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Thread: HD Checker program

  1. #1

    HD Checker program

    I was wondering if anyone knew of a reliable program (preferably free) that could check hard drives for errors while in Windows, as opposed to booting up with, say the maxtor HD utilities disk in or something like that. I have about 15 HD's that I am going to be selling off soon and I want to be able to tell people if they have bad sectors or not, as I am not looking to scam people out of their money. I have formatted all the drivers to clean them off, but I want to know what condition they are actually in...

    Does anyone know of anything worth taking a look at?

  2. #2
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    All there is are chkdsk and scandisk or third party tools like that. The problem is that because you are running Windows you are actually using part of the hard drive in the process.

    That is why you get a more reliable result by booting from a CD, thumbdrive, or floppy and running the tool from there.

    I believe that some of the boot CDs available have disk tools on them have a look at BartPE and the like.


  3. #3
    The Doctor Und3ertak3r's Avatar
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    Here knock yourself out

    Google Rulz

    Personaly I prefer the tools I have on my boot CD's..
    "Consumer technology now exceeds the average persons ability to comprehend how to use it..give up hope of them being able to understand how it works." - Me http://www.cybercrypt.co.nr

  4. #4
    Good of you to check the drives thoroughly first.

    I'd use the manufacturer's free tools to do it. WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics seems to work fine on the Maxtor drives I have, incidentally. It can write zeros.

    http://support.wdc.com/download/ind...&pid=999&swid=3

  5. #5
    Yeah, the way I see it is, I just want the drives gone, and will do what it takes now to ensure they are in working order so they are not returned to me.

    I will get the stuff downloaded and ready to go when I get home. Should be an unfun night... dinner, workout, then a night of checking and zero filling HD's. Awesome. What a way to spend a Saturday night...

  6. #6
    For scrubbing drives, I normally use DBAN , which does anything from a plain zero fill to multiple random overwrites.

  7. #7
    Well, I downloaded the WD tools for Windows use and so far so good... I like being able to use everything in windows, but it still takes a while to check each hard drive.

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