Hard drive testing

[ronnieg at instaguide.com]

> Ronnie Gauthier wrote:
>>
>>> Anyone have any Linux/oss tools that will test a drive sector-by-sector,
>>> mark any bad ones, and then give me a go/no-go answer as to whether this
>>> drive is a keeper?
>>>
>>
>> Go to the manufacturers website. They should have a dignostic tool that
>> goes onto a floppy or CD. Just boot to the whatever and the diagnostic
>> software will run and do its thing.
>
> Thanks. I have several of those laying around here. I just don't have much
> confidence in them. Was hoping there was something better.
>
Michael,

Those apps from the manufacturer work excently, at least the one from
seagate and maxtor. I have used them before and they actually do mark
bad sectors and allocate new ones from the excess sectors. I in fact just
used seagates DOS tools one the day before yesterday as my laptop
started throwing smart drive error on boot. Seems My drive temperarly
overheated and blew a sector. The app fixed it and after powering down
and restarting the smart drive was reset and no more errors. Un fortunately
when you replace a sector you have no idea of what data the bad one held.
In my case the audio stoped working and trying to reinstall the audioMax
driver is failing due to some wierd windows crappy reason. oh well.

Ronnie