Check the health status of your hard drive or SSD
Your hard drive or SSD is a sensitive part of your system as it contains all your programs and all your data, which of course you have taken care to save in case you encounter some small problems.
It can happen, but as the saying goes, prevention is better than cure! S.M.A.R.T. (Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) that equips the hard drives and allows to collect constantly information on the health of your equipment: read error rate, head access error rate, temperature, number of sectors reallocated, bad sectors, etc.
A value that is out of the ordinary can thus warn you of the imminence of a hardware failure of your hard disk. It is therefore advisable to regularly check the status of the S.M.A.R.T. of your hard drives. This will allow you to securely store data from a hard drive that has problems that can fail from one moment to the next.
To access S.M.A.R.T. data clearly, you can use free software like CrystalDiskInfo. In addition to technical information on your hard drive, the software tells you from S.M.A.R.T. collected, if the state of your hard disk is correct, or if problems have been detected.
Enable S.M.A.R.T.
1. To set up the analysis and collection of information S.M.A.R.T. on your hard drives, you need to enable this feature in your computer's BIOS. Do not hesitate to refer to the documentation of your computer or motherboard for more information. In our example, we use an Asus P7P55D motherboard with an AMI BIOS.
When you start your computer, press the Delete key to access the BIOS. Depending on your motherboard, this may be the F1 key.
2. Using the arrow keys, select your first hard drive and press the Enter key.
3.Select the SMART Monitoring option and press Enter.
4.Select the On option and press Enter.
5. Press the Escape key and try again for your other hard disks that you want to monitor.
Finally press the F10 key, select OK and confirm with Enter to save the changes. Your hard drives now record information about their health.
download and install CrystalDiskInfo
CrystalDiskInfo is a free software that you can download from the PC Tips software repository.
Go to the CrystalDiskInfo file in the software library.
Click on the download link for free.
Choose a folder to download the software and click Save.
When the download is complete, open the file.
Confirm the launch of the CrystalDiskInfo Setup Wizard with OK.
In the wizard window that opens, select the I accept the agreement option and click Next four times.
Click on Install.
Finally click on the Finish button.
CrystalDiskInfo will allow you to retrieve all SMART information about the status of your hard drives and SSDs.
Double click on the CrystalDiskInfo icon on the desktop.
CrystalDiskInfo then gives you information about your hard disk: its state of health, its temperature, but also its serial number, ...
The values in the lower table are the data collected by the SMART function.
To view information from another hard drive, click on its name in the top bar.
If a hard drive has a problem, you are warned. Then save your data. With the errors returned by SMART, try to identify the problem of your hard drive on the Internet (in the forum PC Tips for example). Your hard drive lives may be its last moments.
Note that the life of the SSD, corresponding to the wear of the cells is indicated.
It can happen, but as the saying goes, prevention is better than cure! S.M.A.R.T. (Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) that equips the hard drives and allows to collect constantly information on the health of your equipment: read error rate, head access error rate, temperature, number of sectors reallocated, bad sectors, etc.
A value that is out of the ordinary can thus warn you of the imminence of a hardware failure of your hard disk. It is therefore advisable to regularly check the status of the S.M.A.R.T. of your hard drives. This will allow you to securely store data from a hard drive that has problems that can fail from one moment to the next.
To access S.M.A.R.T. data clearly, you can use free software like CrystalDiskInfo. In addition to technical information on your hard drive, the software tells you from S.M.A.R.T. collected, if the state of your hard disk is correct, or if problems have been detected.
Enable S.M.A.R.T.
1. To set up the analysis and collection of information S.M.A.R.T. on your hard drives, you need to enable this feature in your computer's BIOS. Do not hesitate to refer to the documentation of your computer or motherboard for more information. In our example, we use an Asus P7P55D motherboard with an AMI BIOS.
When you start your computer, press the Delete key to access the BIOS. Depending on your motherboard, this may be the F1 key.
2. Using the arrow keys, select your first hard drive and press the Enter key.
3.Select the SMART Monitoring option and press Enter.
4.Select the On option and press Enter.
5. Press the Escape key and try again for your other hard disks that you want to monitor.
Finally press the F10 key, select OK and confirm with Enter to save the changes. Your hard drives now record information about their health.
download and install CrystalDiskInfo
CrystalDiskInfo is a free software that you can download from the PC Tips software repository.
Go to the CrystalDiskInfo file in the software library.
Click on the download link for free.
Choose a folder to download the software and click Save.
When the download is complete, open the file.
Confirm the launch of the CrystalDiskInfo Setup Wizard with OK.
In the wizard window that opens, select the I accept the agreement option and click Next four times.
Click on Install.
Finally click on the Finish button.
CrystalDiskInfo will allow you to retrieve all SMART information about the status of your hard drives and SSDs.
Double click on the CrystalDiskInfo icon on the desktop.
CrystalDiskInfo then gives you information about your hard disk: its state of health, its temperature, but also its serial number, ...
The values in the lower table are the data collected by the SMART function.
To view information from another hard drive, click on its name in the top bar.
If a hard drive has a problem, you are warned. Then save your data. With the errors returned by SMART, try to identify the problem of your hard drive on the Internet (in the forum PC Tips for example). Your hard drive lives may be its last moments.
Note that the life of the SSD, corresponding to the wear of the cells is indicated.
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