You can do it in XP etc. In My Computer, right click on the hard drive Icon and then go to tools and use check disk. However, there are a huge number of software programs that do this: If you have a Western digital, Seagate or Maxtor drive, et. al., they have downloadable utilities on their respecitve web sites that will allow you to do a thourough HD evaluation or there are programs like Hard Drive(disk?) Mechanic etc. Just Google "Hard Drive Test Software".