There are many free testing tools to help us predict and protect ourselves from these unavoidable circumstances of a hard drive failure. All versions of Windows include the Check Disk tool, which offers a simple way to care for your hard-disk and to identify errors, but it is usually of little help in identifying hardware failures. However, there are apps can read the various reliability indicators monitored by S.M.A.R.T.Īll the major manufacturers recommend occasional checks of your hard drives, as well as running some surface tests and benchmarks. Unfortunately, it only lets itself be known to us when there is an imminent hardware failure, which might be a little late. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) is a built-in monitoring system found on all modern HDDs and SSDs. and its role in checking the health of your HDD or SSD
You could buy a new hard drive and install it in your current computer, which is ideal if your device is still fairly new, such as one or two years. As someone who lost a week-long project due to a sudden drive failure, keep those important files backed up in real time. If you’re trying to get the last bit of life out of your drive, make sure you’re saving any open files regularly to an external drive or a cloud-based storage service.
If you can create a full disk image, you likely won’t have to worry about this though. To make it easier to make the transition easier from an old drive to a new one, create a list of everything you need to install along with any product keys.
It also helps check hard disk health by showing you any errors. The Windows CHKDSK tool is a built-in Windows tool that will scan your hard disk to find system errors and bad sectors.
To help you out, the following are links to the relevant download pages of some of the biggest hard drive brands:Įach of these tools functions a little differently, but most importantly, each one has diagnostic features that let you test your hard drive health.Īlso read: 9 Things You Must Do When Running an SSD in Windows 4.
On Dell and HP laptops, you should be able to check hard drive health by going to the BIOS and looking for “Diagnostics.”Īlso read: How to Fix “This Setting Is Managed by Your Administrator” in Windows 10 2. The BIOS is also a good place to see whether the hard drive you want to check is actually being detected by your PC/motherboard.