How to Test a Hard Drive on a Computer

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Most of us know that an efficient utility software will extend the life and integrity of the Windows operating system and ensure that our programs run at optimal speed. What many forget, however, is that the health of the hard drive often has nothing to do with the health of our OS and a failure can occur even under the best of circumstances. Running regular diagnostics on the hard drive will give fair warning of potential failures and eliminate the possibility of data loss. Error messages, blue screens, program problems, hangs, and slow shut downs are clear signs that a PC's hard drive is not running up to par and that a disk failure may be imminent. Unless the damage is physical, there are plenty of free tools available for both analyzing and fixing hard drive performance issues:

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Step1

Run the Windows Check Disk utility. This utility will check and repair system file errors (logical structure), and examine the physical structure (the integrity of the disk surface) as well. Close all applications, browsers, and utilities.Open My ComputerRight-click your hard drive (C:)Click Properties, then click Tools TabUnder Error-Checking, click Check NowClick check box for "Automatically fix file system errors"Click check box for "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors"Click Start to run the utility

Step2

Download and run the freeware diagnostic tool "HD Tune". This terrific tool will run a complete benchmark analysis of your hard drive, check for structural errors, examine overall health issues item by item, and more.

Step3

Download and run the freeware diagnostic scanning tool "Emsa DiskCheck". This tool is a dual purpose utility for disk checking (pre-scan and full disk reading) and benchmarking.

Tips & Warnings

Never attempt to open or repair a hard disk yourself. Doing so will result in a complete loss of data beyond recovery. If your drive remains inaccessible, leave it to a Data Recovery center to retrieve important file information.