Any recent ubuntu (and probably others) has a Disk Utility under the System/Administration menu which, among other things, will give you a S.M.A.R.T. report. It is also available on the LiveCD. On Sat, Dec 18, 2010 at 1:58 PM, ChasM Marshall wrote: > Hiya, > There's a pretty cool Windows tool in "SpeedFan" that uses S.M.A.R.T. > data. > S.M.A.R.T. enabled drives can report to the O.S. tons of run-time > conditions. > These get compared to statistics in SpeedFan's tables to predict and chart > failures. > The tables are stats amassed by the drive manufacturers and then built into > SpeedFan's (upgrade-able) tables. > Totally non-destructive. > > I am not aware of any Linux equivalents. But to be sure, they must be > out there. > > (-: Chas.M. :-) > ------------------------------ > Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 13:26:47 -0700 > Subject: Re: Looking For Software to Check A Hard Drive > From: mark@phillipsmarketing.biz > To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > > > On Sat, Dec 18, 2010 at 1:10 PM, Matt Graham wrote: > > From: Mark Phillips > > I have an older hard drive (WD1200VE - 120 GB) However, I would like > > to test it (thoroughly, whatever that means) to see if it has any > > problems before I use it as a backup drive. > > If you don't care about the data on the disk, plug it in, then in an xterm > or > konsole or screen session, run "badblocks -s -w -o badblocks.out > /dev/sdd1", > replacing sdd1 with whatever disk and partition# the drive shows up as. > This'll do a destructive read/write test on all sectors of the device. It > will tie up the device, but all the other devices will remain usable, since > Linux does multitasking pretty well in most cases. You could add "-p 1" to > make it do 2 passes if you really want to check it out. If it does find > bad > blocks, you can pass the badblocks.out file to mke2fs's -l option, which > could > keep things usable. > > > Sounds good...will this also exercise the hardware enough to see if it has > become flaky over the years? I have used floppy based drive testers that run > for hours/days that also report if the drive is flaky over time with a lot > of usage. > > I guess I will need to reformat the drive once this test is > done....correct? Or does it put the original data back? > > > Make sure you get the device name right. > > > Hmmmm..."measure twice, cut once" is my motto, and I usually only have a > few scraps left over. It would be funny, in a sad way, to get the wrong > drive....... > > Thanks! > > Mark > > > -- > Matt G / Dances With Crows > The Crow202 Blog: http://crow202.org/wordpress/ > There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > > > --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing > list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or > to change your mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > -- Dazed_75 a.k.a. Larry The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. - Thomas Jefferson