I seem to have come across what could be a bad sector on one of my harddrives, so Im looking for a good disc checking util.  Im going to set Windows Xps built in disc check away tommorrow morning when I go to work to give it plenty time to complete, unless someone has a better alternative?

Hdtune ?

Thanks, that looks like the type of thing Im after.  Gave the drive a quick scan now and it came up alright.  Ill set it away as a normal scan tommorrow and see what we come up with.

HDTune is excellent just for basic HDD diagnostics, there is also spinrite, which can be good too.

Cheers
Tongy

Also try the manufacturers website, they will have diagnostic tools for your drive.

I swear by Spinrite 6.

It scans for bad sectors, and depending on the options can reallocate the sectors that are bad, with good ones (apparantly hard drives have spare sectors for this reason, but no recovery tools make use of it except spinrite).

Only downside is that to scan 120gb drive, it took 73hrs.

Quote from: M3ta7h3adI swear by Spinrite 6.

It scans for bad sectors, and depending on the options can reallocate the sectors that are bad, with good ones (apparantly hard drives have spare sectors for this reason, but no recovery tools make use of it except spinrite).

Only downside is that to scan 120gb drive, it took 73hrs.

Ouch and Im having problems with a 250gb drive, could be rather a long time to scan.  Gave HDDTune a scan and it found one set of damaged sectors, so Ive done a scan with windows built in scan.  I need to have a look at spinrite then see what it says.