Hello Holger,
One drive diagnostic tool you might want to try is HD Tune. There is a
version that is free for personal use. It is version 2.55. The pro version
costs about $35 and is version 3.5. When you open the program there are
four page tabs across the top of the interface window. They are benchmark,
info, health and error scan.
In the benchmark page you can find the temperature shown in celciums.
Options allow you to change the output to fahrenheit if you want to. There
is a copy to clipboard button in each page so you can copy the information
and paste it in a text editor like Notepad. There is also a button in for
copying a screen shot, and of course you can virtualize the window, select
all and copy to clipboard for pasting elsewhere. When you start the
benchmarking by using the start button, several tests are run to check
performance of the hard disk. Transfer Rate is one of the tests. The read
speed is measured in megabytes per second. The minimum, maximum and average
speed are displayed on the right.
In the options screen you can select the test duration. Access Time is
given. The average access time is measured and displayed in milli-seconds.
Burst Rate is shown also. The burst rate is the highest speed (in megabytes
per second) at which data can be transferred from the drive interface to the
operating system. The CPU usage shows how much CPU time (in %) the system
needs to read data from the hard disk.
The information tab gives information about the drive's capabilities. The
first part of the screen shows detailed information about each partition on
the hard disk. The second part shows which features are supported. The
third part shows basic information for firmware version,
serial number, capacity
(the capacity between braces shows the capacity as it is marketed by the
manufacturer; defining 1 KB as 1000 bytes). Buffer size, interface
standard, maximum transfer mode and active transfer mode information is
given.
Here is what the info tab shows for my HP laptop:
HD Tune 2.55 - Hard Disk Utility graphic 276 graphic 73 graphic 960
graphic 798
ST9160821AS (160 GB) 48 °C Copy information to clipboard Copy information to
clipboard Save screenshot Options Exit
( graphic 937 Infographic 624 Benchmark graphic 195 Health graphic 63
Error Scan
Partition Drive letter Label Capacity Usage Type Bootable
1 C:\ 145910 MB 68.05% NTFS Yes
2 D:\ HP_RECOVERY 6714 MB 89.80% NTFS No
Supported features
graphic 738 S.M.A.R.T graphic 792 Automatic Acoustic Management
graphic 738 48-bit Address graphic 738 Power Management
graphic 738 Read Look-Ahead graphic 738 Advanced Power Management
graphic 738 Write Cache graphic 792 Interface Power Management
graphic 792 Host Protected Area graphic 792 Power-up in Standby
graphic 738 Device Configuration Overlay graphic 738 Security Mode
graphic 738 Firmware Upgradable graphic 792 Native Command Queuing (NCQ)
Firmware version: 3.BHD Standard: ATA/ATAPI-7 - SATA I
Serial number: 5MA12QNP Supported: UDMA Mode 5 (Ultra ATA/100)
Capacity: 149.1 GB (~160.0 GB) Active: UDMA Mode 5 (Ultra ATA/100)
Buffer: 8192 KB
The health tab gives such things as air flow rate, spin up rate, hardware
ECC recovered, and other status information in a list of 20 items. Here is
an example of the health page for my laptop:
HD Tune 2.55 - Hard Disk Utility graphic 276 graphic 73 graphic 960
graphic 798
ST9160821AS (160 GB) 48 °C Copy information to clipboard Copy information to
clipboard Save screenshot Options Exit
graphic 412 Healthgraphic 307 Benchmark graphic 583 Info graphic 63
Error Scan
graphic 192 ID Current Worst Threshold Data Status graphic 129
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 100 253 6 0 Ok
(03) Spin Up Time 99 99 0 0 Ok graphic 11 (04) Start/Stop
Count 96 96 20 4864 Ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 100 100 36 0 Ok
(07) Seek Error Rate 74 60 30 410876... Ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 92 92 0 7362 Ok graphic 823 (0A) Spin Retry
Count 100 100 34 0 Ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 96 96 20 4928 Ok
(BB) (unknown attribute) 100 100 0 0 Ok graphic 823 (BD) (unknown
attribute) 100 100 0 0 Ok
(BE) Airflow Temperature 52 37 45 874381... Ok
(C0) Power Off Retract Count 100 100 0 1854 Ok
(C1) Load Cycle Count 52 52 0 97781 Ok graphic 737 (C2)
Temperature 48 63 0 48 Ok
(C3) Hardware ECC Recovered 60 57 0 24065555 Ok graphic 508 (C5) Current
Pending Sector 100 100 0 0 Ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 100 100 0 0 Ok graphic 932
Power On Time: 7362
Health Status: Ok
The error scan page allows a scan of the entire drive to be done. There is
a checkbox for using a quick scan. Scanning takes an inordinate amount of
time. Results will show such things as damaged blocks, scanning speed,
position and elapsed time.
Again, the program gives a lot of good information under the health page and
lets you know if the health is OK or not. I haven't done a quick scan so I
don't know how long it will take to complete. However, even without doing
the scan you can get such things as temperature, spin up rate, etc, and you
can see in the health page if the overall health is OK.
The file and a good manual to go with it can be downloaded from
www.hdtunes.com
Take care.
Brian Lee
[email protected]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Holger Fiallo" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 3:18 AM
Subject: [JAWS-Users] diagnosing hard drive tool and jaws
Hi, all
I am having problem with external hard drive. Trying to find a diagnosis
tool that works well with jaws 10 and is free. Suggestions?
Kind Regard
Holger Fiallo
For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit:
http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit:
http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
