tools to identify hard drive problems

raverx3m

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what tools do I need to identify the problem with my broken hard drives?

I don't want to spin them up and continue degrading the data without actually knowing where the fault is whether its controller board or surface damage or data

preferably software

but if I have to buy hardware I would also if its more effective but not commercial prices lol


theres really no info on this
all the pages I went through basically parrot eachother and don't tell you anything besided running checkdisk etc
 
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There's software that you can use the check the SMART data, but that's about it besides running chkdsk to actually examine the disk for bad clusters.

HDTune is a popular one; CrystalDiskInfo is as well.
 
The hard drive manufacture can provide (in most cases) diagnostic software you can run to check the health status of your hard drive.
If the drive is currently working then back it up asap before something happens and you can't do a back up, you'll lose your data
 
at this point I care more about recovering the most not how much time lol

I give it a try

I really wanted to see if there is a tool that could tell me if its a faulty controller board so maybe I can buy one on ebay and replace it I know its hard to find and I have to find a very specific one


but the hard drive that failed is my backup drive which is also nas drive
WD red which supposed to be able to handle constant loads 24/7
all I had on it is my security camera recording. I barely even access it for files
I ran checkdisk and defrag on it on schedule once a month
and then it just took a dump and within two days I lost access to it
I didn't even have time to buy a replacement drive
essentially ALL my backups were on it
 
but i have never had an external 2.5 drive fail on me and they get thrown around a lot more.

while internal Seagate drives were dropping like flies the external 2.5 Seagate drive is the oldest one i have. from 2006 and im still using it for my music server daily
 
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