Best hard drive testing tool for warranty replacement

[Cheryl_27]

I'm getting a Seagate "factory reconditioned" warranty replacement drive. Want to do a thorough testing / "stress test" before restoring data. I'm not sure Seatools is the best, free tool for this purpose. I don't know how "extensively" it tests for various drive defects.

There are other fairly well known free tools, but may be billed also as a monitoring tool. That may be OK, but need to make sure what I use puts the drive through ALL necessary, rigorous tests.

Never used any of them, but some of better known free tools are

- Crystal Disk Info - (has Open Candy; can avoid that by running (any) installer containing it, from command prompt w/ a "/NOCANDY" option.

- HDDScan

- HDTune

Personal recommendations? Thanks.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

In my experience, If Seatools is made by the same company that makes drives, I'm pretty sure that it should be enough to tell you the drive is well.

[Cheryl_27]

Yes, Seatools is Seagate's drive diagnostic & testing tool. Don't know (for others info) if Maxtor & Samsung drives (owned by Seagate) have their own tools, or if Seatools will now handle them all. But, they'd all be on Seagate's site.

[Japlabot]

It doesn't matter, you won't be able to RMA unless you have a test code from Seatools anyway

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

Something that reads the smart data and can give you a report will help. Speedfan is one the many that can. http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

The smart HD is a function, it's primary function is to monitor fan speeds and temperature sensors in your computer.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

In my years, I found speedfan to work ~50% of the time. So its a hit and miss.

[Cheryl_27]

I think we're on different pages. The bad drive is taken care of (I used Seagate's seatools util) - though they did NOT ask for the diagnostic code, before doing an online warr return.

Need best tool I can find to "pre-test" the drive they're sending me, before loading data on it. These would be dedicated hard drive fitness test tools, not one's that read only SMART code or give HDD temps, etc.

[roguekiller23231]

this is what i do with a new drive.

Never use the drive for your data that hasn't been backed up for the first 3 months of usage. use the drive as a backup drive and add and remove files when ever you remember to.

during this time i use a SMART scanner, since i have Ashampoo HDD control (which you have to pay for, but there is a trial) i use it to check and monitor the SMART data, if the drive starts to show signs of ware in 3 months, it's going to die within the year, usually by 3 months defective drives usually are dead, but if you see the smart data showing that the drive might fail soon send it back.

[metal_dragen Veteran]

You might give SpinRite a try. It's not free and not cheap ($89 USD), but it's probably the best hard drive data recovery and repair tool around. It can also do a scan of the drive surface to look for problem areas.

If that's too much, Rogue had some good suggestions. Don't use it as a primary drive and don't store any data on it that is not backed up. It's generally true that if a drive is going to go bad, it will generally show symptoms within a few months of starting to use it.

Personally, and this is going on past experience: I would never trust a reconditioned hard drive. Hard drives are very precise electromechanical devices and the platters are incredibly delicate and sensitive to even the tiniest speck of dust. Once one has been opened, it will never be the same. And keep in mind that a reconditioned drive has already failed once.

[djdanster]

HDAT? It can be found on a hirens disc :)

[Cheryl_27]

Thanks for various tips. BTW, Seagate (& probably others) NEVER promise to replace RMAd drives w/ "new" units. That's their warranty policy. If they had no reconditioned units in stock, they'd likely send new one or perhaps a "similar" model. I don't like it either, but that's their policy. What would one do - throw away defective drives w/ several yrs warr left, because they don't like reconditioned drives?

I doubt these reconditioned units were actually repaired vs there was nothing wrong w/ some RMAd units. Could be wrong. If they are repaired, it'd be in a clean room. If a co. had high failure rates on reconditioned drives, sales would suffer badly. But if ALL mfgs have same policy...

Using a SMART monitoring tool is a good idea, but because it'll (likely) be reconditioned, want to do a serious, thorough testing in 1st couple days, so can send it back immediately if find errors.

I've used HDAT. Honestly don't know how thorough its "long / advanced" tests are. Was hoping someone had seen actual comparisons of testing tools - on same drive(s) - showing data on which found how many, what type errors. Similar to AV comparisons. Maybe it's not as complicated for evaluating drive testing tools as testing AVs.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

I have several RMA'd hdds here in my computer. they all work just fine. Any manufacturer would not do that.