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Programs for western digital hdd. How to use one of the legendary hard drive diagnostic programs called Victoria

In this article, we will consider tools for checking disks for errors and diagnosing their condition. Let's focus on the built-in Windows features diagnostics. There are a large number of diagnostic utilities that will help you identify, if necessary, a problem with hard drive. Tools such as Check Disk for Errors and Microsoft's chkdsk command are already present as a standard Windows feature. And some others are provided by hard drive manufacturers and other third party developers.

In some cases, testing hard drive must be carried out by connecting it as a second to another computer.

There are also many paid programs for diagnostics of hard disk. But in this article, we are interested in free programs or those that have a partially free version.

Content:

Seagate SeaTools

Seagate SeaTools is a free hard drive diagnostic utility provided by Seagate that comes in two types:

SeaTools for DOS- supports Seagate or Maxtor drives, and runs independently of the operating system from a disk or USB drive, which makes it very reliable. It is more powerful than the Windows utility, but more difficult for the user.

SeaTools for Windows is a program that is installed on Windows and supports all its modern versions. With it, you can do basic or advanced testing of any hard drive, external or internal, from any manufacturer. It has simpler functionality than a DOS program, but is much easier to use.

These programs can test the health of any type of hard drive: SCSI, PATA or SATA, as well as external hard drives. To do this, just run the program, select the disk to be tested, the type of testing and run it.

The Seagate SeaTools programs are used to test hard drives by professional computer services, but are simple enough for anyone to use. If, for example, you are worried about the sounds emitted by the hard drive, you can safely test it with Seagate software.

Windows Drive Fitness Test (WinDFT) is another free diagnostic utility for hard drives of any type and manufacturer provided by hard drive manufacturer Western Digital (formerly owned by Hitachi). But the ability to test with it is not limited to WD or Hitachi drives.

The program includes not only several disk scanning functions, but also the ability to view SMART attributes and clean the hard disk.

Although WinDFT is designed to work on Windows, it does not scan or test the drive on which the operating system is installed. The utility supports external hard drives and other USB media. It displays only supported hard drives in its list and shows information about them: serial number, firmware version, capacity, status.

By double clicking on a drive, you will see its SMART status. It is also possible to select Quick Test or Ext Test. You can test one or more disks at the same time.

The Utilities button is an extended menu that is displayed in a separate window from the main one. From it, you can select one of the additional program functions: partition table cleanup, disk cleanup, short test, long test, etc.

Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic (DLGDIAG) is another free program for diagnostics and testing of hard drives from Western Digital. Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic comes in both PC and portable versions.

There are also versions of the program for Windows and for DOS. Version for Windows is easier in use than the DOS version, but has more modest functionality. The DOS version of the program requires that the main (primary) disk be WD. Both versions have the ability to clean up the hard drive.

The Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool is a hard drive test program that only works with Fujitsu hard drives.

The program has two forms: one starts with Windows, the other works from a floppy disk (floppy disk). The Windows version supports all its versions. The DOS version works independently of the operating system.

Both versions produce two tests: Quick ("Quick Test") - which will take no more than three minutes, and Comprehensive ("Comprehensive Test") - in addition to the read / write test, it also checks the disk surface. The duration of the second test depends on the size of the media being scanned.

With built-in windows tool checking the disk for errors can detect and fix a number of errors: starting with errors file system to physical errors bad sectors.

The Check Disk Error Tool is a graphical version of a tool that runs from the command line - "chkdsk", one of the most well-known commands from all versions of Windows. It is present on all modern versions of Windows, and has only minor differences.

Checking a disk takes from several minutes to several hours - it all depends on the size and speed of the storage medium, as well as the number of errors detected.

Windows 10 and Windows 8 already check disks for errors automatically, but you can also run the check manually.

To run the tool, open the "This PC" folder and right-click on the drive you want to check. Select Properties from the pop-up menu and go to the Tools tab. To run the program, click the Check button.

The "chkdsk" command is also simultaneously available on the computer, but has a wider functionality. You can launch it with command line and it has two functions:

chkdsk /f - Detects and fixes system errors.

chkdsk /r - detects and, if possible, fixes bad sectors of the disk.

To do this, type the indicated commands in the Command Prompt field and press Enter. If errors are found, the tool will notify you and prompt you to restart your computer.

Of course, this is not a complete list of tools for diagnosing hard drives, and perhaps not even their main representatives. In this article, we just focused on a few free utilities from manufacturers of hard drives that were available to us on this moment. If necessary, we can also suggest that you pay attention to such free hard drive diagnostic tools as: HDDScan, DiskCheckup, GSmart Control, Samsung HUTIL, Bart's Stuff Test, HD Tune, EASIS Drive Check, Macrorit Disk Scanner, Ariolic Disk Scanner, etc. .

There are several solutions for backing up data:

Embedded in operating system applications. Microsoft Windows provides ways Reserve copy data that involves saving files and data on external or built-in storage media. All modern Windows versions already include the ability to create backup necessary files or the entire hard drive, if necessary. The functions provided by Windows are complete and standalone, and are designed to ensure that you do not need to use third party services or programs.
Copying data manually. You can always use the old proven way to back up data - manually copying data to an external storage medium. This is long, but if you work with a small amount of data, this solution may be quite acceptable for you.
Online services. In recent years, the most popular modern way data backups are numerous online services. Companies that provide online backup of your files. A small background application installed on the computer creates copies of the necessary data and saves them to remote server. However, the volumes provided by such companies for storing your files in free version do not allow them to be used as a complex solution. Often the space offered for backing up data does not exceed 10 GB, so there is no need to talk about creating a backup copy of the entire hard drive. Such services are rather aimed at backing up a separate number of files.
Create a disk image. This is the most complete data backup solution for advanced users. This method involves the use third party program to create an image of the entire disk, which can be deployed if necessary on another storage medium. By using this decision, you can in a short period of time get access to all the data that was on the disk at the time of its backup: documents, programs and media files.

WD (Western Digital) Hard Drive Models:

blue;
black;
Red Pro;
purple;
Purple NV;
Raptor;
VelociRaptor;
gold;

Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics is a program that collects technical information about your hard drive, diagnoses it and can fix some problems. True, the last two features are available exclusively for HDD from Western Digital.

Disk testing can be performed in quick and extended modes. Both involve getting SMART data and parsing the structure of the file structure. Upon completion of the tests, Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics will provide information about the "health" of the drive and indicate any problems identified. In addition, basic information will be collected, including the hard drive model, capacity, and serial number. In addition to testing the entire disk, it is possible to test individual partitions.

Another important purpose of the program is complete removal information available on the disk without the possibility of its subsequent recovery. Moreover, this function also has a quick and advanced modes. We highly recommend using the second one, which replaces all data values with zeros. At the moment it is the most reliable way permanently delete any information.

In general, the only serious drawback of Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics is its general "sluggishness". Individual high volume media tests can take up to several hours. Many programs for servicing hard drives "sin" like this. Fortunately, the solution from Western Digital does not heavily load the computer, allowing you to use the computer in parallel with the testing process.