Hard drives are the essential part of our P.C., all the data is stored in the hard drive, and after a glacial amount of file transfer and usage of the Hard Drive, your Hard Drive might not act the same before. For reasons such as partition or file corruption, your Hard Drive can become slow.
Though every Hard Drive eventually dies and stops working, however before that, there are signs such as noises from the Hard Drive, damaged files that can't b access even from an Admin account, boot loop, or crash on boot. Such issues can be possibly due to excessive heat or physical damage.
If your P.C. is taking an enormous amount of time to move or copy files both on your local hard drive or external, then it's a sign that your Hard Drive is not healthy. Such issues are often seen in a few years old Hard drives due to the mechanical parts that degrade after a long time of usage in the Hard drive, such as the magnetic drive sector. Though solid-state drives don't have any mechanical parts, the storage cell still degrades after prolonged usage.
If you are getting such flags from your Hard Drive, it means the end of the drive is near. Therefore you would like to check the health status of the hard drive. So, in this article, we have mentioned a few ways to check the health status of your hard drive.
Checking S.M.A.R.T Status
S.M.A.R.T. stands for Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology; it's a built-in utility Windows and can be used to Check Hard Drive Health status and detect why your Hard Drive is faulty. Using the utility can be very useful since it can notify users before data loss. Hence users will know the time limit and can completely backup the Hard drive before the drive stops functioning.
Windows
- Right-click on the Start Menu and select Command Prompt from the menu. Now type and press enter the following command in the command prompt.
wmic diskdrive get model, status
- From the output, if the Hard Drive model's status is OK, it means your hard drive is still functional. However, if your hard drive is dead, then the output will be Pred Fail.
Using C.H.K.D.S.K. Tool
Other utilities come with Window inbuilt to Check Hard Drive Health, C.H.K.D.S.K. Tool not only scans your drive but also fixes any issues like partition or file corruption.
- Open up the File Explorer and go to your C drive, right-click on the space and select the Properties option from the menu.
- In the Properties window, click on the Tools tab and then click on the Check button under the Error Checking category. Confirm the administration access, and from the prompt, select the Scan drive option, and shortly after, the utility will provide you with the result about your challenging drive health.
Mac
- Open up the Application folder from the launcher and go to the Utilities folder, then click open the Disk Utility app on your Mac device.
- In the Disk Utility check for the S.M.A.R.T. Status, if it is verified, your Hard Drive is probably functioning, and if the status is Failing, then your Hard Drive is probably dead.
Using Third-Party Applications
Using S.M.A.R.T. only tells you if your Hard Drive is functioning or not. However, there is not so much clarification of information. It is presented in the simplest form. To access more information on your Hard Drive health, you have to use a third-party application.
Windows
Though there are plenty to use, CrystalDigitalInfo stands out because the software is designed to extract all the information about your Hard Drive using Windows API. You won't get any information like OK, Verified, instead you will get the Caution and Warning text, Temperature, and all the attributes details such as Read Error Rate, sign-up time, start/Stop Count, and much more.
Firstly, you will have to download the CrystalDigitalInfo software from their official site onto your P.C.; therefore, visit the link here. Download and install the CrystalDigitalInfo program on your Windows P.C., and launch the app to Check Hard Drive health status.
Mac
For mac users, you can install the DriveDx application to get more on their Hard drive health; it will show you all the details regarding your hard drive temperature and all the attributes for your Hard drive. However, it is not a free application; you have to purchase the app for $20.
Check the BIOS for Hard Drive Health
Modern motherboards ship with UEFI BIOS, wholly separated from the Operating System. Using current BIOS, you can check the health of the Hard Drive on your P.C. To do so, first, you will have to access the boot menu, therefore reboot your P.C., and while rebooting, press the Delete, F2, F12, or Esc Keys on your keyboard to bring the boot menu. If these keyboard shortcuts are not working, check your P.C.'s manufacturer website for more details.
In the BIOS menu, click on the Settings option; UEFI BIOS supports mouse, so you don't have to use your keyboard to navigate here. In the Settings submenu, go to the Advanced option and select the Self-Test option for your Hard Drive. For, example if you have S.S.D. Installed on your P.C., then the option will show as NVMs S.S.D. Self-Test.
Soon your BIOS will perform some algorithms on your Hard Drive to check the health shortly after; BIOS will show you the test details for all the attributes of your drive.
