How to test a HD

[Wingnut]

I got a lot of 10 HD's from E-bay and want to test them. Can someone recommend a way to test them please?

I put one in a 600 and started a low level format (maxllf). About 30 minutes into the format, the HD started making funny noises and the speed of the formatting slowed WAY down. Then 5 minutes later it gave me a message:

Busy Bit Set. Status Register: 51h Error Register 4h
press a key to return to the menu

Does anyone know how to decode the error message? I am assuming its junk. But I don't want to have to go through this with each HD. Is there an easier way to test them?

Thanks for your help.

[whizkid]

You should never need to do a low-level format on an IDE drive.

As far as testing goes, for IBM and Hitachi drives, you can use Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test software. It can test for excessive shock, reliability issues and other things.

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

DFT tests SCSI, IDE and SATA drives, and is available in floppy and CD formats. The newest drives use OGT Diagnostic Tool, available on the same page.

If you'll be doing this a lot, you can join their partner program and get Hi Test. A link is on the same page.

[rkawakami]

In conjunction with DFT, I also use the Fixed Disk diagnostics in PC Doctor to examine HDs. I am doing the same thing you are: I am looking at seven Travelstar drives I recently received from eBay. So far after testing five of them, they are either DOA or have some other operational problem (bad sectors, slow or failed seeks, etc.). Not a good average since they were all supposed to be working.

edit: SIX drives now have failed testing. I don't hold out much hope that the only 80GB drive is any good but I'll know later today...

[carbon_unit]

If you have many brands of hard drives to test I would recommend getting the Ultimate boot cd http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ which has diagnostics for many different manufacturers.