Disc Drive Fitness Tester
Has your hard disc drive ever let you down? Could it be about to do so? There’s no easy way to tell, it could pop its clogs tomorrow or next week, most likely never but it would be helpful to know in advance if there are going to be problems.
That’s something you might be able to find out with a freeware application that comes to you via Propellerhead from Hitachi Global Storage, called the Drive Fitness Test. It works with SCSI, IDE and SATA types drives and all you need to use it is a floppy drive or CD Writer. Once you have downloaded the file open it and it will create a bootable floppy disc or CD. Restart the PC and allow it to boot from the disc it runs through a barrage of tests, from a quick and simple ‘Exerciser’ to a ‘High Confidence’ test. It will identify problems with the drive’s tracks and sectors, cables and cooling and where necessary repair any serious problems.
It probably won’t find anything wrong, but there’s always the chance… In case you’ve forgotten or you are new here there are lots more great tips, tweaks and utilities to try at www.pctoptips.co.uk
