Disk checking tools

can anyone recommend a good disk checking tool that handles NTFS?

PerfectDisk is probably the number 1 product.

chkdsk is built right into Windows.

I used the trial version of perfect disk, it's really really good, you actually notice a difference in speed. Unlike window's own built in defrager, which has to be the worst defrag program in the world.

I know but it hangs when checking the disk I want to fix (and it's crap).

@GfK I was going to do that myself, but thought it might seem a little too sarcastic :)

Isn't PerfectDisk just a defragmentation utility? The features list don't say that it fixes disk errors.

Mmm, good point.

What problem are you needing to fix, first? What happened leading up to this problem? What steps have you taken so far? Is this Vista or XP?

No offense is intended here, so please don't construe this to be anything but an attempt to get straight to the point.

I know how to troubleshoot, I did tech support for several years. I am looking for a hard disk repair/check utility because I believe that I have a hard disk problem, probably a bad sector or sectors.

if chkdsk hangs when it tries to fix it its too late most likely ...
then only a tool from the disk manifacturer can do anything anymore as the sector is totally broken.

The mighty SpinRite is the way to go.
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

However, it's not free.

Some other options include:

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

HDD Health
http://www.panterasoft.com/

S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring Tools
http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartmontools/

HD Tune
http://www.hdtune.com/

Spinrite is very good indeed.

yeah, I bought spinrite last night, I remembered using it many moons ago. Thanks :)

"Ultimate boot disk" (google it) has a few recovery apps on it.

Winternals too if you know anyone who has got it.

Actually, I have SpinRite - however, I found it did nothing at all in saving a hard-drive that died (prior to it dying). I suspect the drive had a mechanical failure as opposed to a normal surface failure that it could not detect or do anything about?

Nice GFK. :)

I actually run an IT shop in a small corporation and we use chkdsk all the time to solve problems. Knock it if you want, but it fixes 99% of problems with drives that can be easily fixed.

And Perturbatio, if it appears to be locking up, you may want to just give it some time. I have seen it appear to lock up for 15 minutes or more and still end up finishing.

Oh. Well if you work in an IT shop, then I must be wrong. Apologies.

I think the thing with chkdsk is not everyone knows how to work it properly - most people just probably use the Windows bit of it, rather than the DOS mode side of it.

I ran it via command line and left it for a few hours.

Mmm. I'd run it on a re-boot basis, it's best to do this stuff outside of Windows - especially if you are fixing errors - or suspect errors.

I already did.

Once I've got my latest linux ISO downloaded I'll get around to booting from the spinrite disk.

SpinRite is terribly exciting to watch.

Here is a video:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DjHtJxsVEd4

Or both -- in the case of a headcrash, the head of a drive can literally scrape the magnetic material off the disc, leaving pretty much nothing in its wake:

ouch X(

well... spinrite has been running for 22 hours now, it's found a tonne of stuff wrong (localized to a couple of sectors so far) and it has an estimated 26 hours to go...

Isn't surface scanning extremely slow? How bigs the HD?

i'd still go for HDD health. it tells me, that my pc is 10 hours/day powered on!

@xlsior: is that your HD? i mean - from the thickness of the discs i would say the age of that HD is approx. 12 years?

Yup, I knew it would be so I was expecting it to take a long time, maybe not 2 days though...

The HDD is 250GB

Just on disk checking tools and relying on SMART... Google released a report last year about that: http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

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