Yes, the Hitachi tool is good, but over here we tend to use the manufacturer specific diagnostics, as they will give you the RTB/RTM documentation if the drive is still in warranty A lot of drives have a 3 year warranty but the OEM only gives you a year..............you just send them the drive back with the paperwork and they replace it.

I tend to use the UBCD and just add tools that I find useful such as Recuva:

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

I don't think that there actually is a "best", you just need the boot facility and add your own stuff and keep it updated.