Testing the Hard Disk Drive

Hard Disk Drive is also known as hard drive. This is the computer's main storage device used to store all data on the computer permanently. Commonly, hard drives are permanently place in an internal drive bay at the front of the system case and are connected with either ATA, SCSI, or a SATA cable and power cable. Some Hard drives nowadays are portable which use USB ports and USB cable for connection. 

Time will come that you will experience some computer problems relating to hard disk drive failure. The problem is some parts on the computer will cause the same error or problems, so it will not be easy to identify which part causes it. So to make sure that the real culprit is the hard disk drive, we could diagnose it using some hard disk drive testing software. The good thing is there are a lot of free hard drive testing software available and ready to download. Aside from that, Microsoft Operating System already have a utility software used to test the hard drive so you don't need to download other programs. 

Here are some reasons why you need to test the hard disk drive

1. Computer shows error during copying, moving, or  deleting data on the computer.
2. Computer is performing slow.
3. boot disk failure always appear on boot up. 
4. Computer always restart.
5. Blue Screen of death or BSOD.  

Here are some of the software that you could use in testing the hard disk drive

1. Error Check tool for hard disk drive in Windows. 

To use this tool, you need to right click on Drive Icon and select properties, then under tools, click Check Now. 

2. Check Disk (chkdsk)

Check Disk (Chkdsk) is a another utility software in Windows that enable the user to checks the computer's hard disk drives' status and shows errors with the hard disk drive, if there is an error and the system can fix it, hard disk drive will be back to normal.

To access the chkdsk utility, open command prompt by typing cmd in Run command line

On Command Prompt, type chkdsk /f then press enter.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? . Of course you need to press Y here so the system will restart and chkdsk will be done behind Windows. 

The chkdsk screen appear after the Windows reboot so you need to wait until it finish or reach the 100 percent.

Well, I think that chkdsk is the first aid for problems like, system is restarting, slow Windows operation, Windows Log in is stucked in the progress bar, 

3. HDD Tune

This is a third party program that can be download for free, it is also available in Hirens BootCD 31.0. Just look under programs, under Hard Disk/Storage tool

 

To Check for error using this tool, all you need to do is click Error Scan tab and click Start button.

The Legend Says that if you see Red mark, there is a error, Green mark means OK

The good thing about this tool is it has a Benchmark Tool. Using this tool you could compare the performance of your hard disk drive if it is in normal condition. 

There are lot of testing program for hard disk drive available to download and its free, all you need to do is learn how to use it and how to interpret it.

Use DirectxDiagnostic Tool to diagnose your computer

Diagnostics is done by a computer technician to test a computer hardware or software to make sure that it is working as it should be. It is important to test the hardware and software are installed.

To measure the computer hardware and software performance, a benchmark is done.  Benchmark is a type of test where results are used to compare how well a product may do against other products. The higher the value of the results, the faster the component, software, or overall computer is.

A diagnostic program is a program created used to give technical information about a particular hardware device, this program is  designed to diagnose the peripheral.

Before you proceed on diagnostic tool try to look on your device manager if all devices like video, audio, Ethernet, modem, internal webcam, bluetooth and other devices on your computer motherboard are working properly. An X symbol means the device is disabled so just enable it. An ! exclamation point sysmbol means the device software is not yet installed.

Example of Diagnostic program 

In Windows operating system we could use the following programs; 

1. DirectX Diagnostic tool

dxdiag is a shortcut for DirectX diagnostics, DxDiag is a Microsoft tool included with DirectX that allow a computer technician to view system information and DirectX information relating to your video card and sound card. and other peripheral devices. This tool is also used to troubleshoot driver related issue problems. 

To run DxDiag on your computer, click Start, and in the run line, type dxdiag and press enter.

MS Windos 7 RUN

MS Windows XP RUN

Using this diagnostic tool, computer user can see if the problem is video or sound driver. Most of the problem relating to hardware is the incorrect installation of device driver or software. So in order to test if there is a problem in video for example, just access the video tab and use the the Test DirectDraw button and Test Direct3d button.

It will remind you that it will test DirectDraw on this device. Just click Yes to proceed. Make sure no other programs are running on your computer.

It will remind you that it will show some figures or graphics to test your device.

Below is the sample output, this image will last for seconds so just wait till a dialog box appear. 

It will also test the simple animation on your video, below is the output you will see where a white box is bouncing inside the small black screen.

Then it will ask you if you see a bouncing white box, so if you really see it. Click Yes, if not, the diagnostic tool will record it as an error then that is the problem that you need to resolve. Probably you will start on reinstallation of your device driver.

 You could also use the sound diagnostic tool. Like the video, A sounds will should be hear on your speaker so make sure to plug a working speaker properly on your  computer.

After the sound, if you really hear the output sound, just click yes to proceed. if not, there is a problem in your device so make a double check on your sound driver, adjustment of volume and output device.