Any alternatives to this? I know of [www.grc.com] but have read mixed reviews on that.

I have a handful of old(er) drives which could be put to some good use if I had an idea they wouldn't fail tomorrow.

smap

Don't jump on it too soon!
From the website (forum)
"Some serious problems have been found in HDDScan 3.0
All the problems were fixed and new version of HDDScan will be released in nearest future"

srtor

VERY useful tool to keep on the USB drive.

Speedmaster

I was looking for something like this yesterday, when I was having problems copying files from my iPod... But I'm trying to use it now, and I have 3 annoyances so far:

1) It's ugly and hard to look at. The gradiated blue color hurts my eyes and makes it hard to read the text.

2) Having 3 seperate windows open for the sake of testing my iPod's hdd is a pain. Why can we not do this all in one Window? Especially since one of the 2 windows that are open initially can't be closed without ending the program, and the other can't be closed at all.

3) It's running a "Read" test right now, but the only indication that it's doing anything is in the "Test Manager" window, where it says it's Executing. But the activity icon on my iPod isn't spinning, so it doesn't appear that it is actually doing anything.

krn

Don't be too eager to use it if you have a notebook however.

To save power, the drive tends to spin down more, skewing the results and making your drive appear less healthy than it really is.

Ender15

GRC's SpinRite will likely fix most of those old drives. If it doesn't, ask for your money back. You'll get it, no questions asked but I don't think you'll need to.

fastoy

I've recently used the free tool from Seagate which was supposedly designed to work on their own drives. I got it from their site. It also worked on another manufacturer (Western Digital?) that they must also own.

SpudDude