This guide descibes how you can test the health of your computer’s hard disk before they malfunction. Also learn about free hard drive diagnostics tools that can catch most drive errors.
Hard disk failure is possibly the worst thing that can happen to your computer and it often occurs without giving any warning signs.
Test Your Hard Drive for Impending Problems
You may however run certain tests on your computer beforehand to get an idea about the current condition of your hard disk. This should in turn help you decide whether a replacement drive is necessary or not.Step 1: Check your hard disk for errors
All recent versions of Windows include a utility called Chkdsk.exe that can check your hard disk for any bad sectors.You may either run Chkdsk from the command line (see details) or launch Windows Explorer, right click the drive that you wish to examine and choose Properties. Switch to the Tools tab and click the “Check Now” button under Error checking. Select “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” to perform a thorough disk check.