how do i know if my hard drive is broken

[slimpickins]

i have realised ive bought a very bad internal hardrive aobut 9 months ago, i have backed up alot of dvd's onto this hard drive then burnt them later on, is there anyway the hardrive can cause skips and stuff onto the dvd since its been stored on teh hardrive

[mats.hogberg]

No. (Well, the possibility is so remote (compared to other error sources) that it's negligible)

/Mats

[redwudz]

Possible, but unlikely. You can use the tools in XP to do some checking of the drive. Just right click on the drive in 'My Computer' and then 'Properties'. You should see 'Error Checking' for the drive. Many computers also have S.M.A.R.T. available in BIOS that keeps a check on the hard drive health and reports problems, hopefully before data is lost.

Corruption of a hard drive can happen during power failures when the hard drive is being written to as the power goes off. Normally the OS can prevent problems with the hard drive as it does some checking every time the computer is booted. My rule has always been to not keep anything on a hard drive that I can't afford to lose. But generally, they are quite reliable.

But if you are getting continual problems with hard drive corruption, the drive could be failing. The skips, etc., are more commonly a burning or media problem. But if your DVD copies on the hard drive itself are corrupted, then you might be looking at a problem with the drive.

And this is also computer related. Moving you.

[Bjs]

There is only 2 test's you can perform that will tell you if the drive is not functioning correctly .

1: transfer dvd vob's from one hd to other hd ... ie , suspect hd to good hd , and repeat in reverse .

Should any pause during the transfer appear ... the drive is considered defective ... return under under rma .
Should pause be audible (low click , griding sound) ... poor platter assembly is issue .
Click ... clank noise ... control card fault ... backup asap .

Most of these idiot utilities will report a bad drive as not being defective ... these tool's are crap , and as for S.M.A.R.T ... the only time it actually work's ... it warn's you to replace drive ... yet backing up drive to another drive is almost made impossible .

The only tool's able to do it are the manufaturer's hd new hd install tool diskette ... download form hd maker's website .

Yes , seagate , samsung , western digital , maxtor tool's will work with non-manufacturer's drive's ...
If you are using western digital's new hd install diskette , you can backup failing seagate to a new or second hand western digital ... same thing gose for other "new hd install" diskette's form other manufacturer's .

2: Search and download "insert" , it's a linux rescue cd .

There is one brilliant hd testing utility on it that is feature packed ... it will give you all kind's of readout's which you can compare ... anything below par for drive spec's should be considered return under rma asap .

Insert also has most of the manufacturer's hd diskette's ready to go ... but remember , they may report a problematic drive as being perfect ...

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My pesonal preference is that hd test bench tool in insert ... find and run the right fuction , and the drive take's off ... sound's as though it's about to take flight .