Today I will show you how to check the status of your hard drive. There are tools built into Windows which will accomplish such tasks (eg chkdsk) however they are useless if you can’t boot into the system to use them. For situations like this you need SeaTools.
Seatools is a diagnostic program that can be run from a CD and allows you to perform preconfigured tests on your hard drive. For the purpose of this tutorial I will use SeaTools on a Windows 7 system which is hosted as a virtual machine within Virtualbox.
Ok first thing to do is download a copy of Seatools and burn it to a disk. Now we shall boot the system with the disk to get the screenshot below.
Accept the license agreement to start the program. Once started you should get the screenshot below.
Now highlight your hard drive and click on Basic Tests – Short Test. The short test is usually sufficient to tell if your hard drive is experiencing issues.
Once the test has been carried out Seatools will show the test results on the right hand side under Test Results.
If the Test Result is Passed then you have no issues. If however the result is Failed then you have a problem. You can go back and try the Long Test which can sort out any bad sectors etc but in my experience if a hard drive fails the Short Test it needs replacing.
About the Author
Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.
For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.
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