The Intel Solid-State Drive Toolbox is drive management software that allows you to monitor your drive health, estimated drive life remaining and S.M.A.R.T. This SSD Toolbox can run quick and full diagnostic scans to test the read and write functionality of an Intel SSD. Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics is free hard drive testing software that's available for download in both a portable Windows program as well as a bootable, ISO file and allows for a number of hard drive tests.
Seagate creates two free hard drive testing software programs — SeaTools Bootable and SeaTools for Windows. While both testing tools are excellent, they are different.
The bootable version of SeaTools is more powerful but is a bit more difficult to use. SeaTools for Windows isn't as full featured but it's much easier to install.
Both programs are completely free and are highly recommended. If you suspect that your hard drive might be failing, one or both of these tools from Seagate will help you determine what's wrong.
This review is of SeaTools for DOS v2.23 and SeaTools for Windows v1.4.0.7. Please let me know if there's a newer version I need to review.
You may need to replace the hard drive if it fails any of your tests.
More About Seagate SeaTools
Seagate SeaTools is available in both a Windows version and a stand-alone, bootable version for maximum flexibility, called SeaTools for Windows and SeaTools Bootable, respectively.
Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP are all supported operating systems in the Windows version while the bootable SeaTools can be used no matter what operating system is installed on the hard drive, including none at all.
I also used Seagate SeaTools in Windows 10, and though it's not officially supported, it seemed to work as advertised.
SeaTools for Windows
As I mentioned above, SeaTools for Windows installs to your computer like a normal program. It can perform several basic tests that can help determine the health of your hard drive, and all types of internal drives can be tested, like SCSI, PATA, and SATA drives.
External drives are also supported like those that work via USB or FireWire.
To get started, visit the SeaTools download page and choose the link called SeaTools for Windows under the Downloads section. The download is an EXE file called SeaToolsforWindowsSetup.exe.
Setup isn't confusing at all, and installs the program quickly.
SeaTools Bootable
The bootable SeaTools program that can be installed on a flash drive or other USB device, can be downloaded here — select SeaTools Bootable. The file is called USBbootSetup-SeaToolsBootable.zip, meaning you'll need to extract the program files from the archive in order to use it.
Once you've done that, open SeaToolsBootable_RC_2.1.2.usbBootMaker.exe, the built-in bootable USB creator. Follow the steps in the wizard to put SeaTools on the device, and then boot from the USB device to run the program.
Another version, SeaTools for DOS, is similar, but don't let the for DOS part scare you away. SeaTools for DOS works with any kind of PC, no matter what operating system is installed.
Visit the SeaTools download page to find the SeaTools for DOS download link in the Downloads area. It will download as an ISO file called SeaToolsDOS223ALL.ISO.
See our How to Burn an ISO Image File to a CD or DVD tutorial if you've never burned an ISO image before (it's different than burning normal files to discs), and then How to Boot From a CD or DVD for help getting SeaTools for DOS going.
Seagate SeaTools Pros & Cons
There's little not to like about this excellent set of hard drive testing tools:
Pros:
Two versions are available depending on needs
Both versions are easy to use once installed, and are completely free
SeaTools for Windows tests hard drives no matter the manufacturer
SeaTools for Windows includes lots of information on the drive, like its serial number, capacity, cache size, firmware revision, and rotation rate
SeaTools for DOS contains a highly useful 'acoustic test' for noise troubleshooting
SeaTools for DOS is OS independent, so it's automatically compatible with all operating systems
Cons:
SeaTools for DOS requires ISO image burner software that novice users might have difficulty using
SeaTools for DOS handles a maximum of only 100 errors, at which point testing has to begin again
SeaTools for DOS doesn't seem to work well with most RAID controllers
My Thoughts on Seagate SeaTools
Seagate's SeaTools hard drive testing programs are some of the easiest to use of any I've ever worked with. The tests are basic, easy to run, and generally pretty fast in my experience.
Your available hard drives and tests are easy to see when the program opens and can be started with just a few clicks of the mouse.
SeaTools for DOS can perform the several basic tests that SeaTools for Windows can run but it can also run a very useful Acoustic Test (on Seagate and Maxtor drives only). This test can really save you a lot of time if you think your hard drive is making noise. It will spin the drive down until it's completely idle, making the drive nearly silent. If you no longer hear the strange noise, the hard drive was the culprit!
So if you're comfortable burning ISO images and you want a slightly more powerful set of tools, use SeaTools for DOS. If you're more of a novice or you just want a quick and basic hard drive test, give SeaTools for Windows a try.
Most veteran hard disks have errors, including so-called bad blocks. Some of them may cause sad things happening to your hard disk, and it’s only a matter of time.
Windows OS offers tools which test your hard disk for errors, and chkdsk mentioned here, is one of them. However, they are not designed for diagnostic and testing, so we want to introduce some other, more effective software to correct errors on a hard disk.
Fix tools and diagnostics software:
HDD Regenerator – hard disk testing and bad sectors repairing software
HDD Regenerator is a professional software for hard disk diagnostic, scanning for and repairing errors. The word “regenerator” gives you a hint to this program being able not only to find errors, problems and bad blocks but also to fix them. In other words, you can use it as a hard disk bad sector repair tool.
HDD Regenerator can be used as an adequate tool for corrupted data recovery. If some data can’t be read (or hard disk detected but not showing in my computer), Regenerator will help to get round bad blocks / clusters and read problem files.
To check HDD health there is a particular test. S.M.A.R.T data helps get additional information. HDD Regenerator includes the range of tools needed for that.
Other features of the hard drive regenerator:
Supports FAT and NTFS file systems, yet during the test a filesystem doesn’t make any different
Detailed statistics on the hard drive performance and health
Creation of a bootable regenerating flash or CD/DVD as part of HDD Regenerator
Prescan mode: quick scan of disk surface
HDD monitoring in the real-time mode
Data security: the program works in the read-only mode (except for bad blocks rewriting)
The PRO version of HDD Regenerator costs $79.99 a year. A free demo version allows recovering one bad sector for free.
Hitachi Drive Fitness Test (WinDFT) – testing software for Hitachi hard drives
Hitachi Drive Fitness Test is used to perform hard drive diagnostic and troubleshooting. This utility allows testing internal and external hard drives with the support of G-Technology.
To perform the diagnostics you can select either Quick Test or Extended Test.
You will see Pass or Fail status next to every test in TestLog.
Reading of SMART attributes.
Bootable CD image creation option. If you can’t boot from your hard drive, WinDFT can be started in LiveCD mode.
Hitachi Drive Fitness Test performs testing without overwriting data on the disk.
Seagate SeaTools for Windows: hard drive performance test
SeaTools from Seagate is a free HDD diagnostic, error repair tool and performance tester for Windows and DOS.
This utility enables you to detect some problems on HDD before turning to the repair service centre (in our reality you are likely to be offered a new disk to replace the once which doesn’t work, which means losing your data stored on it).
Note. This software is compatible not with all HDD models, it works only for Seagate hard disks.
Problems that Seagate utility can detect:
Damaged filesystem of the HDD
Bad blocks and reading errors
Windows driver-related and system errors
Desktop or laptop hard drive not detected
Incompatible hardware
Windows bootloader (MBR) problems on the disk
Viruses, keyloggers and other malicious apps
SeaTools works the following way: a user selects tests for diagnostics and starts them, receiving a detailed report as a result. If the HDD test is passed, you will see the PASS mark, otherwise it will show as FAIL. You should take into consideration that HDD testing can take up to 4 hours. In order to save time you can select one of the three test modes.
Seagate SeaTools is able to scan hdd for bad sectors and even repair them by trying to do recovery or writing zeroes (this method allows ignoring problem sectors during reading/writing of the disk structure).
HDD Health: checks disks and reads SMART attributes
HDD Health is another free utility for hard disk testing and controlling a health status. It checks your hard drive for errors (SSD/HDD), its status and makes predictions (Health index).
Toshiba Hard Drive Diagnostics Tool
The tool’s main window displays the following information:
manufacturer, model, firmware revision
current temperature HDD (SSD) (accessible via system tray)
disk structure overall condition
other attributes (Extended info menu)
Just as other diagnostic tools, HDD Health reads S.M.A.R.T technical info, which is good for specifying the current hardware performance. The software doesn’t include any other components for detecting errors and checking for bad blocks.
So the set of tools HDD Health offers comes in handy in case S.M.A.R.T. criteria are enough to check the hard disk health (and if the device condition is not critical). Fortunately, in the latest HDD/SSD disks S.M.A.R.T. technology is implemented.
Windows Hard Drive Diagnostic
Download HDD Health app for free on the developer’s page Panterasoft.
HDDScan – testing hard drive for corrupted partitions
HDDScan is a free hard drive diagnostic tool which also reads S.M.A.R.T., check SSD status and other parameters. Performing the disk surface test will provide you with a log file containing detailed information on the disk condition.
HDDScan supports various memory storage devices:
RAID arrays
HDD drives with IDE/SATA interface
SATA/ATA SSD
USB-flash drive
Some of the most useful HDDScan features are:
Checking for errors which can’t be found by basic Windows utilities: bad blocks and bad sectors
Hard drive testing (Reading/Verification/Erasing disk surface tests)
Temperature monitor for all hard drives connected to your computer
Export of any data as a customized report
CHKDSK – Windows utility for fixing errors and bad blocks
You don’t have to install external programs to check your hard disk for errors. Windows has a computer utility Check Disk designed for this.
Hard Drive Diagnostic Freeware
CHKDSK appeared already in DOS, and is known as scandisk there. The utility both finds and repairs basic filesystem errors. As was said above, it is not meant to search for all types of errors and is not an HDD diagnostic tool.
External Hard Drive Diagnostics
However, using CHKDSK you can fix errors on data storage devices: not only hard drive but USB memory and SD cards (any device which has a bad block). Starting with Windows NT, it also fixes bad blocks (damaged partitions) marking them in a specific way. As a result, other tools ignore these partitions when reading/writing.