How to Use the Seatools Diagnostics Disk to Check for Hard Drive Failure

Hard drive failure at its worst can feel this bad.

So your computer won't boot anymore. Maybe it's giving you the “Disk Read Error," or “Drive Failure Eminent” has been hounding you for a couple of power ups now. Chance are, you have hard drive failure, but how do you know for sure? If you take the computer to a repair shop, chances are you'll pay hundreds of dollars just to find out that all your data is lost and you'll have to buy a new hard drive. How do you prevent that from happening? By using the Seatools Diagnostics Disk. It's an easy to use program that you can download and burn to a disk, pop into the CD-ROM drive, boot off of and scan your drive for points of failure. It may not recover your data, but it'll save you the cash for diagnostics at a repair shop, and then you can just replace the drive itself.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• An issue with your PC that makes you suspect hard drive failure
• Blank CD-ROM
• Software that can burn ISO files into disks
• Access to another computer with Internet access and a drive capable of burning CD-ROMs

Acquiring the Seatools Diagnostic disk

1. Go get to a working computer with internet access and go to http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools

2. Download the .ISO file under the Seatools DOS heading.

3. Use a set of software that will burn the .ISO image into a disk (there's a lot out there to choose from, your computer or CD-ROM drive likely came with some for free).

Using the Disk to Look for Errors

1. Boot up your dying PC and pop in the disk.

2. You can select all of the test to run (this is usually a good idea since it tests all the other functions of the computer such your memory just in case this is the real issue), but make sure the Full Drive Scan is selected and press next.

3. Sit back and wait. The tests will take a while, especially the Full Drive Scan. Be patient and wait for the results.

4. Come back (it may take hours) and see if the scans come back with errors.

5. If the drive comes back with multiple bad sectors, then the hard drive is ether dieing or already too far gone. If you can still boot from the drive, back up as much data as possible as fast as possible. If the drive comes back with file-system errors, then you should ether be able to run check disk to fix the errors, or hook the drive up as a secondary (or slave) drive and back the data off. In some cases this is still not possible, but you can likely format the drive and still use it (even if you lost all of the data on it). If you manage to get any other kinds of errors, such as an interface error (with IDE or SATA) or a memory error, then the drive may not be bad, but the system board or its components could be and you should send the computer to a repair shop or pop the drive into another computer.

Tips & Warnings

• If Seatools can't see the drive at all, try the drive in another computer (if you have the know-how). If its inaccessible on more than one system, it is likely totally dead.

• If the computer doesn't boot directly from the disk, you'll have to go to your system setup menu (or BIOS setup menu) during your computer's initial boot process. You can do this by pressing the appropriate key during the opening boot sequences (it's usually labeled during the boot as the DEL key or one of the function keys). From the system setup menu, you can then change the boot order of your PC from to boot from a CD-ROM before anything else.

• If your system board supports booting from USB, you may be able to slip the drive out of the computer and set it in an external USB to IDE or SATA converter (or portable hard drive case) and use Seatools to test it on more than one system this way instead of dismantling more than one system.

• Hard drives are like tires in that they move really fast while functioning and that they wear out over time. You have to remember, despite the fact that it's called a “hard” drive, the drive is actually moving at several thousand RPM while levitating on magnets in a “clean” air environment. There is a lot of margin for failure, and it's important that you back your data up on something more stable (such as CD-ROMs or solid state memory) often.

• Never open a PC without making sure you don't electrically shock any components (via static shock in most cases), ruining the PC. Take all safety precautions before working with any electrical equipment.

• If any of this seems above your technical skills, then don't attempt to do more than what's in your power. It may be a worthy investment for you to just pay for a professional repair service if you don't feel you are savvy enough to follow these steps.

Resources

• Seatools website
• The developer of Seatools and a producer of hard drives