Hard drive testing

[Michael Hipp]

ronnieg at instaguide.com wrote:
> 
>> 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.

Thanks. I use the one from Seagate (Seatools) pretty often on drives of 
varying brands. It's just that the tests these types of tools run seem to go 
pretty quickly, so how can I be sure it's really doing a thorough job?

Can such a tool tell everything it needs to know about a sector from one quick 
read?

Michael