5 Ways To Check Hard Disk Health On Windows 10 - Make Tech Easier PDF

3/23/2020 5 Ways to Check Hard Disk Health on Windows 10 - Make Tech Easier
5 Ways to Check Hard Disk Health on

Windows 10
By Mike Tee – Posted on Jan 26, 2020 in Windows
https://www.maketecheasier.com/check-hard-disk-health-windows/ 1/30
Your hard drive is the soul of your PC, the place where all your most important data is
stored. While most PC components can be replaced, the invaluable data on your hard
drive can’t if you haven’t created a backup. For this reason, ensuring your hard drive
stays healthy is crucial (anyone get the dull hard drive-related pun?).
There are various ways to check on your hard drive health – from built-in methods in
Windows to your HDD manufacturer’s diagnostic tools, and we’re going to talk you
through the best methods.
Related: 12 Things You Must Do When Running an SSD in Windows 10
1. Optimize and Defrag in Windows 10

Traditional SATA hard drives may have largely made way for much faster solid-state
drives, but they’re still very popular, and remain an affordable way to store things like
pictures, videos and other non-strenuous le types. SSDs work a little differently, and
while they never need defragmentation (because fragmentation relates to where the
data is physically stored on the drive, which isn’t a factor on SSD) they do sometimes
need optimizing.
If you feel like your non-SSD hard drive is slowing down, then you should check to see
how fragmented it is. You can do this using Windows 10’s in-built defrag tool (type
“defrag” into the Start menu then go to “Defragment and Optimise Drives”), then select
the drive and click “Analyse”. If fragmentation gets detected, click “Optimise” (formerly
called “Defrag”) for that drive.
We actually found that the free app Defraggler does a better job of detecting and
reducing fragmentation, but not everyone wants to install extra apps when the
functionality is built right into the OS.
You can also optimize your SSD on the Windows 10 defrag and optimize tool, though
Windows 10 should be taking care of the process automatically.
2. Use The HDD Manufacturer’s Tools
Most major hard drive manufacturers provide free robust tools to monitor your hard
drive health and performance. The rst step to knowing which one to use is, of course,
knowing the make of your hard drive.
If you know the make of your hard drive, you can skip this part. If you don’t, press the
Win key, type “device manager” and click it when it appears in the search results.
In Device Manager unstack the “Disk drives” option and make a note of the model
number of your hard drive. Next, type the model number into Google to bring up results
that will show you the make of the hard drive.
After that, go to the manufacturer’s support page and search for their hard drive utility.
To help you out, here are links to the relevant download pages of some of the biggest
hard drive brands:
Western Digital
Seagate
Samsung
Adata
Each of these tools functions a little differently, but most importantly, each one has
diagnostic features that let you test your hard drive health.
3. Windows CHKDSK Tool

Windows CHKDSK Tool is a built-in Windows tool that will scan your disk to nd system
errors and bad sectors and show if there are any problems with your hard disk. It will
both scan and x problems it can x and will let you know if there is a bigger problem
that it can’t x. You can use this tool to both check hard disk health and x bad sectors
and errors if possible.
To use CHKDSK, right-click on the drive which you would like to check for errors, and
select “Properties.” Then click on the “Tools” tab, and then click on the “Check now”
button.
A dialog will open up with two options to x errors and scan for bad sectors. You can
select these options if you want to x errors and bad sectors; otherwise you can just
click on “Start” to get a basic report of hard disk problems (if there are any).
This tool is very basic and focuses on nding system errors and bad sectors. It will just
let you know if there are any big problems and nothing more, so only use it as a basic
hard disk checking and xing tool.
4. Use WMIC
WMIC is a command-line interface that lets you perform many administrative tasks,
including checking hard disk health. It uses the S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and
Reporting Technology) feature of hard disks to see status and provide a simple
conclusion, like “OK” or “Pred Fail,” etc. It is still a very basic command that offers very
little information, but it is quick and a built-in feature of Windows.
To check a hard disk with WMIC, press the Win + R buttons to open the Run dialog.
Type cmd and click “OK” to open the Windows command prompt.
Type
wmic
and hit Enter. When the WMI interface is ready, type
diskdrive get status
and press Enter again. You will see the status of your hard disk after a short delay.
5. Use a Third-Party Hard Disk Health Checking

Tool
You can also use a third-party hard disk health checking tool that will offer much more
information than just good or bad status. These tools use the same “S.M.A.R.T” feature
of hard disks to fetch data, just like WMIC. However, they provide all the details to you,
instead of just showing good or bad status.
CrystalDiskInfo
For this purpose, CrystalDiskInfo is a really simple, yet powerful, tool. It is a free-to-use
tool that is extremely light and offers all the required information, such as temperature,
health status, hard disk type and features, and other attributes like read/write error rate
and spin-up time, etc.
The standard tool comes as a 4 MB .exe le, and its installer contains ads, so make
sure you use the “Custom Installer” option and uncheck the side tool (ad). Once
installed, all you need to do is launch the program, and you will see all the information
about your hard disk(s) in the main interface. The tool will also check the hard disk
health after every 10 minutes (by default) and alert you if there is anything wrong.
There are also other third-party hard disk health-checking tools like Hard Disk Sentinel
and HDDScan. These are much more advanced with loads of extra features, but for an
average user CrystalDiskInfo should work perfectly.
Conclusion
You can use the above-mentioned tools to check hard disk health in your Windows PC.
If you don’t need extra details, then the Windows built-in tools should work great.
Otherwise, it is recommended to download a third-party hard disk health checking tool.
This article was rst published in January 2016 and was updated in January 2020.
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3/23/2020 5 Ways to Check Hard Disk Health on Windows 10 - Make Tech Easier

5 Ways to Check Hard Disk Health on

Related: 12 Things You Must Do When Running an SSD in Windows 10

1. Optimize and Defrag in Windows 10

2. Use The HDD Manufacturer’s Tools

that will show you the make of the hard drive.

3. Windows CHKDSK Tool

and hit Enter. When the WMI interface is ready, type

diskdrive get status

5. Use a Third-Party Hard Disk Health Checking

Is this article useful? Yes No

Previous story Next story

© 2007 - 2020 Uqnic Network Pte Ltd. All rights reserved.

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