Chosen Solution
is there a diy way to test a hdd with the computer its in?
This depends on what you are looking for. If you just want to see the SMART data to verify the SMART status of the drive, there’s hundreds of utilities that do this. I usually recommend CrystalDiskInfo or Hard Disk Sentenial for this. If you want to test the drive to make sure it isn’t failing, the free option for this is to download the testing tools that are relevant to what hard drive you have. All of the major manufacturers should offer this. If this is not the case, then you will likely need to pay for one. In the paid mode with Hard Disk Sentenial, the option to test the drive is made available. However, other utilities also exist. In some cases, testing the drive CAN wipe the data, so make a backup just to be safe. The utility should warn you if this is the case so you have prior warning, but this may not always be the case.
If your computer uses a Seagate hard drive, download this. If your computer has a Hitachi drive, download this. If your computer uses a Western Digital or other brand drive, download this. Each of these has an expanded or long test which will test each physical sector, and in some cases repair bad sectors by remapping the drive’s sector layout.
download SMART Utility from Volitan software. Testversion. SMART is not all precise, but you can see whether it detected bad sectors or interface errors and so on. Apple Hardware Test does nearly find nothing, from my experience. One would need a Apple Service Diagnostics Tool CD, but that is not sold.
