Verifying Disk Health

An article that helps verify the disk health by S.M.A.R.T. values. Important values are outlined and what they mean. In addition, gives a couple of programs on multiple operating systems to pull S.M.A.R.T. data off the disk.

Definitions

S.M.A.R.T. - this is a monitoring system included in disk drives(HDDs and SSDs). Its primary function is to detect and report various indicators of drive reliability and health.

Sectors - these are sections of your hard drive that store data. Your hard drive has many many sectors.

Important SMART Values

If you ever read a SMART report from any of the below tools it is useful understanding the common ones that you want to watch for. Current Pending Sector Count

When a sector is detected as bad it will be counted and the disk will attempt to move it. This value can go up and down as the disk moves or recovers sectors.

Reallocated Sectors Count

When detected as bad your disk will attempt to move a sector. If it is moved successfully this count will go up.

Uncorrectable Sector Count

This count goes up when the disk is not able to recover and move a sector. This indicates lost data.

Pending Sector Count

This count goes up when the disk is being read with unstable sectors on the disk. They are a precursor to Reallocated Sectors, which cause lost of data.

Information

For more info about those attributes, read Wikipedia and Backblaze articles.

Crystal Disk Info

Crystal disk is the simplest way to get a reading on SMART within Windows. Download the application then run it to view every disk in the machine.

For directions on using CDI please see our factoid about it.

Reading CDI

The basics are color coded; if a disk shows up as Yellow/‘Caution’ or Red/‘Bad’ we recommend replacing it.

Hard Disk Sentinel

Download

SEAGATE (SeaTools)

Bootable

Info

Download

Windows Application

Info

Download

SmartmonTools

You can check SMART in Linux using smartmonTools. The quick steps to get a report in Ubuntu are: (replace X with your desired disk)

Information

Smartmontools is one of the preinstalled packages for our r/Techsupport Rescue Media as well as many other modern distributions. If you are using this live image, you can skip the installation section.

How to install smartmontools

Refer below for installation instructions if you are not using our live image or want to install it on your own system.
Installing smartmontools

Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint:
Terminal window
sudo apt update && sudo apt install smartmontools
Fedora / RHEL / CentOS / AlmaLinux:
Terminal window
sudo dnf install smartmontools
Arch / Manjaro / CachyOS:
Terminal window
sudo pacman -Syu smartmontools

Open a terminal and run sudo smartctl -a -d ata /dev/sdX. that will output info about /dev/sdX drive where X is a letter (example: /dev/sdb).

More Info

GSmartControl (GUI method)

Information

GSmartControl is one of the preinstalled packages for our r/Techsupport Rescue Media. If you are using this live image, you can skip the installation section.

How to install GSmartControl

Refer below for installation instructions if you are not using our live image or want to install it on your own system.
Installing gsmartcontrol

Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint:
Terminal window
sudo apt update && sudo apt install gsmartcontrol
Fedora / RHEL / CentOS / AlmaLinux:
Terminal window
sudo dnf install gsmartcontrol
Arch / Manjaro / CachyOS:
Terminal window
sudo pacman -Syu gsmartcontrol

Open gsmartcontrol from the application menu
Select your disk once the application is opened

If your disk is anything but ‘passed’ then your disk is dying and needs to be replaced.
To share your results choose ‘View output’ then ‘Save as’ and upload that file to a helper for review.