There are many ways to check hard drives. free tools, which can assist in determining what is happening with the hard drive when there is a suspicion that there is some kind of problem with it.
IN operating system type Windows already included tools such as checking the disk for errors and the command chkdsk, but there are other tools below that are available for free from hard drive manufacturers and other developers.
Important: Depending on the problem found, you may need to replace the hard drive if it fails any of the given hard drive tests. To do this, you need to follow the tips given in the program.
Seagate SeaTools is a free program for testing hard disks, available to users in one of two options:
- SeaTools for DOS Supports Seagate or Maxtor drives and works regardless of your operating system, running directly from a CD or USB drive, making this program very reliable.
- SeaTools for Windows is a program that needs to be installed on the Windows operating system. With its help, you can perform basic and advanced testing of any drives from any manufacturers - both internal and external.
Those users who access SeaTools Desktop, SeaTools Online, or PowerMax from Maxtor should note that the above program replaces all three of these programs. Today Seagate is the owner trademark Maxtor.
SeaTools from Seagate are the best in their segment. They are used to check hard drives in professional computer services, but any user can easily use them.
The Windows version of SeaTools runs on operating systems from Windows 10 to Windows XP.
HDDScan is a free program for checking all types of drives, regardless of their manufacturer.
HDDScan includes several tools, including SMART testing and surface inspection.
The program is very easy to use, does not require installation, supports almost all drive interfaces, and seems to be updated regularly.
HDDScan can be used on Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP, as well as Windows Server 2003.
DiskCheckup is free tool hard checks disk, which works with most disks.
The program displays SMART information such as the number of read errors, the time it takes for the wafer pack to spin up from rest to operating speed, the frequency of errors when positioning the magnetic head unit, and temperature. In addition, it can perform a quick and advanced disk scan.
You can configure the program so that SMART section information is sent by email or displayed when the disk parameters exceed the threshold values recommended by the manufacturer.
Hard drives that have a SCSI connection or implement hardware RAID are not supported by DiskCheckup.
DiskCheckup runs on Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP and Windows Server 2008/2003 operating systems.
GSmartControl can perform a variety of hard drive tests, providing detailed results and an overall assessment of the drive's health.
GSmartControl can perform three self-tests to troubleshoot a drive:
- Quick check: takes about 2 minutes and is used to identify a seriously damaged hard drive.
- Extended check: Takes about 70 minutes and will scan the entire surface of the hard drive to detect failures.
- Transportation check: This test takes 5 minutes and is designed to look for damage that may have occurred while the drive was in transit.
GSmartControl can be downloaded for Windows either as a portable version or as an installable program. It works on system versions from Windows 10 to Windows XP. You can also get a version of the program for operating rooms Linux systems and Mac and programs in LiveCD/LiveUSB format.
Windows Drive Fitness Test is free software For diagnosing hard drives, capable of running on most drives available today.
Unfortunately, when Windows Help Drive Fitness Test can only be checked USB drives and other internal drives.
WinDFT can be installed on Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP operating systems.
Samsung HUTIL program is free utility for diagnosing Samsung hard drives. Sometimes HUTIL is called ES-Tool.
The Samsung HUTIL program is available as an ISO image for subsequent recording on a CD or USB flash drive. This approach makes HUTIL independent of the operating system and, in general, a more convenient tool for testing than programs developed for the Windows operating system. You can also run HUTIL from a boot diskette.
Comment: The HUTIL program will only check hard disks Samsung. It will boot and find non-Samsung discs, but no diagnostics can be performed on such discs.
Because the Samsung program HUTIL works from a boot disk, so for it to work you will need a functioning hard drive and an operating system to burn it to a CD or USB flash drive.
The free Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic (DLGDIAG) program is designed to test only Western Digital branded hard drives.
Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic can be downloaded as a portable version for Windows, or as an ISO file with an image for recording on boot disk, and performs a series of checks on the hard drive. Detailed instructions Installation instructions from Western Digital can be found at the link below.
Comment: The DOS version of DLGDIAG diagnoses only Western Digital drives, while the Windows version of this program also works with drives from other manufacturers.
The Windows version of the program works on operating systems from Windows 10 to Windows XP
Bart's Stuff Test
Bart's Stuff Test is free program for Windows, performing load tests on hard drives.
The program does not provide as many opportunities, and does not carry out such thorough hard testing disk, like other programs in this list.
All things considered, Bart's Stuff Test is good addition to your disk scanning arsenal, especially if you have difficulty scanning using ISO-based tools and want to use something other than the default Windows tools.
Bart's Stuff Test, as stated, only works on operating systems from Windows XP to Windows 95. However, we tested its performance on the most latest versions systems (Windows 10 and Windows 8) and did not find any problems.
Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool is a free hard drive diagnostic tool designed specifically for Fujitsu hard drives.
The Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool (FJDT) is available in a Windows version and a DOS version using a boot diskette. Unfortunately, the DOS version is focused on using floppy disks - images that will run from CD or USB are not available.
Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool provides two tests: a “quick test” (lasting about 3 minutes) and an “all third party test”, the execution time of which will depend on the size of the hard drive).
Comment: Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool performs hard drive testing only for drives manufactured by Fujitsu. If you have a disk from another manufacturer, then you should try to use the manufacturer-independent programs listed at the beginning of the list.
Version for Windows programs Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool should work on all operating systems, from Windows 10 to Windows 2000.
HD Tune performs hard drive checks while running Windows. It can work with any internal or external drives, SSD drives or memory cards.
With HD Tune you can perform a performance test, check the health of the drive using Self-Monitoring Analysis mode and Drive Activity Reporting Technology (SMART). In addition, the program can scan the disk for errors.
Supported on Windows 7, Vista, XP, and 2000 systems, although correct work HD Tune has been tested on both Windows 10 and Windows 8.
The Free EASIS Drive Check program, designed to check hard drives, has two built-in checking utilities - checking sectors and reading SMART attribute values.
The SMART attribute check allows you to create a list of more than 40 parameters that describe the operation of the hard drive, and the sector check will check the surface of the media for read errors.
A report on the execution of any of these tests can be seen directly in the program after its completion. In addition, you can configure the program so that the report is sent to email or printed.
According to the description, EASIS Drive Check works on operating systems from Windows 2000 to Windows 7, but its performance has also been tested on Windows 8 and 10.
The error checking program is sometimes called the scandisk program. This is a hard drive scan tool included with the Windows operating system that allows you to search for a variety of errors on your hard drive.
This tool may also try to fix a number of hard drive-related problems.
Macrorit Disk Scanner is very simple program, checking for availability bad sectors on your hard drive. It is easy to use, installs quickly, and is also available in a portable version.
The main part of its window is used for visual representation scanning process and clearly indicates the location of damage.
Especially well implemented in Macrorit Disk Scanner is the visual display of how much time is left until the end of the scan, because Some hard drive checking programs do not show this. In addition, you can select the option to automatically turn off the computer when the scan is completed.
Operating systems that Macrorit Disk Scanner can run on are: Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, Windows Home Server, and Windows Server 2012/2008/2003.
Ariolic Disk Scanner is very similar to Macrorit Disk Scanner in that it uses read-only to find bad disk sectors. This program has a minimal interface with a single button, and using it, it is easy to understand which parts of the disk contain “bad” sectors.
The program has only a portable version, and its size is slightly more than 1 MB.
The only thing that distinguishes this program from Macrorit Disk Scanner is that Ariolic Disk Scanner shows files that have read errors.
We only tested Ariolic Disk Scanner on Windows 10 and XP, but it should also work on other versions of Windows.
Many PC users hardly think about checking the status of their HDD. Checking the hard drive is, first of all, necessary for early detection of errors in it.
If you manage to identify hard drive problems in advance, you can save all important information, stored on it until its final failure.
In this material, we will describe, using specific examples, the procedure for checking the status of the HDD, and also tell you what to do in a situation if your hard drive is faulty.
How to check the status of your hard drive
You can check the status of your hard drive using various utilities that read the status of your hard drive from its self-diagnosis system SMART. SMART technology is now installed on every hard drive produced. SMART technology was developed back in 1992 and is still being improved to this day. The main goal of SMART is logging the hard drive aging process. That is, information such as the number of HDD starts, the number of spindle rotations and many others is collected. More SMART watches for errors"screw", both software and mechanical and, to the extent possible corrects them. During the monitoring process, SMART performs various short and long tests to identify those same faults. In this material we will look at such programs that can read information from SMART:
- Ashampoo HDD Control 3;
- Defraggler;
- HDDlife;
- Victoria.
Each program on the list, in addition to reading SMART readings, offers a number of functions and tests that, to one degree or another, extend the life of the hard drive. But the most interesting is the program Victoria. The Victoria program, in addition to determining the HDD state, can also produce REMAP of bad sectors. That is, she can hide bad sectors by replacing them with spare ones, if available. Essentially, the REMAP procedure can completely restore the hard drive. It is also worth noting the possibility of fixing the hard drive thanks to the console application “ chkdsk" The console program "chkdsk" can fix file system errors, which will allow you to avoid reinstalling Windows.
Ashampoo HDD Control 3
First we will look at the program Ashampoo HDD Control 3. Let's run this utility on a computer running Windows 10.
The Ashampoo HDD Control 3 window displays the message “ ✓ OK", as well as the inscription " This hard drive has no problems" This information means that the hard drive in question is in perfect order. If when opening the program you see the message “ Error", as well as the inscription " This hard drive has a problem", this means that it has bad sectors or is overheating. To view complete information about the health of the “screw” taken from the smart, you need to click on the footnote “” located in the central block.
In addition to viewing information from the smart device, Ashampoo HDD Control 3 can launch self test S.M.A.R.T. And surface inspection test. You can test these tests in the "" block.
By performing these tests, you can also identify problems with the HDD. In addition to taking readings from smart devices and tests, Ashampoo HDD Control 3 can:
- Perform defragmentation;
- Clean the system of debris;
- Find and delete duplicate files;
- Securely erase files from the HDD, without the possibility of recovery.
The presence of such functionality of Ashampoo HDD Control 3 in monitoring the health of the screw and additional functions puts utility first.
Defraggler
Utility Defraggler primarily intended for defragmentation, but besides this she can read SMART readings. The utility is free and any user can download it from the website www.piriform.com. After launching the utility, you need to go to the “ State».
In the window you can see that the utility displays a message about the status of the screw, like “ GOOD" - this means that he is completely fine. If you see the message " Error" in status, this will mean that the hard drive has bad sectors and it’s time to change it. The utility is quite simple and is suitable primarily for novice PC users who want to monitor the health of the HDD and defragment it. I would also like to note that the utility supports all current operating systems, from Windows XP to Windows 10.
How to check your hard drive using HDDlife
Utility HDDlife It has a nice interface and immediately provides the information we need, which is responsible for the serviceability and breakdown of the screw.
From the image above you can see that in the health block there is " OK!", which means that everything is fine with the HDD. To view smart details, you just need to click on the link “ click to view S.M.A.R.T. attributes».
If you see a message in the health block " DANGER!", this means that your HDD will soon become unusable.
In this case, you need to replace the old hard drive with a new one. The HDDlife utility is, first of all, suitable for novice PC users, since its simplicity will make it easy to monitor the health of the “screw”. In addition to the standard utility, the developer also releases HDDlife for Notebooks, which is designed for laptops. The laptop version has the same functionality as the standard version, but can also perform level control HDD noise . It is also worth noting that the program supports all current operating systems, from Windows XP to Windows 10.
Victoria
Program Victoria is being developed in a version for DOS and by Windows. For our example, we will use the Windows version of Victoria, which can be downloaded from http://hdd-911.com. On this moment Victoria is available in version 4.47. By launching the Victoria utility, we will be taken to such a window.
Victoria does not have a beautiful interface, as in previous utilities and is written in such old languages as Delphi And Assembler.
In the first tab of the quiz " Standard"is all information about installed hard drives to the computer.
Second tab " SMART» needed for smart reading. To display smart results, you must click the Get SMART button, after which the results will be displayed.
In the hard drive in question, Victoria discovered 1212 bad sectors. This number of BAD sectors is critical, so in this case it is necessary to full backup all data from the HDD. To repair a hard drive using the REMAP test in Victoria, you need to go to the “ Tests" and select the mode " Remap" After these steps, you can begin the reassignment procedure bad sectors to the backup button Start.
The REMAP test in Victoria can take a very long time. The test time depends on the number of BAD sectors. This test of the Victoria utility does not always help, since there may not be any spare sectors left in the screw.
Please note that using Victoria tests, you can damage the serviceability of the HDD and the information on it.
How to check if a disk is healthy using “chkdsk”
It may happen that by checking the S.M.A.R.T. values. Using the utilities described above, you did not find any problems, but the system still behaves unstable. Instability may manifest itself blue screens death, freezes in programs. This behavior of the Windows operating system is caused by file system errors. In this case it will help us console command « chkdsk" By running the "chkdsk" command, you can fully restore functionality Windows OS. For this example, we will take a computer with a new operating system Windows system 10. First of all, open the console in Windows 10 as an administrator. This can be easily done by right-clicking on the “ Start» and selecting the item we need.
In the running console, execute the following command CHKDSK F: /F /R After checking using command application“chkdsk” will display the result of the check in the console.
Now let's look at the command " CHKDSK F: /F /R» more details. Immediately after the command “chkdsk” comes the letter “ F" - this letter local disk , where we correct errors. Keys " /F" And " /R» fix errors in the file system, and fix bad sectors. These keys are almost always used, unlike the others. You can see other keys chkdsk command /?
It is also worth noting that in Windows 10 the capabilities of the chkdsk application have been significantly expanded thanks to new keys.
How to check your hard drive's health using DST
Abbreviation DST deciphered Disk Self Test, that is self test disk. Manufacturers specifically integrate this method into the HDD, so that later, using special software, they can perform DST self-diagnosis, which will identify problems. By testing the “screw” using DST you can get information about possible hard drive failure. It is especially convenient to use DST on servers and computers of enterprises, where reliable storage of information plays an important role. Now let's look at using DST using HP laptops as an example. For new HP laptops with support UEFI BIOS There is a special diagnostic menu " Startup Menu" Starts this menu by using combination of power key and key ESC.
To run system tests, press the F2 button.
In the window that appears, DST is called Hard Disk Test. After selecting it, a self-test will start.
Other manufacturers also have a DST method, only the launch on a PC from other manufacturers differs from that discussed above.
Checking your hard drive in Linux
For example, let's take a computer based on the operating system Ubuntu systems 16.04. To do this, let's launch a terminal in Ubuntu. In the terminal, type the following command: sudo apt-get install smartmontools This command should install
If you don't like working in console mode, you can install a graphical utility Gnome-disk-utility. In it you can see everything you need about the HDD and its condition.
Let's sum it up
In the article reviewed, we described how you can monitor the status of the HDD, as well as how to fix its sectors and file system, if possible. From the material it becomes clear that monitoring the status of hard drives is very important, as it allows anticipate HDD failure.
If you have discovered that your hard drive is problematic, then do not put off replacing it until later. The problematic “screw” can fail at any moment, and you will lose all the information stored on the computer.
We hope our material will be useful to our readers and will completely help solve the problem of checking a hard drive.
Video on the topic
A modern computer is made to withstand more than one year permanent job. You probably have friends (or you yourself are a user) whose PC has been working for almost ten years and, with the exception of not the best performance, does not show any signs of “illness” or imminent death. Unfortunately, not all computer components are as durable as RAM, processor or motherboard. Just like in a car, a modern PC has consumable components that need to be replaced over time. This primarily concerns the storage system or hard drive / SSD.
You don't have to wait until the operating system stops turning on or your files suddenly disappear. You can detect the approaching need to replace a disk using special applications that monitor the state of the “health” of the disk and can promptly advise you to make a backup copy and prepare money for a new drive.
Checking disk health without programs
Windows 10 is a complex and comprehensive system, but it still does not have a full-fledged utility for checking the status of disks. It may indicate that the disk is either working normally or is in need of replacement. The latter often means that the drive has actually come to an end. Unfortunately, there are no intermediate values here. However, let's consider a method that allows you to find out the health of a disk in Windows 10 without third-party programs.
To analyze the disk's health, Windows takes information from the S.M.A.R.T self-diagnosis data. The disadvantage of this approach is that if the drive is on the verge of death, and the self-diagnostic systems report that "all is well", the Control Panel will indicate that the drive is working normally. This does not give the user the opportunity to notice disk degradation in time and transfer important information to a new drive. To do this you need to use third party applications. Fortunately, there are plenty of them on the Internet. Below we have compiled a list of applications that we ourselves use and which we consider the most convenient.
Program for checking disk health
It is worth noting that the program cannot 100% accurately predict how long the disk will last. Still, third-party applications will provide you with a more accurate picture of the status of your drives and help you avoid sudden troubles.
One of the most popular applications of its kind is called CrystalDisk Info from the creators of the popular CrystalDisk Mark benchmark, with which you can. It is small, does not require installation, is translated into Russian and displays a large amount of useful information. Download CrystalDisk Info from the official website and launch the application. At the top you will see a panel that displays all your physical disks (if you have one HDD installed, divided into 4 partitions, the application will display one disk) with brief information about their condition. Click on the disk you need, after which you will see details about its operation.
Pay attention to large blocks first Technical condition And Temperature. The first indicator is “health”. Its value is calculated based on a large amount of data about the operation of the disk, such as operating hours, number of starts, rewrites, errors, temperature, and so on. Each of these parameters can be found in separate windows.
The screenshot, for example, shows that a Kingston SSD with a 95% “health” state worked for 6620 hours, which equals 275 days of continuous operation. The longer an SSD operates and the more rewrite cycles it has, the more its “health” deteriorates. The health of a hard drive depends on the number of so-called “BAD blocks” and unstable sectors, as well as the ability of the disk firmware to correct them. All this information can be found at CrystalDisk Info. If any of the drive parameters deviate from the norm, the application will notify you about this with the appropriate color designation. If the parameter is colored blue, then everything is fine with the disk. Yellow is already an alarm. Red means things are really bad, and gray means the application was unable to detect the value. Please note that a health value below 100% does not mean that it is time for you to change the disk now. Replacement is recommended for values below 50% or for attributes highlighted in yellow or red.
Another good program for determining the health of a disk is Hard Disk Sentinel. It is also localized into Russian and offers a slightly more convenient interface for checking a large number of indicators of your drives. Additionally, unlike CrystalDisk Info, Har Disk Sentinel would be better suited for continuous disk monitoring. For example, in it you can set a threshold for the temperature of the disks, upon reaching which the application will notify you of the need to cool the air inside the case to avoid overheating. Hard Disk Sentinel more clearly demonstrates the condition of disks, their performance and operating time, and can also predict the remaining life cycle based current state disk. In addition, various tests are built into it, with which you can find out about “BAD blocks” and other problems. If problems are detected, HDS will give you recommendations that will help you decide what to do with the drive and whether to buy a new one.
HDS is a complex and very large application that can take a long time to describe. In this article we will only focus your attention on the main thing. You just need to install and run the program, after which you will receive a sufficient amount of information about the health of the disk. If you have the time and desire, the application can be studied and flexibly customized for yourself, but this is a topic for a separate article. The only downsides that can be noted are poor optimization for high-resolution screens, as well as downright ugly icons not only inside the application, but also in Explorer.
You can also mention diagnostic utilities from the drive manufacturers themselves, like Seagate, Western Digital or Toshiba, but they all often lag far behind the applications mentioned in this article in terms of convenience and capabilities, so we will not recommend using them.
Having applications for diagnosing hard drives, you will always be aware of their status and at the right time you can quickly and painlessly move your files to new disk, if the existing one begins to show signs of imminent demise. If you use other utilities that you consider better than CrystalDisk Info or Hard Disk Sentinel, please tell us about them in the comments.
A modern hard drive is a unique computer component. It is unique in that it stores service information, by studying which you can assess the “health” of the disk. This information contains the history of changes in many parameters monitored by the hard drive during operation. No more components system unit does not provide the owner with statistics of his work! Coupled with the fact that the HDD is one of the most unreliable components of a computer, such statistics can be very useful and help its owner avoid hassle and loss of money and time.
Information about the status of the disk is available thanks to a set of technologies collectively called S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analisys and Reporting Technology, i.e. technology of self-monitoring, analysis and reporting). This complex is quite extensive, but we will talk about those aspects of it that allow you to look at the S.M.A.R.T. attributes displayed in any hard drive testing program and understand what is going on with the disk.
Please note that the following applies to discs with SATA interfaces and RATA. SAS, SCSI and other server drives also have S.M.A.R.T., but its presentation is very different from SATA/PATA. And it’s usually not a person who monitors server disks, but a RAID controller, so we won’t talk about them.
So, if we open S.M.A.R.T. in any of the numerous programs, we will see approximately the following picture (the screenshot shows the S.M.A.R.T. of the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C HDS721010CLA332 disk in HDDScan 3.3):
Each line displays a different S.M.A.R.T attribute. Attributes have more or less standardized names and specific number, which do not depend on the model and manufacturer of the disk.
Each S.M.A.R.T. attribute has several fields. Each field belongs to a specific class from the following: ID, Value, Worst, Threshold and RAW. Let's look at each of the classes.
- ID(may also be called Number) - identifier, attribute number in S.M.A.R.T technology. The name of the same attribute can be given differently by programs, but the identifier always uniquely identifies the attribute. This is especially useful in the case of programs that translate the common attribute name from in English into Russian. Sometimes the result is such nonsense that you can understand what kind of parameter it is only by its identifier.
- Value (Current)— the current value of the attribute in parrots (i.e., in values of unknown dimension). During the operation of the hard drive, it can decrease, increase and remain unchanged. Using the Value indicator, you cannot judge the “health” of an attribute without comparing it with the Threshold value of the same attribute. As a rule, the smaller the Value, the worse the state of the attribute (initially all value classes except RAW on the new disk have the maximum possible value, for example 100).
- Worst— the worst value that Value reached during the entire life of the hard drive. It is also measured in “parrots”. During operation, it may decrease or remain unchanged. It is also impossible to clearly judge the health of an attribute; you need to compare it with Threshold.
- Threshold— the value in “parrots” that the Value of the same attribute must reach in order for the attribute’s state to be considered critical. Simply put, Threshold is a threshold: if Value is greater than Threshold, the attribute is OK; if less or equal - with the problem attribute. It is according to this criterion that utilities that read S.M.A.R.T. issue a report on the state of the disk or an individual attribute like “Good” or “Bad”. At the same time, they do not take into account that even with a Value greater than Threshold, the disk may in fact already be dying from the user’s point of view, or even a walking dead man, so when assessing the health of a disk, it is still worth looking at another attribute class, and namely RAW. However, it is the Value value that falls below Threshold that can become a legitimate reason for replacing the disk under warranty (for the warranty providers themselves, of course) - who can speak more clearly about the health of the disk than himself, demonstrating the current attribute value is worse than the critical threshold? That is, with a Value value greater than Threshold, the disk itself considers that the attribute is healthy, and with a value less than or equal to it, that it is sick. Obviously, if Threshold=0, the attribute state will never be considered critical. Threshold is a constant parameter hardcoded into the disk by the manufacturer.
- RAW (Data)- the most interesting, important and necessary indicator for evaluation. In most cases, it does not contain “parrots”, but real values expressed in various units of measurement, directly indicating the current state of the disk. Based on this indicator, the Value value is formed (but by what algorithm it is formed is already a secret of the manufacturer, shrouded in darkness). It is the ability to read and analyze the RAW field that makes it possible to objectively assess the condition of the hard drive.
This is what we will do now - we will analyze all the most used S.M.A.R.T. attributes, see what they say and what needs to be done if they are not in order.
| Attributes S.M.A.R.T. | |||||||||||||||||
| 0x | |||||||||||||||||
| 0x | |||||||||||||||||
Before describing attributes and acceptable values of their RAW field, let me clarify that attributes can have a RAW field different types: current and accumulating. The current field contains the value of the attribute at the moment; it is characterized by periodic changes (for some attributes - occasionally, for others - many times per second; another thing is that in S.M.A.R.T. reading programs such rapid change not displayed). Accumulation field - contains statistics, usually it contains the number of occurrences of a particular event since the disk was first started.
The current type is typical for attributes for which there is no point in summing their previous readings. For example, the disk temperature display is current: its purpose is to show the current temperature, not the sum of all previous temperatures. The accumulating type is characteristic of attributes for which their whole purpose is to provide information over the entire “life” of the hard drive. For example, an attribute characterizing the operating time of a disk is cumulative, i.e., it contains the number of units of time worked by the drive over its entire history.
Let's start looking at attributes and their RAW fields.
Attribute: 01 Raw Read Error Rate
All Seagate, Samsung (starting with the SpinPoint F1 family (inclusive)) and Fujitsu 2.5″ drives have huge numbers in these fields.
For other Samsung drives and all WD drives, this field is set to 0.
For Hitachi disks, this field is characterized by 0 or periodic changes in the field ranging from 0 to several units.
Such differences are due to the fact that all Seagate hard drives, some Samsung and Fujitsu consider the values of these parameters differently than WD, Hitachi and other Samsung. When any hard drive operates, errors of this kind always arise, and it overcomes them on its own, this is normal, it’s just that on disks that contain 0 or a small number in this field, the manufacturer did not consider it necessary to indicate the true number of these errors.
Thus, a non-zero parameter on WD and Samsung drives up to SpinPoint F1 (not inclusive) and a large parameter value on Hitachi drives may indicate hardware problems with the drive. Note that utilities may display multiple values contained in the RAW field of this attribute as one, and it will appear quite large, although this will not be correct (see below for details).
On Seagate, Samsung (SpinPoint F1 and newer) and Fujitsu drives, you can ignore this attribute.
Attribute: 02 Throughput Performance
The parameter does not provide any information to the user and does not indicate any danger for any of its values.
Attribute: 03 Spin-Up Time
The acceleration time may vary for different disks (and for disks from the same manufacturer too) depending on the spin-up current, the weight of the plates, the rated spindle speed, etc.
By the way, Fujitsu hard drives always have a one in this field if there are no problems with spindle spinning.
It says practically nothing about the health of the disk, so when assessing the condition of the hard drive, you can ignore this parameter.
Attribute: 04 Number of Spin-Up Times (Start/Stop Count)
When assessing health, ignore the attribute.
Attribute: 05 Reallocated Sector Count
Let us explain what a “reassigned sector” actually is. When a disk encounters an unreadable/hard-to-read/unwritable/hard-to-write sector during operation, it may consider it irreparably damaged. Especially for such cases, the manufacturer provides a reserve area on each disk (on some models - in the center (logical end) of the disk, on some - at the end of each track, etc.). If there is a damaged sector, the disk marks it as unreadable and uses the sector in the spare area instead, making the appropriate notes in a special list of surface defects - G-list. This operation of assigning a new sector to the role of an old one is called remap or reassignment, and the sector used instead of the damaged one is reassigned. The new sector receives the logical LBA number of the old one, and now when software accesses a sector with this number (programs do not know about any reassignments!) the request will be redirected to the reserve area.
Thus, even though the sector has failed, the disk capacity does not change. It is clear that it does not change for the time being, since the volume of the reserve area is not infinite. However, the spare area may well contain several thousand sectors, and allowing it to run out would be very irresponsible - the disk will need to be replaced long before that.
By the way, repairmen say that Samsung drives very often do not want to perform sector reassignment.
Opinions vary regarding this attribute. Personally, I think that if it reaches 10, the disk must be changed - after all, this means a progressive process of degradation of the state of the surface of either pancakes, or heads, or something else hardware, and there is no way to stop this process. By the way, according to people close to Hitachi, Hitachi itself considers a disk to be replaced when it already has 5 reassigned sectors. Another question is whether this information is official, and whether service centers follow this opinion. Something tells me no :)
Another thing is that service center employees may refuse to recognize the disk as faulty if the disk manufacturer’s proprietary utility writes something like “S.M.A.R.T. Status: Good" or the values of the Value or Worst attribute will be greater than Threshold (in fact, the manufacturer’s utility itself can evaluate by this criterion). And formally they will be right. But who needs a disk with constant deterioration of its hardware components, even if such deterioration is consistent with the nature of the hard drive, and hard drive technology tries to minimize its consequences by allocating, for example, a spare area?
Attribute: 07 Seek Error Rate
The description of the formation of this attribute almost completely coincides with the description for attribute 01 Raw Read Error Rate, with the exception that for Hitachi hard drives the normal value of the RAW field is only 0.
Thus, do not pay attention to the attribute on Seagate, Samsung SpinPoint F1 and newer and Fujitsu 2.5″ drives, the rest Samsung models, as well as on all WD and Hitachi, a non-zero value indicates problems, for example, with a bearing, etc.
Attribute: 08 Seek Time Performance
It does not provide any information to the user and does not indicate any danger regardless of its value.
Attribute: 09 Power On Hours Count (Power-on Time)
Doesn't say anything about the health of the drive.
Attribute: 10 (0A - hexadecimal) Spin Retry Count
Most often it does not indicate the health of the disk.
The main reasons for increasing the parameter are poor contact of the disk with the power supply or the inability of the power supply to supply the required current to the power line of the disk.
Ideally, it should be equal to 0. If the attribute value is 1-2, you can ignore it. If the value is higher, first of all you should pay close attention to the condition of the power supply, its quality, the load on it, check the contact of the hard drive with the power cable, check the power cable itself.
Surely the disk may not start immediately due to problems with itself, but this happens very rarely, and this possibility should be considered last.
Attribute: 11 (0B) Calibration Retry Count (Recalibration Retries)
A non-zero, or especially a growing value of the parameter may indicate problems with the disk.
Attribute: 12 (0C) Power Cycle Count
Not related to the disk state.
Attribute: 183 (B7) SATA Downshift Error Count
Does not indicate the health of the drive.
Attribute: 184 (B8) End-to-End Error
A non-zero value indicates disk problems.
Attribute: 187 (BB) Reported Uncorrected Sector Count (UNC Error)
A non-zero attribute value clearly indicates that the disk state is abnormal (in combination with a non-zero attribute value of 197) or that it previously was (in combination with a zero attribute value of 197).
Attribute: 188 (BC) Command Timeout
Such errors can occur due to poor quality cables, contacts, adapters used, extension cords, etc., as well as due to the incompatibility of the drive with a specific SATA/PATA controller on the motherboard (or a discrete one). Due to errors of this kind, BSODs are possible in Windows.
A non-zero attribute value indicates a potential disk disease.
Attribute: 189 (BD) High Fly Writes
In order to say why such cases occur, you need to be able to analyze S.M.A.R.T. logs, which contain information specific to each manufacturer, which is not currently implemented in publicly available software - therefore, the attribute can be ignored.
Attribute: 190 (BE) Airflow Temperature
Does not indicate the condition of the disk.
Attribute: 191 (BF) G-Sensor Shock Count (Mechanical Shock)
Relevant for mobile hard drives. On Samsung drives you can often ignore it, because they may have a very sensitive sensor, which, figuratively speaking, almost reacts to the movement of air from the wings of a fly flying in the same room as the disk.
In general, the activation of the sensor is not a sign of an impact. It can even grow from positioning the BMG with the disk itself, especially if it is not secured. The main purpose of the sensor is to stop the recording operation when there is vibration to avoid errors.
Doesn't indicate disk health.
Attribute: 192 (C0) Power Off Retract Count (Emergency Retry Count)
Does not allow you to judge the condition of the disk.
Attribute: 193 (C1) Load/Unload Cycle Count
Doesn't indicate disk health.
Attribute: 194 (C2) Temperature (HDA Temperature, HDD Temperature)
The attribute does not indicate the state of the disk, but allows you to control one of the most important parameters. My opinion: when working, try not to allow the temperature of the hard drive to rise above 50 degrees, although the manufacturer usually declares a maximum temperature limit of 55-60 degrees.
Attribute: 195 (C3) Hardware ECC Recovered
Features inherent in this attribute on different drives, fully correspond to those of attributes 01 and 07.
Attribute: 196 (C4) Reallocated Event Count
Indirectly speaks about the health of the disk. The higher the value, the worse. However, it is impossible to unambiguously judge the health of a disk based on this parameter without considering other attributes.
This attribute is directly related to attribute 05. When 196 grows, 05 most often grows as well. If when attribute 196 grows, attribute 05 does not grow, it means that when trying to remap, the candidate for bad blocks turned out to be a soft bad (see details below), and the disk corrected it so that the sector was considered healthy and no reassignment was necessary.
If attribute 196 is less than attribute 05, it means that during some remapping operations, several bad sectors were transferred in one go.
If attribute 196 is greater than attribute 05, it means that during some reassignment operations, soft bads were discovered that were subsequently corrected.
Attribute: 197 (C5) Current Pending Sector Count
When encountering a “bad” sector during operation (for example, the sector checksum does not match the data in it), the disk marks it as a candidate for reassignment, adds it to a special internal list and increases parameter 197. It follows that the disk may have damaged sectors, which he does not yet know about - after all, there may well be areas on the plates that the hard drive does not use for some time.
When attempting to write to a sector, the disk first checks to see if the sector is on the candidate list. If the sector is not found there, recording proceeds as usual. If found, this sector is tested by writing and reading. If all test operations pass normally, then the disk considers the sector to be healthy. (That is, there was a so-called “soft bad” - the erroneous sector arose not due to the fault of the disk, but for other reasons: for example, at the time of recording the information, the electricity went out, and the disk interrupted the recording, parking the BMG. As a result, the data in sector will be unwritten, and the sector checksum, which depends on the data in it, will generally remain old. There will be a discrepancy between it and the data in the sector.) In this case, the disk performs the originally requested write and removes the sector from the list of candidates. In this case, attribute 197 is reduced, and attribute 196 can also be increased.
If testing fails, the disk performs a reassignment operation, decreasing attribute 197, increasing 196 and 05, and also makes notes in the G-list.
So, a non-zero value of the parameter indicates a problem (however, it cannot indicate whether the problem is with the disk itself).
If the value is non-zero, you must start sequential reading of the entire surface in the Victoria or MHDD programs with the option remap. Then, when scanning, the disk will definitely come across a bad sector and try to write to it (in the case of Victoria 3.5 and the option Advanced remap— the disk will try to write the sector up to 10 times). Thus, the program will trigger the “treatment” of the sector, and as a result, the sector will either be fixed or reassigned.
If reading fails, both with remap, so with Advanced remap, it’s worth trying to run sequential recording in the same Victoria or MHDD. Keep in mind that the write operation erases data, so be sure to make a backup before using it!
Sometimes the following manipulations can help prevent a remap from being performed: remove the disk electronics board and clean the hard drive contacts connecting it to the board - they may be oxidized. Be careful when performing this procedure - it may void your warranty!
The impossibility of a remap may be due to another reason - the disk has exhausted the reserve area, and it simply has nowhere to reassign sectors.
If the value of attribute 197 is not reduced to 0 by any manipulation, you should think about replacing the disk.
Attribute: 198 (C6) Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count (Uncorrectable Sector Count)
This parameter changes only under the influence of offline testing; no program scans affect it. For operations during self-test, the behavior of the attribute is the same as attribute 197.
A non-zero value indicates problems with the disk (just like 197, without specifying who is to blame).
Attribute: 199 (C7) UltraDMA CRC Error Count
In the vast majority of cases, the causes of errors are a poor-quality data transfer cable, overclocking of the PCI/PCI-E buses of the computer, or poor contact in the SATA connector on the disk or on the motherboard/controller.
Errors during transmission over the interface and, as a result, an increasing value of the attribute can lead to the operating system switching the operating mode of the channel on which the drive is located to PIO mode, which entails a sharp drop in the read/write speed when working with it and processor load to 100% (visible in Windows Task Manager).
In the case of Hitachi hard drives of the Deskstar 7K3000 and 5K3000 series, a growing attribute may indicate incompatibility between the disk and the SATA controller. To correct the situation, you need to force the drive to switch to SATA 3 Gb/s mode.
My opinion: if there are errors, reconnect the cable at both ends; if their number grows and it is more than 10, throw away the cable and replace it with a new one or remove the overclock.
Attribute: 200 (C8) Write Error Rate (MultiZone Error Rate)
Attribute: 202 (CA) Data Address Mark Error
Attribute: 203 (CB) Run Out Cancel
The health effects are unknown.
Attribute: 220 (DC) Disk Shift
The health effects are unknown.
Attribute: 240 (F0) Head Flying Hours
The health effects are unknown.
Attribute: 254 (FE) Free Fall Event Count
The health effects are unknown.
Let us summarize the description of the attributes. Non-zero values:
When analyzing attributes, keep in mind that some S.M.A.R.T. Several values of this parameter can be stored: for example, for the penultimate startup of the disk and for the last one. Such multi-byte parameters are logically composed of multiple values that are smaller in number of bytes - for example, a parameter that stores two values for the last two runs, each of which was allocated 2 bytes, would be 4 bytes long. Programs that interpret S.M.A.R.T. are often unaware of this, and show this parameter as one number rather than two, which sometimes leads to confusion and anxiety for the owner of the disk. For example, "Raw Read Error Rate" storing the penultimate value of "1" and the last value of "0" would look like 65536.
It should be noted that not all programs can display such attributes correctly. Many people translate an attribute with several values into the decimal number system as one huge number. The correct way to display such content is either with a breakdown by value (then the attribute will consist of several separate numbers), or in a hexadecimal number system (then the attribute will look like one number, but its components will be easily distinguishable at first glance), or both , and something else at the same time. Examples of correct programs are HDDScan, CrystalDiskInfo, Hard Disk Sentinel.
Let's demonstrate the differences in practice. This is what the instantaneous value of attribute 01 looks like on one of my Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 without taking into account the Victoria 4.46b feature of this attribute:
And this is what it looks like in the “correct” HDDScan 3.3:
The advantages of HDDScan in this context are obvious, aren’t they?
If you analyze S.M.A.R.T. on different disks, you may notice that the same attributes may behave differently. For example, some S.M.A.R.T. parameters Hitachi hard drives are reset to zero after a certain period of disk inactivity; parameter 01 has features on Hitachi, Seagate, Samsung and Fujitsu drives, 03 - on Fujitsu. It is also known that after flashing the disk, some parameters may be set to 0 (for example, 199). However, such forced resetting of the attribute will in no way mean that the problems with the disk have been resolved (if there were any). After all, a growing critical attribute is consequence problems, not cause.
When analyzing multiple datasets, S.M.A.R.T. it becomes obvious that the set of attributes of disks different manufacturers and even different models may vary from one manufacturer to another. This is due to the so-called vendor specific attributes (i.e., attributes used to monitor their disks by a specific manufacturer) and should not be a cause for concern. If monitoring software can read such attributes (for example, Victoria 4.46b), then on disks for which they are not intended, they can have “terrible” (huge) values, and you simply do not need to pay attention to them. This is how, for example, Victoria 4.46b displays RAW values of attributes that are not intended for monitoring on the Hitachi HDS721010CLA332:
There is often a problem when programs cannot calculate S.M.A.R.T. disk. In the case of a working hard drive, this can be caused by several factors. For example, very often S.M.A.R.T. is not displayed. when connecting the drive to AHCI mode. In such cases it's worth a try different programs, in particular HDD Scan, which has the ability to work in this mode, although it does not always succeed, or it is worth temporarily switching the disk to IDE compatibility mode, if possible. Further, on many motherboards controllers to which hard drives are connected are not built into the chipset or south bridge, but are implemented in separate microcircuits. In this case, the DOS version of Victoria, for example, will not see the hard drive connected to the controller, and it will need to force it to be specified by pressing the [P] key and entering the number of the channel with the disk. S.M.A.R.T.s are often not read. for USB drives, which is explained by the fact that the USB controller simply does not pass commands to read S.M.A.R.T. Almost never read S.M.A.R.T. for disks operating as part of a RAID array. Here, too, it makes sense to try different programs, but in the case of hardware RAID controllers this is useless.
If, after purchasing and installing a new hard drive, any programs (HDD Life, Hard Drive Inspector and others like them) show that: the disk has 2 hours left to live; its productivity is 27%; health - 19.155% (select according to your taste) - then there is no need to panic. Understand this. Firstly, you need to look at the S.M.A.R.T. indicators, and not at the health and productivity numbers that came from nowhere (however, the principle of their calculation is clear: the worst indicator is taken). Secondly, any program when assessing S.M.A.R.T. parameters. looks at the deviation of the values of various attributes from previous readings. When you first launch a new disk, the parameters are not constant; it takes some time to stabilize them. The program that evaluates S.M.A.R.T. sees that the attributes are changing, makes calculations, it turns out that if they change at this rate, the drive will soon fail, and it begins to signal: “Save the data!” Some time will pass (up to a couple of months), the attributes will stabilize (if everything is really in order with the disk), the utility will collect data for statistics, and the timing of the death of the disk as S.M.A.R.T. stabilizes. will be transported further and further into the future. Evaluation of Seagate and Samsung drives by programs is a completely different matter. Due to the peculiarities of attributes 1, 7, 195, programs, even for an absolutely healthy disk, usually give the conclusion that it is wrapped in a sheet and crawling to the cemetery.
Please note that the following situation is possible: all S.M.A.R.T. attributes. - normal, but in fact the disk has problems, although this is not noticeable by anything yet. This is explained by the fact that S.M.A.R.T technology. It works only “after the fact”, i.e. the attributes change only when the disk encounters problem areas during operation. And until he comes across them, he doesn’t know about them and, therefore, in S.M.A.R.T. he has nothing to record.
So S.M.A.R.T. is a useful technology, but it must be used wisely. Additionally, even if S.M.A.R.T. your disk is perfect, and you constantly check the disk - do not rely on the fact that your disk will “live” for many years to come. Winchesters tend to break so quickly that S.M.A.R.T. it simply does not have time to display its changed state, and it also happens that there are obvious problems with the disk, but in S.M.A.R.T. - Everything is fine. You could say that a good S.M.A.R.T. does not guarantee that everything is fine with the drive, but bad S.M.A.R.T. guaranteed to indicate problems. Moreover, even with bad S.M.A.R.T. utilities may indicate that the disk status is “healthy” due to the fact that critical attributes have not reached threshold values. Therefore, it is very important to analyze S.M.A.R.T. yourself, without relying on “verbal” evaluation of programs.
Although S.M.A.R.T. technology and it works, hard drives and the concept of “reliability” are so incompatible that it is common to consider them simply consumables. Well, like cartridges in a printer. Therefore, to avoid losing valuable data, make periodic backups of it to another medium (for example, another hard drive). It is optimal to make two backup copies on two different media, not counting the hard drive with the original data. Yes, this leads to additional costs, but believe me: the cost of restoring information from a broken HDD will cost you many times - if not an order of magnitude - more. But data cannot always be restored even by professionals. That is, the only way to ensure reliable storage of your data is to backup it.
Finally, I will mention some programs that are well suited for S.M.A.R.T analysis. and hard drive testing: HDDScan (Windows, DOS, free), MHDD (DOS, free).
Sooner or later (it’s better, of course, if early) any user asks himself the question of how long the device installed on his computer will last. computer hard disk and is it time to look for a replacement? There is nothing surprising in this, since hard drives, due to their design features, are the least reliable among computer components. At the same time, it is on the HDD that most users store the lion's share of a wide variety of information: documents, pictures, various software, etc., as a result of which an unexpected failure of the disk is always a tragedy. Of course, it is often possible to restore information on apparently “dead” hard drives, but it is possible that this operation will cost you a pretty penny, and will cost you a lot of nerves. Therefore, it is much more effective to try to prevent data loss.
How? It’s very simple... First of all, don’t forget about regular backup data, and secondly, monitor the status of disks using specialized utilities. We will consider several programs of this kind from the perspective of the tasks being solved in this article.
Control of SMART parameters and temperature
All modern HDDs and even solid state drives (SSDs) support S.M.A.R.T technology. ( from English Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology), which was developed by major hard drive manufacturers to increase the reliability of their products. This technology is based on continuous monitoring and assessment of the condition of the hard drive using built-in self-diagnosis equipment (special sensors), and its main purpose is the timely detection of possible failure of the drive.
Real-time HDD status monitoring
A number of information and diagnostic solutions for diagnosing and testing hardware, as well as special monitoring utilities, use S.M.A.R.T technology. to monitor the current status of various vital parameters that describe the reliability and performance of hard drives. They read the relevant parameters directly from the sensors and thermal sensors that all modern hard drives are equipped with, analyze the received data and display them in the form of a short tabular report with a list of attributes. At the same time, some utilities (Hard Drive Inspector, HDDlife, Crystal Disk Info, etc.) are not limited to displaying a table of attributes (the meanings of which are incomprehensible to untrained users) and additionally display brief information about the state of the disk in a more understandable form.
Diagnosing the condition of a hard drive using this kind of utility is as easy as shelling pears - just read the brief basic information about installed HDDs: with basic data about disks in Hard Drive Inspector, a certain conditional percentage of hard disk health in HDDlife, the “Technical Condition” indicator in Crystal Disk Info (Fig. 1), etc. Any of these programs provides the minimum necessary information about each of the HDDs installed on the computer: data about the hard drive model, its volume, operating temperature, operating time, as well as the level of reliability and performance. This information makes it possible to draw certain conclusions about the performance of the media.
Rice. 1. Brief information about the “health” of the working HDD
You should configure the monitoring utility to launch simultaneously with the start of the operating system, adjust the time interval between checks of S.M.A.R.T. attributes, and also enable the display of the temperature and “health level” of hard drives in the system tray. After this, to monitor the status of the disks, the user will only need to glance from time to time at the indicator in the system tray, where brief information about the state of the drives available in the system will be displayed: their “health” level and temperature (Fig. 2). By the way, operating temperature is no less important an indicator than a conditional indicator of the health of the HDD, because hard drives can suddenly fail due to simple overheating. Therefore, if the hard drive heats up above 50 °C, then it would be wiser to provide it with additional cooling.
Rice. 2.Display HDD Status
in the system tray with the HDDlife program
It is worth noting that a number of such utilities provide integration with Windows Explorer, due to which a green icon is displayed on the icons of local disks if they are working properly, and if problems arise, the icon turns red. So you are unlikely to forget about the health of your hard drives. With such constant monitoring, you will not be able to miss the moment when some problems begin to arise with the disk, because if the utility detects critical changes in S.M.A.R.T. attributes. and/or temperature, it will carefully notify the user about this (with a message on the screen, a sound message, etc. - Fig. 3). Thanks to this, it will be possible to copy data from the dangerous media in advance.
Rice. 3. Example of a message about the need to immediately replace the disk
Using S.M.A.R.T. monitoring solutions in practice to monitor the status of hard drives is completely easy, because all such utilities work in background and require a minimum of hardware resources, so their functioning will in no way interfere with the main workflow.
Control of S.M.A.R.T. attributes
Advanced users, of course, are unlikely to limit themselves to assessing the condition of hard drives by viewing a brief verdict from one of the utilities presented above. This is understandable, because according to the decoding of the S.M.A.R.T. attributes. You can identify the cause of failures and, if necessary, take precautionary measures. True, for self-control S.M.A.R.T. attributes will require at least a brief familiarization with S.M.A.R.T technology.
Hard drives that support this technology include intelligent self-diagnostic procedures so they can “report” their current status. This diagnostic information is provided as a collection of attributes, that is, specific characteristics of the hard drive used to analyze its performance and reliability.
B O Most of the important attributes have the same meaning for drives from all manufacturers. The values of these attributes during normal disk operation may vary within certain intervals. For any parameter, the manufacturer has determined a certain minimum safe value that cannot be exceeded under normal operating conditions. Unambiguously determine critically important and critically unimportant S.M.A.R.T parameters for diagnostics. problematic. Each of the attributes has its own information value and indicates one or another aspect of the work of the medium. However, first of all you should pay attention to the following attributes:
- Raw Read Error Rate - the frequency of errors in reading data from the disk caused by the fault of the equipment;
- Spin Up Time - average spin-up time of the disk spindle;
- Reallocated Sector Count - number of sector reassignment operations;
- Seek Error Rate - frequency of occurrence of positioning errors;
- Spin Retry Count - the number of repeated attempts to spin up disks to operating speed if the first attempt fails;
- Current Pending Sector Count - the number of unstable sectors (that is, sectors awaiting the reassignment procedure);
- Offline Scan Uncorrectable Count - the total number of uncorrected errors during sector read/write operations.
Typically S.M.A.R.T. attributes are displayed in tabular form indicating the attribute name (Attribute), its identifier (ID) and three values: current (Value), minimum threshold (Threshold) and the lowest attribute value for the entire operating time of the drive (Worst), as well as the absolute value of the attribute (Raw). Each attribute has a current value, which can be any number from 1 to 100, 200, or 253 (there are no general standards for upper bounds on attribute values). The Value and Worst values for a completely new hard drive are the same (Fig. 4).
Rice. 4. Attributes of S.M.A.R.T. with a new HDD
Shown in Fig. 4 information allows us to conclude that for a theoretically serviceable hard drive, the current (Value) and worst (Worst) values should be as close as possible to each other, and the Raw value for most parameters (with the exception of the parameters: Power-On Time, HDA Temperature and some others ) should approach zero. The current value may change over time, which in most cases reflects deterioration of the hard drive parameters described by the attribute. This can be seen in Fig. 5, which presents fragments of the S.M.A.R.T attribute table. for the same disk - data were obtained with an interval of six months. As you can see, in the more recent version of S.M.A.R.T. the frequency of errors when reading data from the disk (Raw Read Error Rate), the origin of which is determined by the hardware of the disk, and the frequency of errors when positioning the magnetic head unit (Seek Error Rate) have increased, which may indicate overheating of the hard drive and its unstable position in the basket . If the current value of any attribute approaches or becomes less than the threshold value, then the hard drive is considered unreliable and should be replaced urgently. For example, a drop in the value of the Spin-Up Time attribute (average spin-up time of the disk spindle) below a critical value, as a rule, indicates complete wear of the mechanics, as a result of which the disk is no longer able to maintain the rotation speed specified by the manufacturer. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the condition of the HDD and periodically (for example, once every 2-3 months) carry out S.M.A.R.T diagnostics. and save the received information in text file. In the future, these data can be compared with current ones and certain conclusions can be drawn about the development of the situation.
Rice. 5. S.M.A.R.T. attribute tables obtained at six-month intervals
(more recent version of S.M.A.R.T. below)
When viewing S.M.A.R.T. attributes, you should first of all pay attention to critical parameters, as well as parameters highlighted by indicators other than the base color (usually blue or green). Depending on the current state of the attribute in the S.M.A.R.T. utility output. in the table it is usually marked in one color or another, which makes it easier to understand the situation. In particular, in Hard program Drive Inspector color indicator can have green, yellow-green, yellow, orange or red - green and yellow-green colors indicate that everything is normal (the attribute value has not changed or changed insignificantly), and yellow, orange and red colors indicate danger (worse the color is red, which indicates that the attribute value has reached its critical value). If any of the critical parameters are marked with a red icon, then you need to urgently replace the hard drive.
In the Hard Drive Inspector program, let's look at the table of S.M.A.R.T. attributes of the same drive, which we briefly assessed using monitoring utilities earlier. From Fig. Figure 6 shows that the values of all attributes are normal and all parameters are marked green. The HDDlife and Crystal Disk Info utilities will show a similar picture. True, more professional solutions for analysis and HDD diagnostics are not so loyal and often label S.M.A.R.T. attributes more pickily. For example, such well-known utilities as HD Tune Pro and HDD Scan, in our case, were suspicious of the UltraDMA CRC Errors attribute, which displays the number of errors that occur when transmitting information via external interface(Fig. 7). The cause of such errors is usually associated with a twisted and poor-quality SATA cable, which may need to be replaced.
Rice. 6. Table of S.M.A.R.T. attributes obtained in the Hard Drive Inspector program
Rice. 7. Results of assessing the state of S.M.A.R.T. attributes
HD Tune Pro and HDD Scan utilities
For comparison, let’s take a look at the S.M.A.R.T. attributes of a very ancient, but still working HDD with periodically arising problems. It did not inspire confidence in the Crystal Disk Info program - in the “Technical Condition” indicator, the disk condition was rated as alarming, and the Reallocated Sector Count attribute was highlighted yellow(Fig. 8). This is a very important attribute from the point of view of the “health” of the disk, indicating the number of sectors reassigned when the disk detects a read/write error; during this operation, data from the damaged sector is transferred to the reserve area. The yellow color of the indicator for the parameter indicates that there are few remaining spare sectors with which to replace the bad ones, and soon there will be nothing to reassign the newly appearing bad sectors. Let's also check how more serious solutions assess the condition of the disk, for example, the HDDScan utility widely used by professionals - but here we see exactly the same result (Fig. 9).
Rice. 8. Assessing a problematic hard drive in CrystalDiskInfo
Rice. 9. Results of S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics of HDD in HDDScan
This means that it’s clearly not worth delaying the replacement of such a hard drive, although it may still serve for some time, although, of course, you cannot install an operating system on this hard drive. It is worth noting that if there are a large number of reassigned sectors, the read/write speed drops (due to the unnecessary movements that the magnetic head has to make), and the disk begins to noticeably slow down.
Scanning the surface for bad sectors
Unfortunately, in practice, monitoring SMART parameters and temperature alone is not enough. If the slightest evidence appears that something is wrong with the disk (in the case of periodic program freezes, for example, when saving results, reading error messages appear, etc.), it is necessary to scan the disk surface for the presence of unreadable sectors. To carry out such a media check, you can use, for example, the HD Tune Pro and HDDScan utilities or diagnostic utilities from hard drive manufacturers, however, these utilities only work with their own hard drive models, and therefore we will not consider them.
When using such solutions, there is a risk of damaging data on the scanned disk. On the one hand, if the drive really turns out to be faulty, anything can happen to the information on the disk during scanning. On the other hand, we cannot exclude incorrect actions on the part of the user who mistakenly starts scanning in write mode, during which data from the hard drive is erased sector by sector with a certain signature, and based on the speed of this process, a conclusion is drawn about the state of the hard drive. Therefore, compliance with certain precautionary rules is absolutely necessary: before launching the utility, you need to create a backup copy of the information and during the test, act strictly according to the instructions of the developer of the relevant software. To obtain more accurate results, before scanning, it is better to close all active applications and unload possible background processes. In addition, you should keep in mind that if you need to test the system HDD, you need to boot from a flash drive and start the scanning process from it, or completely remove the hard drive and connect it to another computer from which you can start testing the disk.
As an example, using HD Tune Pro, we will check the surface of the HDD for bad sectors, which did not inspire confidence in the Crystal Disk Info utility above. In this program, to start the scanning process, just select the desired disk, activate the tab Error Scan and click on the button Start. After this, the utility will begin sequential scanning of the disk, reading sector by sector and marking sectors on the disk map with multi-colored squares. The color of the squares, depending on the situation, can be green (normal sectors) or red (bad blocks) or will have some shade intermediate between these colors. As we see from Fig. 10, in our case the utility did not find full-fledged bad blocks, but nevertheless there is a significant number of sectors with one or another read delay (judging by their color). In addition to this, in the middle part of the disk there is a small block of sectors, the color of which is close to red - these sectors have not yet been recognized as bad by the utility, but they are already close to this and will move into the bad category in the very near future.
Rice. 10. Scanning the surface for bad sectors in HD Tune Pro
Testing a media for bad sectors in the HDDScan program is more difficult and even more dangerous, since if the mode is incorrectly selected, the information on the disk will be irretrievably lost. The first step to start scanning is to create new task by clicking on the button New Task and selecting the command from the list Suface Tests. Then you need to make sure that the mode is selected Read- this mode is installed by default and when used, the hard disk surface is tested by reading (that is, without deleting data). After this press the button Add Test(Fig. 11) and double-click on the created task RD-Read. Now in the window that opens you can observe the disk scanning process on a graph (Graph) or on a map (Map) - fig. 12. Upon completion of the process, we will get approximately the same results as those demonstrated above by the HD Tune Pro utility, but with a clearer interpretation: there are no bad sectors (they are marked in blue), but there are three sectors with a response time of more than 500 ms (marked in red color), which pose a real danger. As for the six orange sectors (response time from 150 to 500 ms), this can be considered within normal limits, since such a response delay is often caused by temporary interference in the form, for example, of running background programs.
Rice. 11. Running disk testing in HDDScan program
Rice. 12. Results of disk scanning in Read mode using HDDScan
In addition, it should be noted that if there are a small number of bad blocks, you can try to improve the condition of the hard drive by removing bad sectors by scanning the disk surface in linear recording mode (Erase) using the HDDScan program. After such an operation, the disk can still be used for some time, but, of course, not as a system disk. However, you should not hope for a miracle, since the HDD has already begun to crumble, and there are no guarantees that in the near future the number of defects will not increase and the drive will not completely fail.
Programs for S.M.A.R.T. monitoring and HDD testing
HD Tune Pro 5.00 and HD Tune 2.55
Developer: EFD Software
Distribution size: HD Tune Pro - 1.5 MB; HD Tune - 628 KB
Work under control: Windows XP/Server 2003/Vista/7
Distribution method: HD Tune Pro - shareware (15-day demo version); HD Tune - freeware (http://www.hdtune.com/download.html)
Price: HD Tune Pro - $34.95; HD Tune - free (for non-commercial use only)
HD Tune is a convenient utility for diagnosing and testing HDD/SSD (see table), as well as memory cards, USB drives and a number of other data storage devices. The program displays detailed information about the drive (firmware version, serial number, disk size, buffer size and data transfer mode) and allows you to set the device status using S.M.A.R.T. data. and temperature monitoring. In addition, it can be used to test the disk surface for errors and evaluate the device's performance by running a series of tests (sequential and random data read/write speed tests, file performance test, cache test and a number of Extra tests). The utility can also be used to configure AAM and securely delete data. The program is presented in two editions: commercial HD Tune Pro and free lightweight HD Tune. In the HD Tune edition, you can only view detailed information about the disk and the S.M.A.R.T. attribute table, as well as scan the disk for errors and test for speed in read mode (Low level benchmark - read).
The Health tab is responsible for monitoring S.M.A.R.T. attributes in the program - data from sensors is read after a set period of time, the results are displayed in a table. For any attribute, you can view the history of its changes in numerical form and on a graph. Monitoring data is automatically recorded in the log, but no user notifications are provided for critical changes in parameters.
As for scanning the disk surface for bad sectors, the tab is responsible for this operation Error Scan. Scanning can be quick (Quick scan) and deep - with a quick scan, not the entire disk is scanned, but only some part of it (the scanning area is determined through the Start and End fields). Damaged sectors are displayed on the disk map as red blocks.
HDDScan 3.3
Developer: Artem Rubtsov
Distribution size: 3.64 MB
Work under control: Windows 2000(SP4)/XP(SP2/SP3)/Server 2003/Vista/7
Distribution method: freeware (http://hddscan.com/download/HDDScan-3.3.zip)
Price: for free
HDDScan is a utility for low-level diagnostics of hard drives, solid state drives and Flash disks with USB interface. The main purpose of this program is to test disks for the presence of bad blocks and bad sectors. The utility can also be used to view the contents of S.M.A.R.T., monitor temperature and change some hard drive settings: noise management (AAM), power management (APM), forced start/stop of the drive spindle, etc. The program works without installation and can be launched from portable media, for example flash drives.
HDDScan displays S.M.A.R.T. attributes and temperature monitoring on demand. S.M.A.R.T report contains information about the performance and “health” of the drive in the form of a standard attribute table; the temperature of the drive is displayed in the system tray and in a special information window. Reports can be printed or saved as an MHT file. S.M.A.R.T. tests are possible.
The disk surface is checked in one of four modes: Verify (linear verification mode), Read (linear reading), Erase (linear writing) and Butterfly Read (Butterfly reading mode). To check a disk for the presence of bad blocks, a test in Read mode is usually used, which tests the surface without deleting data (the conclusion about the condition of the drive is made based on the speed of sector-by-sector data reading). When testing in linear recording mode (Erase), the information on the disk is overwritten, but this test can somewhat heal the disk, ridding it of bad sectors. In any of the modes, you can test the entire disk or a specific fragment of it (the scanning area is determined by indicating the initial and final logical sectors - Start LBA and End LBA, respectively). Test results are presented in the form of a report (Report tab) and displayed on a Graph and a disk map (Map), indicating, among other things, the number of bad sectors (Bads) and sectors whose response time during testing took more than 500 ms (marked in red ).
Hard Drive Inspector 4.13
Developer: AltrixSoft
Distribution size: 2.64 MB
Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista/7
Distribution method: shareware (14-day demo version - http://www.altrixsoft.com/ru/download/)
Price: Hard Drive Inspector Professional - 600 rub.; Hard Drive Inspector for Notebooks - 800 rub.
Hard Drive Inspector - convenient solution for S.M.A.R.T. monitoring of external and internal HDDs. Currently, the program is offered on the market in two editions: the basic Hard Drive Inspector Professional and the portable Hard Drive Inspector for Notebooks; the latter includes all the functionality of the Professional version, and at the same time takes into account the specifics of monitoring laptop hard drives. Theoretically, there is also an SSD version, but it is distributed only in OEM supplies.
The program provides automatic checking of S.M.A.R.T. attributes at specified intervals and upon completion issues its verdict on the condition of the drive, displaying the values of certain conditional indicators: “reliability”, “performance” and “no errors” along with a numerical temperature value and a temperature diagram. Technical data about the disk model, its capacity, total free space and operating time in hours (days) is also provided. In advanced mode, you can view information about disk parameters (buffer size, firmware name, etc.) and the S.M.A.R.T attribute table. There are various options for informing the user in the event of critical changes on the disk. Additionally, the utility can be used to reduce the noise level produced by hard drives, and reducing HDD power consumption.
HDDlife 4.0
Developer: BinarySense Ltd
Distribution size: 8.45 MB
Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7/8
Distribution method: shareware (15-day demo version - http://hddlife.ru/rus/downloads.html)
Price: HDDLife - free; HDDLife Pro - 300 rub.; HDDlife for Notebooks - 500 rub.
HDDLife- simple utility, designed to monitor the status of hard drives and SSDs (from version 4.0). The program is presented in three editions: free HDDLife and two commercial ones - basic HDDLife Pro and portable HDDlife for Notebooks.
The utility monitors S.M.A.R.T. attributes and temperature at specified intervals and, based on the analysis results, issues a compact report on the condition of the disk indicating technical data about the disk model and its capacity, operating time, temperature, and also displays the conditional percentage of its health and performance, which allows Even beginners can navigate the situation. More experienced users can additionally look at the table of S.M.A.R.T. attributes. In case of problems with the hard drive, it is possible to configure notifications; You can configure the program so that if the disk is in normal condition, the scan results are not displayed. It is possible to control the HDD noise level and power consumption.
CrystalDiskInfo 5.4.2
Developer: Hiyohiyo
Distribution size: 1.79 MB
Work under control: Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8/2012
Distribution method: freeware (http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html)
Price: for free
CrystalDiskInfo is a simple utility for S.M.A.R.T. monitoring the status of hard drives (including many external HDDs) and SSDs. Despite being free, the program has all the necessary functionality to monitor the status of disks.
Disk monitoring is performed automatically after a specified number of minutes or on demand. At the end of the test, the temperature of the monitored devices is displayed in the system tray; detailed information about the HDD indicating the values of S.M.A.R.T. parameters, temperature and the program’s verdict on the state of the devices is available in the main window of the utility. There is functionality for setting threshold values for some parameters and automatically notifying the user if they are exceeded. Noise level management (AAM) and power management (APM) are possible.
Unfortunately, a considerable part of modern HDDs work normally for a little more than a year, then various kinds of problems begin, which over time can lead to data loss. This prospect can be completely avoided if you carefully monitor the condition of the hard drive, for example, using the utilities discussed in the article. However, you should also not forget about regular backup of valuable data, since monitoring utilities, as a rule, successfully predict disk failure due to mechanical faults (according to Seagate statistics, about 60% of HDDs fail due to mechanical components), but they are not able to predict the death of a drive due to problems with the electronic components of the disk.
