Any way to test health of hard drive? 8.1

Pittguy578

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Is there any way for me to test the health of a hard drive?

Here is the situation. I originally had a very old 250 GB Seagate drive that served as my primary drive for a long time. Never had any issues with it. I wanted a little more space so I purchased a 1 TB Western Digital Drive and used Acronis to set it up as my primary drive and put the old Seagate in a case so I have a "backup". It seems like every 6 months or so something happens where I need to put my old drive back in and then reclone it to the 1TB drive. This past time I simply bumped the power cord on the tower when grabbing something and it turned off the computer. Turned it back on and it was super slow and had major performance issues. Did a sfc /scannow. Fixed a few things. Tried to do a disk defragment and then it said I had errors so I went and restarted and it said it fixed the issues, but then later it happened again. Finally got frustrated and put the old 250 GB one back in so I would have a functional computer. Didn't clone it to the 1TB drive yet since had no time, and I wanted to work on it to see if I could get it "fixed" as I had more stuff on that drive, but nothing life changing. Is there any way I could test the drive to see if there is something inherently wrong with the drive as opposed to "normal wear/tear my mistakes like bumping the power cord? I could get a new drive if there is something actually mechanically wrong with it.
 

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You can also run a chkdsk /f /r in Command Prompt. Be aware that this can take quite a while on such a big disk. Just minimize the command prompt window and go on doing other work.

If you have several drives, you have to add X: to the command where X is the letter of the drive.
 

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Totally random question...would I be able to error check/fix errors on the "bad drive" while I am using the old drive as my primary?[/QUOTE]

The second drive is an external usb drive.. if that helps your query. It can be tested by selecting it.

WD interface.JPG
 

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Totally random question...would I be able to error check/fix errors on the "bad drive" while I am using the old drive as my primary?

The second drive is an external usb drive.. if that helps your query. It can be tested by selecting it.

View attachment 55957[/QUOTE]

Got it. I guess the question was phrased poorly..since it is not the primary drive the "errors" can be repaired without having to reboot the system and have it done at startup?
 

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Whats good about the WD Diagnostics and it finds a problem you can use that information to get a RMA from WD

Jim :cool:
 

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Ran the Western Digital diagnostics .. Too many bad sectors . Drive is literally about a year old. I had RMAd the first one last January and they sent me a new one. Can't believe this. Two bad drives from them
 

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Pittguy578

Both are good tools, but you can ascertain that there is a physical problem with the diagnostic tool quicker. You can infer from consistent data corruption occurring via chkdsk /r /f that something is wrong with the drive but it could also be an OS problem so you have two variables to worry about instead of one with the. diagnostic.
 
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    Acer Aspire ES1-512-CSYW
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    Intel Celeron N2840 @ 2.16GHz
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    Acer Aspire ES1-512 BIOS: Insyde Corps V1.07
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Pittguy578

Both are good tools, but you can ascertain that there is a physical problem with the diagnostic tool quicker. You can infer from consistent data corruption occurring via Windows that something is wrong with the drive but it could also be an OS problem so you have two variables to worry about instead of one with the. diagnostic.

Thank you. I was thinking it could possibly be something "physical" but then I was thinking there was no way for that to be the case since the drive was so relatively new. The thing that threw me off was that I had absolutely had no issues with the drive until the other night when I bumped the power cord and it shut off so I tbought it was something minor . I did use the command prompt tools and the disk repair tools and it said things were fixed .guess not
 

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Ran the Western Digital diagnostics .. Too many bad sectors . Drive is literally about a year old. I had RMAd the first one last January and they sent me a new one. Can't believe this. Two bad drives from them

a lot of hdd makers send refurbish drives for rma drives.
 

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    gigibyte ga-78lmy-s2p
    Memory
    4gig ddr3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radon hd5000 Series
    Sound Card
    onboard realtek hd
    Monitor(s) Displays
    19" viewsonic/ 22"Samsung
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    128gig ssd Kingston
    80gig WD 10000 rpm spinner
    Case
    micro
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    microsoft curve 200
    Mouse
    Logitech wireless M215
    Internet Speed
    high speed 20
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    ie 11
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    windows defender
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    updated enterprise apr 2/14
I am not sure if I am going to RMA this one. Maybe I will do it, but I am going to get a brand new Seagate 1 TB at Best Buy tomorrow. The Seagate 250 GB Drive I have now as my primary temporarily has been around for literally 6-7 years with no issues. If I do get an RMA, I will use it as a 3rd backup or sell it on Ebay

Quick question..if I am able to get the new drive tomorrow. and.if I am able to get the old drive to work..if I image the old drive to the new one will there automatically be errors?
 

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No, if the image works, it should be OK. You could also try to clone it, but that takes a lot longer.
 

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    2xHP, 2xGateway, 1xDell, 1xSony
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    5 SSDs and 12 HDs
@Pittguy578 - You could just be having a bad luck streak with drives, but note (if unlucky) even a single sudden loss of power can corrupt a hard drive. If you have had several power outages, or if your power supply is a bit unstable, these problems may persist. You might consider swapping in a known good PSU.

whs said:
You can also run a chkdsk /f /r

caperjack said:
chkdsk /f /r in Command Prompt.

the f=fix. the r= repair
Sorry guys but there is some confusion here. You don't need to use /f with /r because /r "implies" (already includes) /f.

In other words, all you need is chkdsk /r and chkdsk will attempt to fix any error AND recover any readable information on that drive, just as if you used chkdsk /r /f.

Also, please note /r is for "recover" not repair and this is why /r includes /f - the drive cannot recover any data without first attempting to fix the error at that location.

To verify this yourselves, use the common DOS /? switch. Open a command prompt and enter chkdsk /?. There you will see examples of all the syntax options, and their descriptions. Note if you know your drive was formatted using the NTFS file system, you could use chkdsk /b and this will "imply" (include) /r which already implies /f.
 

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You don't even need command prompt, just right c: drive > tools tab > error checking:
View attachment 56003
 

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Yep! Error Checking does the same thing. Note with W7 and before, you need to check both options to enable /r.
 

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sorry for the error with the /R ,i was going from a very bad memory [mine]should have doubled checked before I posted .

just because the drive is so new doesn't mean it can be bad ,I have seen new drives that were bad from the factory
 

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    AMD FX 6100 6core 3.30gHz
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    gigibyte ga-78lmy-s2p
    Memory
    4gig ddr3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radon hd5000 Series
    Sound Card
    onboard realtek hd
    Monitor(s) Displays
    19" viewsonic/ 22"Samsung
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    128gig ssd Kingston
    80gig WD 10000 rpm spinner
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    micro
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    microsoft curve 200
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I have used WD Black drives for years and they are the only ones I know about that still have a 5 year warranty.
Had one fail a few years ago and RMA was easy.

Jim :cool:
 

My Computer

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  • OS
    Windows 7 HP 64bit, Windows 8.1 Pro w/Media Center 64BIT
    Computer type
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    System Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS - Home Built
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    AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
    Motherboard
    ASUS M5A99X EVO
    Memory
    Crucial Balistic DDR-3 1866 CL 9 (8 GB)
    Graphics Card(s)
    MSI R6850 Cyclone IGD5 PE
    Sound Card
    On Chip
    Monitor(s) Displays
    ASUS VE258Q 25" LED with DVI-HDMI-DisplayPort
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    Two WD Cavier Black 2TB Sata 6gbs
    WD My Book Essential 2TB USB 3.0
    PSU
    Seasonic X650 80 Plus GOLD Modular
    Case
    Corsair 400R
    Cooling
    Antec Kuhler H2O 620, Two 120mm and four 140mm
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    AVS Gear Blue LED Backlight
    Mouse
    Logitech Marble Mouse USB, Logitech Precision Game Pad
    Internet Speed
    15MB
    Antivirus
    NIS, Malwarebytes Premium 2
    Other Info
    APC UPS ES 750, Netgear WNR3500L Gigabit & Wireless N Router with SamKnows Test Program,
    Motorola SB6120 Gigabit Cable Modem.
    Brother HL-2170W Laser Printer,
    Epson V300 Scanner
Quick question..if I am able to get the new drive tomorrow. and.if I am able to get the old drive to work..if I image the old drive to the new one will there automatically be errors?

Like whs says you should be ok if the image works. The new media that the image is on should be sound so it's not liable to further corruption. You can run chkdsk to fix any errors in the old image once put on a new drive and it should stay that way.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 with Bing x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire ES1-512-CSYW
    CPU
    Intel Celeron N2840 @ 2.16GHz
    Motherboard
    Acer Aspire ES1-512 BIOS: Insyde Corps V1.07
    Memory
    4GB DDR3L SDRAM
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD
    Internet Speed
    10Mb/s 3 Network HSPA+
    Browser
    IE11 and Firefox
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
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