Comments on: 4 Tools To Predict and Prevent Hard Drive Failure

By: Tokey

Tokey — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:26:03 +0000

Peter, just because hard drives CAN fail without warning, doesn’t mean that its at all common. While SMART is indeed unreliable and you should ALWAYS backup, for the most part, hard drives do give warning before failing (clicking, slow response time, etc). The only time, actually, when you likely wouldn’t have any warning is in the event the HDD’s control board failed. As control board failure is probably the most unusual HDD failure mode, i personally find it prudent to use these tools.

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windows 7 tutorial — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:44:50 +0000

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windows 7 tutorial — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:43:43 +0000

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By: Many

Many — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:20:55 +0000

Very helpful!

By: chaplain

chaplain — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:16:57 +0000

thanks it worked to fine out if its ok and it was thanks=chaplain

By: Spuffler

Spuffler — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:27:35 +0000

Sad to say this, Seatools USED to fit on a floppy disk.
Then, it seems that in what may have been one major revision, Seagate, in a moment of sheer insanity, not only abandoned the small sized executable to create a larger Windows program, but Seagate also forces you to have a fully functional .NET environment as a prerequisite for using the new Windows executable. The change to Windows executable was, by itself, enough of a major blow against storage on floppies, but also forcing twenty odd megs of .NET as well? Where am I going to fit THAT monstrosity? On my hard disk? How many PCs have more than one hard disk? Not too many, so the very drive that is going to be tested is going to host this huge test suite because Seagate ‘updated’ these tools. And what consumer starts testing BEFORE the drive starts acting up? So lets put this scenario in order: I wait until I suspect hard disk is acting up. I download Seatools because I own a Seagate drive. Seagate says I also have to install Microsofts .NET framework, so I install .NET first, then install Seatools. By now, the hard disk has over 60 megs additional software (2 downloads, then 2 installed programs), and NOW I can start testing. Used to fit on a floppy.

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:56:18 +0000

Thanks for the info

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:48:48 +0000

that’s to dumb
just do a a checkdisk and pay atention to the results, that’s all
do it every week and your hdd will be happy and run a bit faster
you can also use it in dos just do chkdsk drive letter:\

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By: MrJim

MrJim — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:14:03 +0000

SpinRite works really well for offine maintenance and recovery. Intended to run from boot meda and small enough to fit on a floppy. Runs on any x86 based system. (Win, Linux, OSX, TiVo, …) Doesn’t even need to understand the filesystem. Been around for years and it just works.

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By: Serge

Serge — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:37:29 +0000

S.M.A.R.T technology uses threshold values to estimate the health status of a hard disk. The estimation of a failing date is like a trend estimation on how attribute value will change based on past values, it's just a statistical algorithm.

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By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:59:04 +0000

As an administrator of a small network, I can only agree with the others saying, back-up, back-up and back-up the data. Till SMART returns info that something is going bad, the data stored there is already in danger. A good paper to read is the study google has preformed on it’s servers.

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By: nixakki

nixakki — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:10:02 +0000

thanks for this information.. gonna try one of it..

By: manu

manu — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:35:45 +0000

Nice article.
What sprung to my mind is that those report could be useful in an lan environment.

Does anybody know a product which monitors harddrives in lan-clients?

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Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:01:51 +0000

By: Francisco Costa

Francisco Costa — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:52:51 +0000

Thank you!

By: T.J. Mininday

T.J. Mininday — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:10:04 +0000

1. Most say 35-40 degrees C. Anything above that consistently, you may want to look at other cooling methods.

2. I can’t answer that directly, although I’m sure the answer is yes. I’d try each manufacturer tools and see what kind of feedback they give you.

3. There are plenty of memory optimization/checking tools out there. Here are couple big ones.

http://www.memtest86.com/
http://www.simmtester.com/PAGE/products/doc/docinfo.asp

By: T.J. Mininday

T.J. Mininday — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:04:01 +0000

No doubt Spinrite would have been #1. These are all free products. Here at MakeUseOf, you’ll find 99% of our reviews are free.

If you don’t want to fork out the $90.00 for Spinrite, you have some options that I provided for you.

By: T.J. Mininday

T.J. Mininday — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:01:07 +0000

Agreed Spinrite is a solid app, but Steve Gibson charges way more then most would want to pay. If you are an Admin though, it’s a must have in your arsenal. We try to keep all of our reviews to free products only.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:52:27 +0000

I think there was a lot left out of this... S.M.A.R.T. seems to be important in the discussion and it is not always something that is featured on many drives. The fact that Windows Vista relies on it for certain system information puts Vista down a long way in my book. Someone mentioned Spinrite, which in my opinion should have been at the top of the list, along with HDD Observer whose product is now in version 3.0 and supports 64 bit.

By: imoDOTcom

imoDOTcom — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:09:27 +0000

Petr,
Many thanks!

By: Petr

Petr — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:05:09 +0000

imoDOTcom – I only use APC UPSs and surge protectors at home and at the office. Only because they offer a complete lifetime warranty on the system. I have had several surge protectors die due to surges (but they did their job protecting the equipment). They replace them no questions asked. So, basically an APC item will be the last one you will ever need to buy. I would guess other manufacturers do the same, but APC’s service is great.

By: imoDOTcom

imoDOTcom — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:48:52 +0000

Hello Preston,

Re. UPS, good observation! I can now remember that my failed Disk PCs were NOT on UPS.

Can anyone RECOMMEND UPSs from LOW Range to HIGH Range, or Brands (because I have Servers as well as Client PCs in a medical office.)

This Topic is very useful!! imoDOTcom