![]() Or, if you're rocking macOS, check out how to use macOS - essential tips and tricks. If you're a Windows user, find out how to enable God Mode in Windows 11 or 10, how to find out which Windows version I have and how to see your Wi-Fi password in Windows 11. Now you know how to check your hard drive's health, you may want to check out our guide on cloud storage vs external hard disk drive to see if ditching your drive may be the better option. Instead, you're going to need to clone your drive, using a program such as EaseUS Todo Backup, which has a free version for Windows or a paid version with a free trial for macOS users. However, if you have any programs installed or system info you'd like to be brought across, this is likely to be left out if you choose this method. The easiest way to do this would be to simply copy/paste or drag everything from the disk to the second one, which is the best method if your disk only contains media files such as songs or movies. It's also worth checking whether your data has already been backed up in the cloud, since Windows' OneDrive and macOS' iCloud both offer these services, which you may not have realized were turned on.Īlternatively, if your connection isn't up to the task, or if you're racing against time before meltdown occurs, you may want to copy or clone your disk's contents to another drive. It contains two utilities useful to check the status of storage with S.M.A.R.T support (Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology): smartcl and smartd.The former is the utility we use directly to check S.M.A.R. The easiest way to do this may be by using a cloud storage service, since this requires no additional hardware and is relatively simple. The smartmontools package is generally available in the default repositories of all the major Linux distributions. If, after running checks, you discover your drive is dying, what do you do? Well, the first thing you'll want to consider is how to backup all your data. If you'd prefer to go first-party, it's worth seeing if your disk manufacturer has its own tool, such as Western Digital's Drive Utilities, or Seagate's handy SeaTools. That's where standalone programs come in handy, which can offer more extensive info.įor Windows, CrystalDiskInfo is a free tool that can delve a bit deeper into your disk's status, while macOS users should take a look at DriveDX, which costs $19.99 but comes with a free trial. tool is quick and easy, it doesn't do much beyond telling you whether your disk is fine or about to die. Note: This information won't appear if you're running a post-2015 machine with an SSD installed. status" section in the bottom-left, or by clicking the " i" icon in the top-right. Click the drive you want to check, and its status will read either " Verified" or " Failing" in the " S.M.A.R.T. I run badblocks -wvs on every new hard drive I purchase before putting it into service.To do this on macOS, open the Disk Utility tool by going to Applications, then Utilities. If you just use the c option once, badblocks will do a read-only test. ![]() Specifying c twice will force fsck to run, and will use badblocks to do a non-destructive read-write test. # is the number of the partition (e.g., /dev/sdb1). Then for each partition: sudo e2fsck -fcc /dev/sdx#Īgain, /dev/sdx is the hard drive you want to scan. First, get the list of all the drives and their partitions: sudo fdisk -l If you happen to have a Linux filesystem on the drive, you can check for filesystem errors and run badblocks at the same time. Note that this will overwrite all data on the drive and wipe out all the partitions, as well. It does this 4 times, using the patterns 0xaa, 0x55, 0xff, and 0x00 (alternating 0's and 1's, then all 1's, then all 0's). The -w option tells badblocks to write a known pattern, then read back the data to make sure it matches the pattern. If you don't care about the data, you can do this instead, to do a more thorough scan: sudo badblocks -wvs /dev/sdx This will perform a non-destructive read/write test on the disk without doing a filesystem check. ![]() ![]() For each drive: sudo badblocks -nvs /dev/sdx Use sudo fdisk -l to list all the drives and their partitions. I'd suggest getting an Ubuntu live CD and booting into Linux, then using badblocks to scan for physical defects. Where x is the drive letter of your USB drive, assuming the drive is partitioned and has a drive letter assigned to it. In Windows NT/XP/Vista/7, you can open a CMD prompt and use
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