[stool]

As a means of assisting everyone in figuring out if a drive is on the verge of quitting, I have compiled a list of links to the major manufacturers diagnostic software;

Seagate Seatools

Western Digital Data Lifeguard

Fujitsu fjdt_6 for IDE and sdiag_14 for SCSI

IBM and Hitachi Drive Fitness Test and other utilities

Maxtor and Quantum
Powermax

Samsung SHDiag.

If I missed any manufacturers, please let me know.

A commercial product for HD diagnostics and protection is Spinrite 5.0 . Having not used it, read up and see if you think it is worth your time and dollars.

A new shareware product with a free demo DL, that purports to repair bad sectors, isHDD Regenerator . Haven't tried it but have heard good things about it.

Here's another new site just pointed out to me;
Hiren. Seems to have a lot of interesting stuff.

(The following added by David)
Recently a lot of people have been asking why their drive does not appear to have as much space as it was advertised as having. This can often mean drives are showing up a few gigabytes smaller than advertised. There are two possible reasons for this.

1) Manufacturers say "Gigabyte" when they mean 1,000,000,000 (10^9) bytes. When your operating system says "Gigabytes" it means 1,073,741,824 (2^30) bytes. This means in your OS the drive appears smaller.

For example, Samsung 120GB hard drive = 120,000,000,000 bytes.
120,000,000,000 bytes = 111.76 Gigabytes, 8GB less than advertised.


2) Windows XP, without Service Pack 1 or a suitable modification, will not see more than 137GB on one drive. If your drive is more than 137GB in size and is showing as 137GB then this is probably your problem. This is a limitation in Windows XP that is fixed in service pack 1.

To fix this problem:
See this article

From the linked article:

Windows XP SP1 includes 48-bit LBA support for ATAPI disk drives. With this support, you can use hard disks that are larger than the current 137 GB limit. By default, support is enabled in SP1. To determine if you are running SP1, right-click My Computer and then click Properties. On the General tab, Service Pack 1 will be listed under "System."

And if you dont want to install SP1:

Originally Posted by redduc900

You'll need to enable "Large Drive Support" by editing the Registry. Expand the following branch...

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SYSTEM | CurrentControlSet | Services | atapi | Parameters

In the RH pane, you'll need to add a new DWORD called...

EnableBigLba...with a DWORD Value of 1

Note: If you have installed Windows XP which has only seen a 137GB drive, created a 137GB partition and installed windows in that partition, you will need to create a new partition to use the newly available space.
For example, you have a 200GB drive. You created a 137GB partition and installed WindowsXP on it. You apply the fix/install SP1. To use the extra space you now have made available, go to Control Panel -> Admin Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management section, and create a partition in the space now available.

[Vovan]

Very goood idea!!!

I´ve spent 3 hours searching seatools thru seagate.com

[Doctor Cilantro]

I can not personally vouch but have heard EXCELLENT things about Spinrite 5.0

jon

[stool]

Thanks. I'll edit it into the sticky.

[[sAn]Assasin]

are we all aware that this "tests" are pretty useless...

and that when a h/d is gonna die there is normaly no warning...


All these tests speed up the self destruct process....


And if it does die....use the old IT Trick of putting it in the fridge...


it DOES work..

[stool]

Welcome to the forums.
In most cases you'll have to run diagnostics to determine a code for an RMA. Even the smallest error can get you a trouble-free RMA, and they do sometimes help to find a problem before total crapout.
Of course, drives die without warning, but some make odd noises, etc., before dying.

[flixotide]

Originally posted by [sAn]Assasin
are we all aware that this "tests" are pretty useless...

and that when a h/d is gonna die there is normaly no warning...
All these tests speed up the self destruct process....
And if it does die....use the old IT Trick of putting it in the fridge...
it DOES work..

NOT TRUE... there are many ways to actually measure if a disk is dying...

The following symptoms are approved by IBM, Maxtor and Seagate as signs on dying disks.
[list=1][*]Increased power consumption[*]fluctuating RPM[*]fluctuating MAX seek times[*]Cache mem errors[*]Controller response times[/list=1]

All of the above can be tested and monitored through software.. Sooo.... get techie dude.

Tman

[larrymoencurly]

Why does Seagate's Windows DiscWizard keep telling me that my Barracuda V doesn't support the self test? It says the same for a Maxtor and IBM, but Seagate's SeaTools says that the SMART self test is fine, as does IBM's DFT. I tried DiscWizard in two different computers (Intel and VIA chipsets), even in Safe Mode.

What's wrong?

[safemode]

i've neer seen an RMA code have to be retrieved by some software means. It's always on the drive or on the box it came with. You should have both all the time.

Also, smartctl and hddtemp in linux are excellent tools for determining what's going on with a hdd. I especially like hddtemp. It's good not having to have to get each manufacturers special little program.

[stool]

The code I refer to is the problem code that is issued by the diagnostic programs.

[InThrees]

Have you ever RMA'd a drive, safemode?

When you start the rma process, there is usually a link to software on the form that you must download and run to query the drive. The drive will return an error code, and if it matches the code of a valid rma reason, you get to RMA your drive with no hassles, basically.

I did it with my old Maxtor 20gig, was easy. All I paid for was shipping the old drive back in the container the new one came in.

[ImJustAKid]

IS there a program that recovers quick formatted Hard Drive?

[stool]

Most data recovery programs are quite expensive. Here's a downloadable demo (Recover It All) that might help you out;

http://www.dtidata.com/

Click on the free download section

[dtadpole]

I just had to rma a scsi drive to maxtor/quantum and they made me run a test and get a diag # from the program that I ran to return the disk. Otherwise they wouldn't take it back!

[dtadpole]

Thanks stool for the links, I will be using the powermax test tonight on a pc at work!!

[CM50K]

can anybody tell me how to low-level-format my seagate barracuda iv with seatools?!

i know that it´s possible ´cause i did this long time ago...

[stool]

Try using one of these;diskwizard

[domstar]

Hi,
My Maxtor drive is very slow now despite it being a 7200RPM 40Gig drive ATA133. It is very slow and on boot the BIOS asks me to press F1 as it "is Bad" or sumin simila.!Anyone got any ideas as to wat is wrong?I used the powermax utlity before and just chnaged it to "normal" mode rather than "silent" but it was busted before this.
Any help would be appreciated!
DoM

[stool]

Did you run the Powermax diagnostics? It'll give you error codes if the drive is crapping out, which you'll need anyway to RMA the drive or contact their tech support.

[domstar]

RMA???whats that all about?it did give me codes but ill have to do it again and note thm. any idea is this kind of thing is fixable? Wat is RMA and how do i do it?
Cheers,
DoM