Testing a dodgy hard drive

[MT]

Righto.

I'm going to abuse the fact I'm a mod (and megla did it"!£$) and post a hardware/tech support thingy here!

Right.

I've got a computer here that is behaving nortily. More specifically, random crashes. Now, I've tracked the problem to being HD corruption - this explains the crashes (page file gets corrupt, swaps back in, random application crashes).

I've brought the 'beast' back here for some heavy testing. I want to establish which component is failing. As far as I can figure out, there are four potential areas in which it may have failed.

a.) The hard drive is knackered.
b.) The IDE controller on the mobo is knackered
c.) The CPU is knackered.
d.) The IDE cableing is damaged

Now, of these, I see (a) as being the most likely, and (b) and (c) will mean scrapping the entire system. (d) should be obvious as soon as I examine the system closely.

I intend taking the hd out of the computer and setting it up in my own computer to test (so that I am only testing the hd, not any of the other components).

What I'm after is how YOU would test the HD. I was thinking writing a large amount of binary data to the HD, all 0, and then reading it back and seeing if anything changes. Critiques?

[Structural Integrity]

Originally posted by MT


What I'm after is how YOU would test the HD. I was thinking writing a large amount of binary data to the HD, all 0, and then reading it back and seeing if anything changes. Critiques?

Also much random access to test the HD's physical.

[MisterZ]

Why dont you just get a diagnostics program from your manufacturer that will test it for you? And then, if it shows that your HDD is allright - try your other options.

[Gayle29uk]

Apparently this is quite good (drive fitness test).

[djbass]

Don't neglect the possibility of a bad memory module either. I've seen it cause some pretty bizarre problems in the past. Things seem to run OK until a program accesses the damaged portion of the module then lockups occur. Additionally if data is transferred from the module to the HD then you start to end up with currupted data and bad segments on the disk. Don't rely on diagnostic software to pick up the damaged memory either, I've found 9/10 times it fails to identify a damaged module.

=[DJ Bass]=