What is the best free hard drive health checker?

Akagi · 7 Apr 2013 at 00:29

As the title really. I sold someone a HDD which I believed to be fully functional, as it turns out, it wasn't and they sent it back for a re-fund.

So I think now - even if I think a hard drive is fine because it has been used for however long without issue - that I should probably check them with some kind of testing software pre-sale/use.

Is PassMark DiskCheckup any good?

Philtor · 7 Apr 2013 at 13:09

Give HD Tune a try.

CaptainCrash · 7 Apr 2013 at 13:25

All the major HDD manufacturers have free diagnostic utilities, just have a look on their respective websites. None of them are foolproof though - although they rarely give false positives, that doesn't mean the drive won't fail without warning even though the utility has found no faults.

Personally I wouldn't get involved with second-hand HDDs, whether it's buying or selling - they're just too susceptible to deterioration and damage, particularly if they're mishandled in use or in transit. Not worth the potential aggravation IMHO...

AbsenceJam · 7 Apr 2013 at 13:41

Just about any. You just want to see the SMART data and run a full check of every sector (latter you can do in Windows).

Smoogels · 7 Apr 2013 at 14:41

HD Tune is worth a look.

Nightglow · 7 Apr 2013 at 14:42

CaptainCrash said:
Personally I wouldn't get involved with second-hand HDDs, whether it's buying or selling - they're just too susceptible to deterioration and damage, particularly if they're mishandled in use or in transit. Not worth the potential aggravation IMHO...

+1

Also security mark them as well, & record the serial number by a photo.

Akagi · 7 Apr 2013 at 19:38

Cheers guys, i'll try HD Tune.

For buying used HDD's, I wouldn't unless it was from a well known member on here.

As for selling them, I always take a high res photo of the top of the HDD so I can cross reference the serial numbers and make sure nobody is getting up to any funny business.