How do you know if..
- Thread starter luvduvs
- Start date
Currently reading:
How do you know if..
You mean if it's about to break or if it's slow compared to modern stuff? Most things last forever apart from HDDs and Optical drives.
:yeahthat:
My colleague's HDD crapped itself, and the tech said if she ran the tool and spotted the problem beforehand, she could have backed up everything instead of losing everything now.
a tool within Windows that tells you how your hardware is doing?
man you're really gullible, they must love winding you up!
man you're really gullible, they must love winding you up!
Backup everything anyway - not just while 2nd guessing a hdd failure.
You can enable SMART hdd protecton. That will 'usually' warn of certain types of HDD failure.
You can enable SMART hdd protecton. That will 'usually' warn of certain types of HDD failure.
I'm sure 'Disc Wizard' the software that comes with Seagate hard disks has a test facility that analysis the hard drive and suggests whether it is likely to fail.
And as Hellcat says - BACK UP REGULARLY REGARDLESS!
And as Hellcat says - BACK UP REGULARLY REGARDLESS!
you have to think about how software can make an assessment, it has to be given data, and the only data that can be obtained is temperature, rpm, disc state (partition validity) and read/write success.
lets consider which type of failures that info could provide a warning for:
logical corruption
corruption will occur suddenly at a certain time for no physical reason, it is impossible to predict when this will happen, even a second before it does. once it happens you lose the partition and the disc is unformatted as far as anything is concerned.
elec failure
usually controller board failure caused by a voltage spike. this is undetectable by software because there is nothing there before the failure and the failure happens suddently due to external factors that can also not be predicted, although they can be avoided.
mech failure
usually when your drive starts to tick, this can be predicted before data is lost if read/write errors begin to occur, often you find failure starts as an intermittent fault. if software was able to access a log of read/write failures then this would be possible, it currently isnt but in theory the mechanisms are there to do this. you could also have software to notify you in real time when a read/write error occurs, but windows does that for you already so why bother?
firmware failure
the firmware can be corrupted or lost, usually when this happens the drive spins but wont recognise, or it recognises then stalls. there is no way to predict this and you get no warning. data can be recovered when this happens so its no biggy, other than the inconveniece of recovering data and writing it to a new drive.
out of the typical hardware failures only one type could be predicted by software, and that is the easiest type to predict without software because you start to get read/write errors, you dont need some software to tell you that.
so in summary, common sense tells you a piece of software can neither predict nor diagnose the vast majority of hard disc failures. it is not possible unless you can predict the future.
lets consider which type of failures that info could provide a warning for:
logical corruption
corruption will occur suddenly at a certain time for no physical reason, it is impossible to predict when this will happen, even a second before it does. once it happens you lose the partition and the disc is unformatted as far as anything is concerned.
elec failure
usually controller board failure caused by a voltage spike. this is undetectable by software because there is nothing there before the failure and the failure happens suddently due to external factors that can also not be predicted, although they can be avoided.
mech failure
usually when your drive starts to tick, this can be predicted before data is lost if read/write errors begin to occur, often you find failure starts as an intermittent fault. if software was able to access a log of read/write failures then this would be possible, it currently isnt but in theory the mechanisms are there to do this. you could also have software to notify you in real time when a read/write error occurs, but windows does that for you already so why bother?
firmware failure
the firmware can be corrupted or lost, usually when this happens the drive spins but wont recognise, or it recognises then stalls. there is no way to predict this and you get no warning. data can be recovered when this happens so its no biggy, other than the inconveniece of recovering data and writing it to a new drive.
out of the typical hardware failures only one type could be predicted by software, and that is the easiest type to predict without software because you start to get read/write errors, you dont need some software to tell you that.
so in summary, common sense tells you a piece of software can neither predict nor diagnose the vast majority of hard disc failures. it is not possible unless you can predict the future.
Last edited:
Luvduvs maybe means Event Viewer.
Liam
Liam
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2003
- Messages
- 46,059
- Points
- 7,364
start > run > eventvwr.msc
Check the 'System' log.
Check the 'System' log.
When you get time could you pop down the shop and get me a "long weight" and some "tartan paint"
When you get time could you pop down the shop and get me a "long weight" and some "tartan paint"
A bucket of air is always handy too.
When you get time could you pop down the shop and get me a "long weight" and some "tartan paint"
I ask the guy who i was trainning at work to go to the workshop and ask for a "long stand", needless to say 3 yrs later he still gets it ripped out of him.
i didnt think event viewer could help you decide "how your hardware is doing" or "if it's about to break". i've always used it after a system failure to see what happened (much better than asking the user what happened lol) but i've never seen it diagnose anything hardware related or provide any info that was 'before the fact', if it can do it i'll be over the moon.
Some servers can give timeout errors from a SCSI controller suggesting a disc has failed or unexpected memory errors which can mean anything from faulty memory chips to problems with riser cards
As you say though - normally the most you will get is "Shutdown at xx:xx was unexpected"
As you say though - normally the most you will get is "Shutdown at xx:xx was unexpected"
damn it i was getting excited there
Event Viewer Diagnosed my Failing Hard Drive before it failed. If it had like warned me I would have had more time but I had to check it first.
My Hdisk was failing for months before it actually became noticable to me by the constant crashes and resets.
Event Viewer knew.... it just didn't tell me.
The message was something like, blah blah error on Disk 1, Back up and Replace immediately!
But it never told me
My Hdisk was failing for months before it actually became noticable to me by the constant crashes and resets.
Event Viewer knew.... it just didn't tell me.
The message was something like, blah blah error on Disk 1, Back up and Replace immediately!
But it never told me
