Hard Drive DOS testing software for different brands is there any good out there

[sam_sam_sam]

I use to have a way to test hard drives on old computer system but with the newer computer system this is all most impossible to do anymore

What do you use any more

Because most of them any more want to used while you are boot up to windows operating system this not what I am looking for I am looking for is a complete running on DOS environment I have found this type of software for me works the best ( I could be wrong with this idea and if I am please correct my way of thinking please post website links for better testing software that is FREE )

Because I not only want to test hard drives I want to wipe them clean with zero and one

[piernov]

Re: Hard Drive DOS testing software for different brands is there any good out there

Linux with `smartctl` to check SMART status and `badblocks` in read/write mode to stress it and make sure there are no additional damaged sectors that the drive hasn't found yet.
To see drive performance HDTune on Windows still seems like the most expressive solution.

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: Hard Drive DOS testing software for different brands is there any good out there

How easy is it to setup a computer that run with Linux operating system with `smartctl` On it

I do not have any experience with this operating system

I know about it and have read a lot about it

What I do not know is how to setup

Where to go to get the software

How do to make the installation disk

How to do the installation setup

I have I forgot anything else

[stj]

Re: Hard Drive DOS testing software for different brands is there any good out there

it's easier than windows,
but smartctl may be on livedisks that boot from a usb-stick
i'll check later.

[diif]

Re: Hard Drive DOS testing software for different brands is there any good out there

I use a Hiren USB or CD with all the hard drive tools on it.
I also have HD Sentinel installed on my Windows PC I do recovery with. I use a Magic Bridge 2 for connecting drives.

[R_J]

Re: Hard Drive DOS testing software for different brands is there any good out there

I also use Hirens boot cd or Hirens boot dvd, Also Seatools for dos (seagate utility) checks most mfg. hard drives. There are lots of other usefull utilities on the cd's

[noppa]

Re: Hard Drive DOS testing software for different brands is there any good out there

With MHDD you can check any disk in seconds, look at SMART data, and
then decide to go further and scan it to see if its surface is ok.
You need a true IDE interface (modify BIOS from RAID/AHCI) to work correctly.

https://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

There's a boot image on hddguru but you can find in hiren's CD/DVD as well,
it's not updated from years but it's still awesome.

A more modern DOS software is HDAT2, that supports IDE/RAID/AHCI

https://www.hdat2.com/

Usually it's on hiren's CD/DVD too, but not updated.

For data recovery there's DMDE

https://dmde.com/download.html

There's a console version for DOS that works fine and can actually
see NTFS filesystem (and others too).

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: Hard Drive DOS testing software for different brands is there any good out there

i tried minixp on hiren's boot cd for testing hard drives using victoria hd tester but the problem is that the os, minixp doesnt support hard drives bigger than 2tb.

does mhdd and hdat2 work properly with 3tb hard drives or larger? note: if it detects a 3tb hard drive as 750gb thats a dead giveaway it doesnt work.

[stj]

Re: Hard Drive DOS testing software for different brands is there any good out there

you will need a Linux based setup if your using sata or 4k cluster drives i suspect.

[noppa]

Re: Hard Drive DOS testing software for different brands is there any good out there

latest HDAT2 version is few months old so should not
have any problem with newer drives, and with sata/pata/raid/ahci/4k stuff.

Take a look a the last drive of the list in this picture :

https://www.hdat2.com/preview/picture01.jpg

I can't test MHDD at the moment with HD larger that 2TB since I don't have
any at the moment and I can't move.
You can make a test with MHDD by disabling the HD in BIOS, MHDD should
detect it anyway bypassing BIOS.

Did you use the latest version of VICTORIA for windows?
the version you find in hiren's CD is quite old.

Newer version can be found here

https://files.hddguru.com/download/S...For%20Windows/

and they work fine with recent hard drive and SSD