Seeking Software to find & fix Hard Drive problems

I am seeking an app that will: (1) locate & fix bad sectors on an external Hard Drive (HD), and (2) check files on an external HD for integrity, & then fix errors where feasible to do so.

I know there is an internal Windows capability for doing these actions but it is slow & provides very little feedback as to its progress and as to its results. Therefore, if there is a good stand-alone app for doing these jobs, I would like to know about it.

Thanks for any help you can offer towards finding such an app.

 

Perhaps "Hard Disk Sentinel" is what you're looking for?

I use it once in a while and it's suited my needs thus far but I don't believe it has any 'filesystem' level scans.

 

I highly recommend Hard Disk Sentinel. It reads a hard disks SMART disagonstic data and instantly gives a clear explanation of the condition of the drive. As an example, this is the status of my primary SSD.



You can also use it to scan hard drives for bad sectors and repair them. This can lead to data loss on the bad sectors, as just like chkdsk it makes no special attempts to read the data from bad sectors. This is taken from the help file.

For fixing bad sectors and actually recovering the data, I use DRevitalize. When it finds a bad sector, it rereads it a number of times in an attempt to read all of the data. It won't always be able to recover the data, but al least it makes a good attempt of doing so.

For checking for problems with the disk structure, chkdsk is probably the best option, as it works very well and I think most third party tools are actually using it. However you may want to have a look at Disk Checker. It has not been updated for years, but it does seems to be more thorough than chkdsk. Also it includes a File Access test, which will read all the files on a selected disk or folder to see if any of them have any read errors.

 

I very briefly tried Hard Disk Sentinel (HDS) & Disk Checker (DC). Both of them are excellent. Thanks for pointing me at them.

I am very much willing & able to buy BOTH of these apps if doing so isn't a waste of $$$. I like DC because it pretty much does all the checking & fixing I might ever need. I like HDS because it would surely give me a warning when a HD starts down the road to imminent failure, thus giving me time to transfer that sick HD's data to a healthy/new HD.

However, it's hard to make a decision because the trial version of HDS doesn't do all the checking & fixing that the Pro version does. Further, DC's trial version is also crippled versus its registered version. Therefore, I am uncertain about the answers to the following questions & would very much appreciate your comments concerning them:

Q1- Does DC do any checking/fixing that the PRO version of HDS cannot do?

AND

Q2- If you were me, would you buy HDS Pro, or DC, or both?

 

@bellgamin I would buy Hard Disk Sentinel. It's a very good program that is well supported by the developer. It can't fix file system errors like DC does, but chkdsk does a good job of that anyway, so not a great loss in my opinion.

 

Can you be more specific? Like, how do they compare to each other?

 

Disk Checker basically does the same job as chkdsk when it comes to fixing file system errors. I have notice that there are times that it seems to fix more issues than chkdsk does. But, I don't think that's a big deal as chkdsk works very well.

 

@ bellgamin, for prevent Hard Disk issues I use DiskFresh (from Puran Defrag developer).

More very useful information Here.

 

@ Roger -- THANKS! I bought Hard Drive Sentinel Pro.

@ majoMo -- THANKS! I downloaded DiskFresh (it's free) plus Puran Utilities, also. I am very familiar with Puran. I have used their defragger for several years. They are a good outfit.

 

@ bellgamin, I know you used their defragger.

I remember that Puran Defrag was an app. that I knew in Wilders through your information about.

 

I used to use HDS full time, but I ditched it because it was (is?) too alarmist (warning me about my drive going to fail when it is not) , now I run its portable version once every 6 months just for the detailed info.

All my important datas are in several secured ext-HDD and cloud. So I don't bother monitoring my drives anymore.

I need my system to be as light as possible. No unneeded softs running in the background

 

I took HDS off the startup & run it on demand only. As for HDS being an alarmist, I suppose this kind of app must err on the side of being too careful. I can deal with an app that sometimes gives a false alarm, but I would be VERY distressed with an app that let my HD fail & never offered a murmur of warning. But... to each his own, as the spinster lady said when she kissed her cat.

By the way, did you take a look at DiskFresh? I would appreciate your thoughts concerning that app. I found the Review especially interesting.

 

@bellgamin no I don't use such tools anymore, all my datas are secured, and if the disk is about to fail (you can pinpoint it behaving abnormally), i just replace it.
128gb SSD (which is more than enough for the OS unless you install tons of games/heavy softs) and 1-2tb HDD aren't so expensive now.

 

You're welcome.

I don't find it be alarmist. I like it a lot because it is the only software of its type that gives a clear description of the condition of a drive, rather than just showing the data. As well, on its website there is detailed description of any problems it finds, if you want even more information. Of course there may be times when a failing drive lasts much longer than the estimate it gives. But to be fair, it is only an estimate and it's not possible to tell exactly how long a drive will last. At least you will see when a drive starts to develop problems and it's up to you if you want to ditch the drive or keep using it.

 

Will somebody (anybody!) PLEASE take a look at DiskFresh & its Review. Its functions seem very promising & logically feasible, BUT they also seem somewhat too good to be true. I'm far from being an expert on HD technology, so someone -- please bear a hand, wot?

 

I don't see at least for W7 how these programs are any better than chkdsk c: /r etc.

 

DRevitalize, can sometimes recover data from bad sectors.

 

Unfortunately, in my experience, if there are hard drive problems, the best solution is to get a new device.
Mrk

 

+1

 

Some aditional info:

- The Review' author is Donn Edwards [Wilders Forum member @ DonnEdwards], and like @ HAN said "is THE man in defrag testing".
The Puran Developer (Vishal Gupta) is also a Wilders Forum member: @ puransoftware.

- Like Puran Developer said:

• DiskFreh is not a tool that can correct "hard drive problems", like to solve “bad block”, corrupted and deleted data: because "While it does not prevent data from being corrupted or deleted, it can go a long way towards ensuring that the magnetic signal does not fade away completely.".
• DiskFresh "is a hard drive maintenance tool" indeed. So «if there are hard drive problems, the best solution is to get a new device» like @Mrkvonic and @Umbra says - such doesn't mean that "ensuring that the magnetic signal does not fade away completely" is not a good and advisable attitude.
• Some years ago I had a issue with a external USB drive with a Macrium backup image - that was corrupted. With 'DiskInfo' and 'chkdsk' I saw the disk wasn't good in some disk sectors. So a 'hard drive problem'! I did: 1. Deleted Macrium Image 2. Wipe Free Space (with Puran Wipe Disk) 3. Used DiskFresh; after years I'm using that external USB drive yet - without issues!
• Occasionally I use DiskFresh in my PC Disk, external USB drives used for Backups - and I'm prevent in this way "that the magnetic signal does not fade away completely".

 

@ majoMo -- Thanks! It's obvious that you did not recommend DiskFresh until after you had given it a lot of thought, on top of your personal experience in using this fine app. Your comments at post #20 are very instructive background info. Grace & peace to you.

 

@ bellgamin, thanks for your words and grace & peace to you also!

 

I just had a look at DiskFresh. I had heard of it before, but had never used it, as I wasn't sure if there was any point in doing so. But after reading the informative post @majoMo it seems that it actually is a useful tool.

@bellgamin HD Senitenel Pro has can refresh drives too, as you can see in the screenshot. So there's no point in having both installed. Since all they are doing is reading and writing data back to the disk, they are both doing exactly the same thing.



DiskFresh could be of use for those who are using HD Sentinel Pro.

Edit: When you install DiskFresh, it gives you the option to create a scheduled task to run it quarterly, which is something that HD Sentinel doesn't offer.