Updated by

Tracy King

Written by

Sherly

Updated on April 22, 2024

Is your hard drive performing slowly? If so, install the best hard drive testing software right away. These tools will assist you in detecting and resolving most errors, bad sectors, and other issues that can impact your hard drive's performance.

Overview of Free Hard Drive Testing and Diagnostic Software Free hard drive testing and diagnostic software is designed to help users identify potential issues, errors, or failures in their computer's storage devices. These tools can be crucial for maintaining the health and performance of your hard drive, whether it's an HDD (hard disk drive) or SSD (solid-state drive). They offer various features, including error scanning, benchmarking, bad sector detection, and data recovery. Here's an overview of some popular free options: 1. CrystalDiskInfo: CrystalDiskInfo is a lightweight utility that provides essential information about your hard drive's health status, including S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) attributes. It alerts you if any parameters indicate potential problems. 2. HD Tune: HD Tune offers both a free and a pro version. The free version includes basic functions like benchmarking, error scanning, and temperature monitoring. It helps assess the overall performance of your hard drive and detect any issues. 3. CrystalDiskMark: This is a simple benchmark tool that measures the read and write speeds of your hard drive. It doesn't have diagnostic capabilities but can help you compare the performance of different drives. 4. SeaTools for Windows: SeaTools, developed by Seagate, is a straightforward diagnostic tool compatible with various hard drive brands. It performs a series of tests to identify and resolve issues, making it suitable for both beginners and advanced users. 5. Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics: If you have a Western Digital hard drive, this tool is specifically designed to diagnose and troubleshoot issues. It offers a comprehensive set of tests to evaluate the drive's health. 6. Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD): UBCD is a collection of diagnostic tools that can be booted from a CD or USB drive. It includes various hard drive utilities, such as HDD Low Level Format Tool, MHDD, and MemTest86, allowing you to test and repair your hard drive even if Windows won't start. 7.Victoria: Victoria is a powerful HDD/SSD testing tool that offers both basic and advanced features, including bad sector checking, S.M.A.R.T. analysis, and performance testing. It's more suitable for experienced users due to its complex interface. Remember that while these tools can help identify and sometimes fix issues, they are not a substitute for professional assistance when dealing with severe hardware problems. Regularly monitoring your hard drive's health and promptly addressing any detected issues can significantly prolong its lifespan.

The best way to detect various hard drive internal errors is to use free hard drive testing software. Almost all hard drive manufacturers have their own diagnostic tools.

This article from tools will list six reliable hard drive health testing software for you.

    Here are the translations of the languages you provided into English:
  1. Partition Master Free - Portable version available
  2. HDDScan
  3. SeaTools by Seagate
  4. CrystalDiskInfo
  5. Hard Disk Sentinel
  6. Macrorit Disk Scanner

But if you own multiple brands of hard drives at the same time, Partition Master is a better free option. It supports all brands of hard drives and can test the health status (temperature, life, bad sectors, etc.) of the current hard drive.

Please share this article and let more users become aware of its content.

I'll be glad to help with the translations if you provide the specific phrases or sentences.

Free Hard Drive Testing and Diagnostic Software - Top 6 Picks for 2024

Most hard drive testing tools offer similar functionality, but some applications are designed to work exclusively with particular hard drives. We'll begin with the most compatible option.

1. Tools - Partition Master Free

tools Partition Master is a free hard drive testing and diagnostic tool that checks your drive for system issues, bad sectors, temperature, and age, warning you of any problems with your hard drive. You can use it to run a SMART status test on your disks.

This tool enables you to perform offline hard disk health checks and supports all brands. Its excellent compatibility and user-friendly interface secure its top ranking.

Check Disk Health

Supported Brands: All brands such as Samsung, Seagate, Crucial, and W.D.

Supported OS: Windows 10/11/8/8.1/7/XP

Delivers efficient hard drive detection and diagnostic capabilities.

  • Check hard drive health
  • Run SMART status
  • Run a surface test to find bad sectors
  • Monitor temperature, identity information of a hard drive
  • Test hard drive running speed
  • Translation:
  • Check hard drive health
  • Run SMART status check
  • Perform a surface scan to detect bad sectors
  • Monitor hard drive temperature and identification information
  • Test the hard drive's operating speed

?Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
  • User-friendly interface
  • Offers numerous valuable features
  • Excellent compatibility
  • Provides 24/7 professional support and guidance
  • Available only for Windows

✍️ Review from Lifewire

The overall look and feel of tools Partition Master Free makes whatever I'm doing with my computer's partitions easy to understand and accomplish. The options aren't too overwhelming, and each of them is accurately named.

"Free download hard disk health check software:"

Don't miss this best hard disk health check software. Translation: Don't miss out on this top-rated hard disk health checking software.

2. HDDScan

HDDScan is a totally free hard drive testing tool. It comes with features like Surface Tests and S.M.A.R.T. Offline Tests to help users evaluate the status of their hard drive. Not only does it diagnose the health of the hard drive, but it also helps monitor temperatures, build command lines, fetch identification info, and more.

The official system requirements state that you need to be running at least Windows XP when using HDDScan. Additionally, it's a portable utility, meaning it can't be installed on your PC.

Here are the translations of the languages mentioned in the image in American English: 1. English (US): HDDScan Interface 2. Simplified Chinese: HDDScan Interface 3. Traditional Chinese: HDDScan Interface 4. Japanese: HDDScan Interface 5. Korean: HDDScan Interface 6. Russian: HDDScan Interface 7. French: HDDScan Interface 8. Spanish: HDDScan Interface 9. Italian: HDDScan Interface 10. German: HDDScan Interface 11. Portuguese (Brazil): HDDScan Interface 12. Arabic: HDDScan Interface 13. Turkish: HDDScan Interface 14. Polish: HDDScan Interface 15. Czech: HDDScan Interface 16. Swedish: HDDScan Interface 17. Dutch: HDDScan Interface 18. Greek: HDDScan Interface 19. Bulgarian: HDDScan Interface 20. Ukrainian: HDDScan Interface 21. Hungarian: HDDScan Interface 22. Danish: HDDScan Interface 23. Norwegian: HDDScan Interface 24. Finnish: HDDScan Interface 25. Swedish (Finland): HDDScan Interface Please note that some languages might have slight variations depending on the region or dialect.

Key Features

  • Delivers efficient hard drive testing capabilities to all users, including surface testing, transfer testing, etc.
  • Offers additional features to users like temperature monitoring, identification information, creating command lines, etc.
  • Complies with all kinds of hard drives from various brands.

?Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
  • Works with all hard drives
  • No installation needed (portable)
  • Easy to use
  • No built-in help docs or any tips for using it
  • Can't install the program to your computer (Portable only)
Translation:
Advantages Disadvantages
  • Compatible with all hard drives
  • No installation required (portable)
  • User-friendly
  • No built-in help documentation or usage guidelines
  • Cannot install the program on a computer (Only available as Portable)

✍️ Review from Lifewire

HDDScan is a portable hard drive testing tool for Windows that performs various tests on all kinds of internal and external hard drives. It is user-friendly.

Hard Disk Health Check Software Free Download: https://hddscan.com/

Alternatively, you can click the blue button below to install the easier and safer hard disk checking software – MiniTool Partition Wizard.

3. Seagate SeaTools

Seagate develops SeaTools for Windows, Linux, and DOS. The DOS version runs more quickly and can repair bad sectors. The Windows and Linux versions provide all the necessary features to test hard drives, though they might be slightly more challenging to use.

seagate seatool

?Key Features

    11. **American English:** -
  • Available for Windows and DOS.
  • -
  • Has an automatic scan feature on startup.
  • -
  • Check your hard drive's health online for free.

?Pros and Cons Advantages and Disadvantages

Pros Cons
  • User-friendly interface
  • Free of charge
  • Multilingual product
  • Scanning partitions can sometimes be cumbersome and tricky
  • Need to close all running programs before running a scan

✍️ Review from Lifewire

Seagate's SeaTools hard drive testing programs are some of the easiest to use of any we've ever worked with. The tests are basic and easy to run.

Seagate's SeaTools hard drive testing programs are among the simplest we've encountered. The tests are straightforward and straightforward to execute.

Download Seagate SeaTools: https://www.seagate.com/cn/zh/support/downloads/seatools/

Read Also: Translation: Continue Reading:

4. CrystalDiskInfo CrystalDiskInfo is a software utility that provides detailed information about the health and status of your computer's hard drives and solid-state drives (SSDs). It monitors various parameters, such as temperature, spindle speed, SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) attributes, and more, to assess the overall condition of the storage devices. This tool is particularly useful for users who want to ensure the reliability and longevity of their disks.

CrystalDiskInfo is a free, open-source HDD testing and diagnostic software that displays all the information about the hard drive you're using, including its health and temperature.

Once you've installed this utility on your computer, you can test your hard drive's read and write speeds and disk error rate.

crystaldiskinfo

Key Feature:

    Here are the translations for the provided text: 1.
  • Supports almost all hard drives
  • - Supports nearly all hard disk drives 2.
  • You can monitor HDD performance in real-time while working on Windows systems.
  • - You can monitor HDD performance in real-time while using Windows operating systems. 3.
  • You will receive alert emails and alert options if the disk is unhealthy.
  • - You'll get alert emails and notification options when the disk's health is compromised. 4.
  • It provides SMART data, including read error rates, seek response times, power cycle counts, and more.
  • - It offers SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) data, which includes read error rates, seek time performance, power-on hour counts, and other related information.

?Pros and Cons Advantages and Disadvantages

Pros Cons
  • Free and open-source
  • Lightweight and portable version
  • Displays S.M.A.R.T. information on devices
  • Difficult to use
  • No explanation of the displayed data
Translation:
Advantages Disadvantages
  • Free and open-source
  • Lightweight and portable version
  • Shows S.M.A.R.T. information on devices
  • Difficult to operate
  • Lacks explanation of displayed data

✍️ Review from AlternativeTo:

A compact hard drive benchmark utility with large, simple, and easily readable read/write results.

Download site: https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

Share this article to let more users know about Crystal Disk Info, Hard Disk Sentinel, HDDScan, and other hard drive diagnostic tools.

1. 汉语 (Chinese): Chinese 2. 英语 (English): English 3. 西班牙语 (Spanish): Spanish 4. 法语 (French): French 5. 德语 (German): German 6. 日语 (Japanese): Japanese 7. 韩语 (Korean): Korean 8. 阿拉伯语 (Arabic): Arabic 9. 俄语 (Russian): Russian 10. 意大利语 (Italian): Italian 11. 葡萄牙语 (Portuguese): Portuguese 12. 荷兰语 (Dutch): Dutch 13. 印地语 (Hindi): Hindi 14. 泰语 (Thai): Thai 15. 土耳其语 (Turkish): Turkish 16. 越南语 (Vietnamese): Vietnamese 17. 印度尼西亚语 (Indonesian): Indonesian 18. 波斯语 (Persian): Persian 19. 乌尔都语 (Urdu): Urdu 20. 希腊语 (Greek): Greek 21. 瑞典语 (Swedish): Swedish 22. 丹麦语 (Danish): Danish 23. 挪威语 (Norwegian): Norwegian 24. 芬兰语 (Finnish): Finnish 25. 波兰语 (Polish): Polish 26. 匈牙利语 (Hungarian): Hungarian 27. 捷克语 (Czech): Czech 28. 罗马尼亚语 (Romanian): Romanian 29. 斯洛文尼亚语 (Slovenian): Slovenian 30. 克罗地亚语 (Croatian): Croatian.

5. Hard Disk Sentinel

Hard Disk Sentinel is a comprehensive tool for monitoring your running hard drive for issues and notifying you if there is a problem with your hard drive. It offers a full text description to assist you in identifying the cause of the hard drive failure.

Hard Disk Sentinel

Key Feature

    Here are the translations in English:
  • It locates, identifies, and fixes issues with hard drive problems.
  • It reports and displays the health, performance decline, and failures of SSDs and HDDs.

?Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
  • Professional
  • Automatically detects disk temperature
  • Users can set threshold values to predict disk health and trigger alerts
  • Limited features in the standard version
  • Does not support macOS and older Windows operating systems

✍️ Review from OutwitTrade

This has been in development for several years now and is clearly a very comprehensive and reliable piece of software for dealing with SSD and HDD issues.

Hard Disk Sentinel Download Site: https://www.hdsentinel.com/download.php

To perform a health check on an older Windows version, we recommend using the tool Partition Master, which is widely compatible with all Windows versions.

6. Macrorit Disk Scanner Macrorit Disk Scanner is a free disk scanning tool that thoroughly checks your hard drive for bad sectors, errors, and other potential issues. It provides a detailed report on the health status of your storage device, allowing you to identify and address any problems before they lead to data loss. The software is user-friendly and supports both NTFS and FAT file systems, making it suitable for various operating systems. Key Features: 1. Comprehensive scanning: Macrorit Disk Scanner performs a deep scan of your hard drive, detecting bad sectors and other storage issues. 2. User-friendly interface: The software has an intuitive design, making it easy for users to navigate and perform scans. 3. Support for different file systems: It supports both NTFS and FAT file systems, ensuring compatibility with a wide range of devices. 4. Detailed analysis: Provides a detailed report on the scanned drive's health, including bad sectors, read errors, and other issues. 5. Early issue detection: Helps in identifying potential problems early on, allowing you to take preventive measures to avoid data loss. 6. Free software: Macrorit Disk Scanner is available at no cost, making it an affordable solution for maintaining your storage devices. Overall, Macrorit Disk Scanner is a reliable tool for monitoring and maintaining the health of your hard drives, ensuring the safety of your valuable data.

Macrorit Disk Scanner is a straightforward and user-friendly tool for detecting bad sectors on your hard drive. It's fully portable and doesn't need to be installed. However, it has limited features and includes external links that you could potentially click on unintentionally.

Microrit Disk Scanner

Key Features

    Here are the translations for the given languages into English: 1. It can scan and mark bad sectors on the disk. 2. It provides understandable log files. 3. It comes with a portable edition.

?Pros and Cons Advantages and Disadvantages

Pros Cons
  • Beautiful visual effects
  • No installation required
  • Works with multiple Windows operating systems
  • Excludes features exclusive to the paid version
  • Free for personal/family use only

✍️ Review from Download Crew

Macrorit Disk Scanner quickly checks disks and gives you a simple visual report, but that's all it does. If you want to fix errors or perform any technical tasks, use chkdsk or try a different tool.

Download Site: https://macrorit.com/disk-surface-test/disk-surface-test.html

In sum

If your hard drive is having issues and becomes unresponsive, you should have it checked out right away. Using any of the hard drive testing software recommended in this article is the most straightforward way to assess the health of your hard drive.

For optimal results, we recommend using the Partition Master Free tool. This utility is available in a portable version; alternatively, you can install it directly on your computer. It enables you to check the health status of all internal and external hard drives and detect any potential threats or issues with the hard disk.

Hard Drive Diagnostic Tool Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best hard drive diagnostic tool for Windows 10? How can you conduct a free hard disk health check? Keep reading to learn more details.

1. How can I check the health of my hard drive for free? There are several free methods to check the health of your hard drive. Here are some options: 1. **Windows built-in tool:** - For Windows 10/8/7, open "This PC" or "My Computer," right-click on the hard drive you want to check, and select "Properties." Click on the "Tools" tab, then under "Error checking," click "Check." Follow the prompts to run the disk error scan. 2. **MacOS built-in tool:** - Open "Disk Utility," which can be found in the "Utilities" folder within "Applications." Select the hard drive from the list on the left, then click the "First Aid" tab and click "Run." 3. **Command Prompt (Windows):** - Open Command Prompt as an administrator and type `chkdsk /f /r [drive letter:]`, replacing `[drive letter:]` with the letter assigned to the hard drive you want to check (e.g., `chkdsk /f /r C:`). Press Enter to run the command. 4. **SMART data monitoring:** - Most modern hard drives use Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART). You can use free tools like CrystalDiskInfo (for Windows) or Disk Utility (on macOS) to view SMART data, which can indicate potential issues. 5. **Third-party utilities:** - Software like HD Tune (Windows) or DriveDX (macOS) offer free trials that can analyze your hard drive's health. Remember that these checks provide useful information but may not detect all hardware issues. If you suspect a serious problem, consider consulting a professional or replacing the hard drive if necessary.

In addition to the tools mentioned earlier, you can use chkdsk commands to check the health of your hard drive:

< strong >Step 1. Right-click the Windows icon, select "Run," and type cmd in the Run window.

Step 2. Type "chkdsk" into the Command Prompt window and press "Enter." This will scan your drive for any errors, which will be displayed if found.

< strong > 2. What program can I use to test my hard drive? < /strong > You can use various programs to test your hard drive for errors, performance issues, or potential failures. Some popular options include: 1. **CrystalDiskInfo**: A free utility that provides basic health information about your hard drive, including temperature, S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) status, and other vital statistics. 2. **HD Tune**: This is a paid tool (with a free trial version available) that offers disk benchmarking, error scanning, and temperature monitoring. It can help you assess the overall performance of your hard drive. 3. **CrystalDiskMark**: Another free utility, CrystalDiskMark is used to measure the read and write speeds of your hard drive, providing a quick assessment of its performance. 4. **Microsoft's Check Disk (chkdsk)**: A built-in command-line tool in Windows operating systems, chkdsk can scan your hard drive for file system errors and bad sectors. 5. **SMART Toolkits** (e.g., GSmartControl, HDDScan): These free tools allow you to access and interpret the S.M.A.R.T. data of your hard drive, which can help predict potential failures. 6. **Ubuntu Live USB/CD**: If you prefer a non-Windows solution, you can create a bootable Ubuntu USB or CD and use it to perform a disk check from the Linux environment. Remember to always backup important data before running any hard drive tests, as they may sometimes lead to data loss or corruption, although this is rare.

Common hard drive diagnostic and testing tools include:

    Here are the translations of the listed software names into English:
  • Western Digital Dashboard
  • Seagate SeaTools
  • HDDScan
  • DiskCheckup
  • Samsung Magician
  • GSmartControl
  • These are the same names in English as they are well-known software titles and brand names that remain unchanged across languages.

**3. What is the free software to test hard drive speed?**

Partition Master is a free disk testing utility. It includes features such as DiskMark and Disk Health, enabling you to assess the hard drive's speed and overall health status.