How to check if my hard drive is failing

[Rozesky2]

Is there a good program to check if my hard drive is failing? I do use HD tune at times. Right now
I have a hard drive that at times has a transfer rate of under 5 MB/sec but some scans are fine
at over 50 MB/sec.
But at times I have to try to start my computer a fews times before it starts and I have checked
for malware it is fine

 

[Purshu_Pro]

Hard Disk Sentinal / Crystal Disk Info is a good program for monitoring Hard Disk health.
And before that don't forget Defragmenting your HDD atleast once in 3 months for better performance. Recommended program for this is
Auslogics Disk Defrag Free

 

[MalwareT]

Auslogics is good defrag software, but i strongly to recommend IObit Smart Defrag, which is more powerful.

 

[jamescv7]

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/tophddiag.htm

Sometimes it takes a lot of years when Hard drive is stable and unfortunately detects errors unless everything went wrong unintentionally.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-diagnose-and-fix-a-dead-hard-drive-to-recover-data/

 

[Rozesky2]

thanks for all of your help I think this hard drive is running slow at times but in talking to the owners I believe the real problem is
that the room the computer is in can get down to about 45-50 degrees F which is too cold for it to start up at times. So they thought the computer was having trouble.

 

[Raul90]

I used to have Crystal Disk but gave way to Hard Disk Sentinel Pro. Anyway, I always use my HDD's manufacturer's tool which is either Western Digital Data lifeguard diagnostics tool or SeaTools for DOS(Seagate). If it's still in warranty and somethings wrong with it you could always get a replacement free of charge( for Seagate they pay for everything including the shipping costs. WD you'll have to shoulder the shipping to the nearest depo station in you country --that was last time I had a replacement --2007).

SeaTools for DOS(Seagate)
http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/seatools-dos-master/

Western Digital Data lifeguard diagnostics tool
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=612&sid=3

 

[illumination]

Sometimes these programs can give you a false reading, it is better to use the "chkdsk" command or go to "My Computer" right click on main drive "Usually C" and click Properties. Choose the Tools tab and click "check now" there will be another window pop open with two options "Automatically fix file system errors", which will say "recommended" or the other option will be "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors" after choosing one of these two, click start and allow the one you choose to run its full course, you may have to restart the machine after.

I would try one of these methods before resorting to a 3rd party software.

 

[Rozesky2]

thank you for you help I will check it with chkdsk also thanks