Hard Drive SMART analytic programs

I just saw this fairly current and free HD SMART analytic program:

http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

It seems to be well organized and has some convenient threshold features (reports to email if your drive is in danger of failure.

Does Major Geeks have a preference or better suggestion for the purpose of testing HD's before resale?

 

I tend to swear by Hard Disk Sentinel.

The free version usually is indicative of the basics, and there is a paid version which does deeper scans and formats.

Favorite handy-dandy tool is, as always my Ultimate Boot CD which has all the basic tools you could possibly want on a CD-ROM.

:major

 

Ok, I'll give their trial size a run. Main thing is it says the drive is good or no in some easily understandable format.

One thing I found hard to understand with no manual or hover over description in the SMART program in Hirens was TEC not found. This reads like an error in that prog. and I don't know what it means even with all items in the 'green.'

 

The best hard drive diagnostic software is the ones put out by the drive manufacturer. Seagate has SeaTools, Western Digital has Data LifeGuard. They are free, and do the best job of determining the hard drive's health.

Unfortunately, Toshiba and other foreign drives don't have manufacturer diagnostic software, so third party programs can be useful with these.

 

I use Seatools to resize/reformat but do not know how it determines disk health beyond showing an active icon. Also some sort of short printable report would be good for things like Craiglist or ebay descriptions. All one sees in the ebay listings are things pulled from the manufacturer or cut and pasted.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot about the resale part.

Personally, I don't believe in reselling hard drives. The risk of the information that was on them being able to be recovered by someone is too great to me. I physically destroy any drive I am no longer going to use. I would also never resell someone else's hard drive for the same reasons and risks.

 

When you want to trash data, you don't necessarily need to trash the drive.

There are many programs which can write zeros to the drive, like Darik's Boot and Nuke which has a Guttmann wipe that leaves a drive as clean as the day it came out of the factory.

Smooth as a baby's bottom...

 

DBN takes a long time to run. I've been using Copywipe which takes about an hour. I know many reformatting tools just rewrite the headers or something. But HD sales go on every day. No one really cares if you have something naughty or whatever might be the reason.

I think the zeroes writing routine should be adequate for anyone.

 

I'm very familiar with DBAN and other "wiping" software. However, after researching data storage and retrieval/recovery, I found that the original magnetic "image" of data stored on a drive for a long period is still prevalent, even after the new random/0 data has been written/rewritten several times on it. For example, if you have a 6MB MP3 song on your hard drive, and it sits there for a year, overwriting those sectors and the overwritten data sitting on the drive for a week, or a month, will not completely erase the year-long imprint the song left. Most standard commercially available recovery programs will not be able to recover that song, but technology changes.

Think of DBAN, etc. as paper shredders. Yes, the paper, once through the shredder, is in a completely different form, but with enough time and patience, and the right tools, someone can reconstruct the documents. Cross-cut shredding would make the task MUCH more difficult, but it can still be done.

As I've done a LOT of computer repairs, part of that "job" is data recovery, as well, and it's ridiculous how much information is EASILY recovered with the simple commercial programs -- after a format/reinstall, etc.

Also, "naughty" things, etc. have nothing to do with it. I don't want my personal information accessible to anyone, ever, period. I value my privacy highly, and tend to take data security seriously as well.

For instance, I don't ever let someone else use my computer, unless A) I have active monitoring software on the particular computer being used (and of course, I make them aware of it) AND B) they use a separate limited Windows account that doesn't allow access to any of my personal files/information, or (for very brief things) C) I'm literally watching every single thing they do.

So yes, me personally, I DO have to trash the drive. I completely disassemble it, and break the platters into very small pieces. For standard 3.5" desktop HDDs, I also like to keep the magnets for the fridge.

Besides, as you pointed out, loninappleton, it's very time consuming to use DBAN. Since currently my SMALLEST drives are 500GB, it would literally take a few days, likely. On my 1TB and 2TB drives, I can't even imagine... a week? And the magnetic imprint from long-term data would still be present.

 

Recovery of data from a Windows format is easy. It hardly does any cleansing at all when it "formats". Personally, I think it's a joke to even call it a format. Maybe they should change the term to "refresh" the drive, 'cause that's all it's worth.

Truth be told, I've done a triple autonuke on a drive and then just for :crap and giggles tried to recover data from it. I've used Easeus, and Stellar Phoenix (which are not slouches) to try and grab anything, to no avail.

But, if you feel more secure taking a hammer to it I don't blame you.

 

Ok, thanks for the tip on Hard Disk Sentinel. I previewed it and it looks visually oriented which is what I'm really after. And see where a text report can be generated as a selling point.

I fly without a net all the time and won't be doing an El Kabong on any disk drives.