Testing a hard drive?

K

Kris

Gawd
Joined
Jun 27, 2004
Messages
618
I know how to test memory or possible hardware issues and even seen software applications that can test motherboards but what about hard dirves?

The reason I ask is because I have a RAID 1 array consisting of two, WD 250GB drives. It was working fine under Windows XP but when I moved to Vista 64-bit, I got a BSOD during driver installation and ever since then, my RAID keeps degrading after a few days with access errors (sometimes it says 1 drive, sometimes it says the other) and it kept saying 1 of them was connected to SATA 1.1 and the other to SATA 2.0 when both were connected to 2.0.

After removing the drives from the array, I've copied tons of data to each one and can't get either one to give me an error.

Suggestions?
 
I don't know if it will help in your situation, but you can use WD's Data Lifeguard diagnostic utility to test the drives themselves... but it sounds like a raid issue to me, not so much a bad drive.
 
Both drives pass the quick test but WD's software doesn't seem to work 100% and the Lifeguard Tools won't install since they do not have a Vista verison of any of their software.

WD's FAQ states that they are in the process of upgrading all of their tools but who knows when this will happen :(
 
bbz_Ghost said:
SpinRite would then become your Best Friend Forever, your Lover, your Mate, your Life Partner, your Soulmate, etc etc... :D
Click to expand...

Mostly hype, I think. Read the features list (heck, the first item on the list should be a pretty good hint) and see what you think. "Unlike any other disk utility, SpinRite interfaces directly to the hard disk system's hardware, rather than working through the system's operating system or BIOS." Without the OS's knowledge or consent? I kinda doubt that. "SpinRite operates upon the "real" disk surfaces, it penetrates the write caching" - I'd like to know how to do that in general; only on expensive disks is this reliably controllable. IDE disks lie about write caching quite a bit.
 
You could just write a massive amount of data to the drive and then go though and check it. If it checks out then more then likely drive is good.
 
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