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How to diagnose and repair a hard disk drive By hdd512
Frequently, there are people having trouble with their hard disk drives (hdds). This is a general guide for diagnosing a hdd problem and repairing it. This only applies to hdds that are not locked.
The first step in any hdd diagnosis is to remove it from it's game console so you can connect it to a pc.
Second, you must determine what make it is so you can download the appropriate software from the disk's manufacturer. For instance, if you have a Seagate or Maxtor brand drive, you can use the "Maxtor PowerMax" or "Seatools DeskTop" software. However, in my experience PowerMax tends to give false alarms for Werstern Digital drives.
Below are links to various diagnostic software:
Seagate - Seatools For Windows and DOS
Maxtor - PowerMax For DOS
Western Digital - Data Lifeguard Diagnostics For Windows and DOS (this links to DOS iso)
Samsung - HUTIL For DOS
Hitachi - Drive Fitness Test For DOS
Alternatively, you could download something like Hiren's Boot disk (which is warez, FYI).
Third, you connect it to your computer. If you don't know how to do this, then your screwed.
Last of all, you test the drive. To get an idea of what shape it's in, you can do a short SMART test. If it passes that, and you still think something is wrong, you can run a full Read/Write test. Either way, if it says it found a bad sector, you can tell it to fix or reallocate it, which will help the drive. If you don't want to lost data, then I'd suggest staying away from the "zero drive" and "low level format" options. If you do have a bad drive, then zeroing it may help with bad sectors. Keep in mind that once a drive goes bad you really can't trust it ever again.