Best HHD tool? Possibley scanner and fixer?:(

Hi,
My hard drive is...well lets say kinda messed up. Far too slow for what it is (Maxtor 100ATA IDE 7200RPM i think). wondering what was the ebst tool to use to scan the drive and possibley fix any problems with it! When i boot my BIOS tels me that the drive is bad, back up and replace-this only happens if SMART is enabled. Any one have any ideas bout this or what diagnostic/config and fixing tools theere are?
Cheers guys,
DoM

You can try maxtor's Powermax utility. It basically can run a diagnostic on your hd for any problems. Also allows you to do a LLF(low level format), surface errors, detection errors, etc.

Doesnt the low level format erase all datan on the drive(or given partition)?

yup it places 0's in every single sector of the drive, basically making it totally empty again. Thus positioning in all the tracks and sectors in the factory preset conditions. Some people would say this is a "true" format operation since it creates the physically format that defines where the data is stored on the disk.

Stickies are wonderful things: http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=127203