart control. Works great for me. Also I think they have a portable Windows version of it you can drop on a flash drive. But it's open source if memory serves.

 

[ZenTree]

+2 for Gsmartcontrol. It's shown a failing drive when plenty of other tools have just checked the SMART values and said everything was fine.

 

[CheddarPCsKP]

Another plus for GSmart - works very well for us.

 

[mrapoc]

Gsmart fo sho.

Partedmagic is too good not to have.

 

[MichaelBits]

Use Gsmart as well. simple, quick, gives me what I need to know.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Another vote for gSmartControl. CrystalDisk Info is also good. I would avoid anything that stresses the drive until you have a t least a SMART status, as scanning may just push it over the edge if it's on its last legs. If SMART has any cautions, I image the drive using a hardware imager. Only after I have an image do I try to recover user data with Fabs.

 

[LABFE]

Thanks. It looks like GSmartControl is the clear favorite with Crystal Disk being a second option. I like the idea of booting it so that you don't even run the HDD. Does anyone know if there is a way to boot it from a USB drive other than via Parted Magic? From what I've heard of Parted Magic I'm pretty sure I'll be getting it, but just trying to decide whether to get it now or later. And if Parted Magic is the one option or best option for booting GSmartControl does it make more sense to buy the 1 yr subscription for $49 or the 1 time download for $9? Are the updates throughout the year very significant?

Is Parted Magic a good all in one tool if say SMART scan returns cautions and I want to image the drive and then try to recover user data? As mentioned by Larry above. Or do you need separate tools to image drive and recover files in this instance?

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I'd just get the 1 download, I think you can make as many copies as you want, and too, think of it this way, it's not like they bring out multiple windows OS's in a year lol.

 

[cypress]

Yeah I would opt for just the one time download as well with Parted Magic.

One of first things I do is run Crystal Disk Info and then do a Short Test with gSmartcontrol.

 

[Larry Sabo]

do you need separate tools to image drive and recover files in this instance?

If it has bad sectors, be sure to image it with ddrescue, not just copy/paste user files. Once you have the image, you can mount it with OSFMount then run Fabs against that. If the drive is in really rough shape and you don't have an MFT, you can use Active@ File Recovery to do a raw scan recovery. It has an Organize Files function (Pro version) that places recovered files in folders named using meta data from the recovered files. Much better than randomly-named folders/files.

 

[Frick]

HDD Guardian. Freeware that provides a Windows front-end for smartctl:

http://hddguardian.codeplex.com/

 

[Krynn72]

Thanks. It looks like GSmartControl is the clear favorite with Crystal Disk being a second option. I like the idea of booting it so that you don't even run the HDD. Does anyone know if there is a way to boot it from a USB drive other than via Parted Magic?

GSmartControl is just a linux application, so for instance I have it on my bench machine that runs Linux Mint, and can test drives like that if I have trouble booting from usb/cd on the customer's pc. Probably other live linux distros have it preinstalled, but Parted Magic is going to be the best around due to all the other advantages it has.

Once you have the image, you can mount it with OSFMount then run Fabs against that.

Hadn't heard of OSFMount before, thanks! Will be nice to just run fabs on the image rather than scan it with R-Studio and pull the info myself.

 

[Markverhyden]

Another vote for PM and gsmart. To be honest, since I'm mobile (no shop), I stopped running HD checks, for the most part, a long time ago. It is time consuming with today's large drives to run a full surface scan. Given the low cost of HD's, if the customer has what appears to be a problem drive, lots of BSD's, taking forever to do things, running very hot, etc, etc I just tell them the most economical thing to do is image over to a new drive. This also, by definition, creates a complete backup of the system at the same time.

 

[Krynn72]

Another vote for PM and gsmart. To be honest, since I'm mobile (no shop), I stopped running HD checks, for the most part, a long time ago. It is time consuming with today's large drives to run a full surface scan. Given the low cost of HD's, if the customer has what appears to be a problem drive, lots of BSD's, taking forever to do things, running very hot, etc, etc I just tell them the most economical thing to do is image over to a new drive. This also, by definition, creates a complete backup of the system at the same time.

Same here. Especially if you clone them to an SSD people will love it haha. Last job I had, cloned a customer's 250gb HDD with 40K hours on it that was taking 2+ mins to boot up, no major errors or UNCs on it, but I just clone it to a 256GB SSD and it boots in 20 seconds, all their complaints about slowness resolved. A beautiful thing.

 

[frase]

I use HDD sentinel might check out gsmart

 

[Eagle21]

GSmartControl is just a linux application ...

No it isn't. Have a look at their download page.
http://gsmartcontrol.sourceforge.net/home/index.php/Downloads
GSmartControl is a graphical user interface for smartctl. It runs on Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X and Windows.

Parted Magic is handy to use if the computer is not booting or slow. But if Windows is running you can run the portable version of GSmartControl from a USB stick.