Hard Disk Sentinel Professional PC Software with a 20% off Discount Coupon Code - Detect Hard Drive Issues Before Catastrophe Strikes

SoftCollector Great software at a great price! The Developer is as responsive as any I have come across. Do not miss your chance to own HD Sentinel Pro.

Sep 30 2011 at 6:47am

M B Will this software format (low level format as well) hard drives?
Thank you

Sep 30 2011 at 1:09pm

Janos Mathe Yes of course: please check Disk - Surface Test - Reinitialise Disk Surface.

(if I want to be more precise, this function is even more powerful, a simpler version of this test is usually (incorrectly) called as low level format by other tools.)

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 1 2011 at 7:35am

Janos Mathe SoftCollector: Thanks :-) Please just let me know if I can help somehow.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 1 2011 at 7:36am

Adrian Williams I've just compared Ashampoo HDD control 2 (on offer today at $12) and Hard Disk sentinel pro. Both software packges produce completely different results. Ashampoo's system gives me a 97% health, 100% performance, HD Sentinel gives me a 100% performance, 60% health. Which do I believe, and why so different ?
Drilling down using HDSP I got to :-
"150 errors occured during data transfer. This may indicate problem of the device or with data/power cables. It is recommended to examine and replace the cables if possible.
At this point, warranty replacement of the disk is not yet possible, only if the health drops further.
Problems occurred between the communication of the disk and the host 36610 times.
It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there"

The drive has run 13078 hours and has started 1304 times so I'm now unsure whether to replace the drive or go with ashampoo's 97% OK figure.

Would anyone like to comment ?

Oct 1 2011 at 7:45am

Janos Mathe Thanks for your message and question.

Basically, as you may see, all software are based on the S.M.A.R.T. (self-monitoring) values reported by the drive.
These contain status information about different sensors built into the drive (both current values and ever measured).

Different software calculate health differently based on these attributes.
Most software uses the relation between the "value" and the "threshold" fields for the attributes to measure how "good" an attribute is (and shows a health value based on that).

Researches showed that this method is wrong.
It is not able to show the _real_ number of problems and not
able to predict failures as in most cases, it displays far better status than should. (if you are interested in further details, please check http://www.hdsentinel.com/smart
and check the example at the bottom: the failed disk seemed perfect in other software).

This is why the development of Hard Disk Sentinel was started.

Personally I'd only trust a software which can tell (by the text description) what kind of problems found or why the health is 100%, 97%, 60% or so (what kind of problems found
or not found).

I suspect this is the case: maybe the other software noticed some errors but not properly identified all issues. 97% seems very high in my opinion, knowing that the text description
contains numerous problems.

Hard Disk Sentinel offers numerous test functions to verify if the disk status is stable and/or if there are any furhter problems with the drive. If the drive status is stable, you may continue using it - with constant monitoring and using a software which is sensitive enough to report any new (even minor) problems, allowing to perform a backup (it is even possible to configure Hard Disk Sentinel to perform automatic backup upon that).

Please check http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests for more information about the recommended steps in this situation.

If you can use "Report" menu "Send test report to developer" option in Hard Disk Sentinel, I can check the complete status of the disk drive and may advise based on that.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 1 2011 at 8:06am

Adrian Williams Janos
Wow, That was quick. Comprehensive explanation (nice bit of cutting and pasting from the website :)
I've sent you a test report as suggested. I look forward to your comments.

Oct 1 2011 at 9:31am

Janos Mathe Hi Adrian,
No, it was cut&paste TO the website: I wrote the answer to you and then immediately added that to the F.A.Q. section as I'm sure this information may help other users also :-)
Thanks for the report, I'll examine it and answer soon!

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 1 2011 at 9:35am

M B I have a question about installing on more than 1 computer. My main system is where I would install the program, but if my main system dies (which it did recently, and still is dead until Monday), would I be able to install it on my laptop and then uninstall from the laptop once the main system is up and running again?

I hope that made some sense! :o)

Oct 1 2011 at 11:17am

Janos Mathe Yes of course, you can move the license to any other computer (desktop, laptop, server, netbook) any time. Just make sure the license is used on 1 PC at any time.

This is possible both as you wrote (temporarily) and upon complete system upgrade.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 1 2011 at 11:27am

SoftCollector I would not trust what Ashampoo tells you. They are a good software company, meaning that they produce a number of titles in a wide range of subjects (applications), well above the average level, but never quite excelling at anything. I own several of their products and have been upgrading for years, but I finally stopped, because they never fix bugs and I just grew tired.

Oct 1 2011 at 11:38am

Adrian Williams @softcollector. A Valid comment about ashampoo. Good value but not always the most comprehensive/accurate.

@Janos.
I can't fault the support. Janos has sent me a response to the report I sent him. This included advice and the offer of further assistance. I'll be buying the software as he' earned my $17.50 already. Thanks again Janos. Also, the addition to the website FAQ was a good touch.

Oct 1 2011 at 2:20pm

SoftCollector @Adrian Williams

True. I have witnessed software developers do nicely on BDJ and some did indeed amazingly well by being attentive to customer questions and suggestions. I have also seen very many fail by being curt, impolite or simply MIA.

From my personal experience Janos has been among the most responsive developers and he well deserves his good standing.

Basically, there are several HDD programs worth noting: Spintrite, HDD Regenerator, HDD Sentinel and Active@ Disk Monitor Pro. The first two have grown into some (deserved or not) cult status, partially based on their demands to do some kind of low format magic (it could indeed be useful to fix errors under DOS), and the last one I do like, but it has no USB drive support.

HDD Sentinel has at its disposal the substantial knowledge of its creator, a mass of statistical information (to make predictions) and a wide range of tools. The only thing you cannot do with it is check and 'fix' errors on your active Windows partition (under DOS) and hopefully Janos will add that in the future.

I would also freshen up the interface and change the icon, but these are really small things when you consider the wealth of functions under the hood - and Janos's energy and willingness to help.

These are all the right ingredients for success in this line of business.

Way to go, Janos!

Oct 1 2011 at 2:36pm

M B Thank you for the responses; now it is just a matter of waiting until the sale.

Oct 1 2011 at 5:39pm

Roberto im using hddlife3, but now im evaluating hard disk sentinel.
this one looks more featured, but its eating 1% cpu and 24mb memory (hddlife scores 0% cpu, 3mb memory).

its not important diference, but im a software lover and my system ends with many apps in background.

anybody tryed both? thanks!

Oct 2 2011 at 2:15am

Janos Mathe The higher RAM/CPU usage is mostly caused by the real-time performance monitoring function. This requires the use of Windows performance counters and using and accessing these objects are a bit resource intensive (made that way by Microsoft).
Hihger CPU usually happens on systems with many hard disk drives, in most cases the usage is under 1% even on older systems.

Also HDSentinel uses more detailed databases, statistics, hardware support - which may require more memory.
However, it has an intelligent memory-management function to cache its database, statistics but automatically adjust memory usage as required. For example, on a P3-733 with 256 MB memory and single hard disk (using XP pro SP3) it uses only 3.9 MB memory and less than 1% CPU, after 2.5 weeks of uptime.
(please check http://www.hdsentinel.com/hds_mem.gif , columns are: CPU usage%, total CPU time under 17 days, current RAM usage, highest (peak) RAM usage).

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 2 2011 at 2:52am

Frank Stephens This is terrific software, excellent and very responsive developer, highly recommended. The ability to display S.M.A.R.T. information from RAID drives is wonderful. Has the most accurate and well-interpreted S.M.A.R.T. information of any utility I've used.

Adrian Williams, it's highly likely that you have a bad data cable, those are common. I recommend buying an SATA III grade cable with metal clips on both ends. I replaced all of my data cables with OKGear SATA III (6 Gbps) cables from Newegg, excellent price and service, and you can choose exactly what lengths, colors, and connectors you want. Use different search terms, many searches on Newegg don't yield complete results (common problem when different keywords are used), and study the descriptions very carefully.

Roberto Porcar, HD Sentinel uses almost no resources on my system, but I do have a quad-core CPU. Janos Mathe has an excellent understanding of how Windows actually works, and convinced me that HD Sentinel places a very low load on Windows. I had turned off or not used some features in HD Sentinel until he convinced me that it wouldn't have any impact on Windows, and it hasn't.

Oct 3 2011 at 12:33am

Adrian Williams Thanks Frank for the advice - I'll order a new cable.

Oct 3 2011 at 12:43am

Roberto thanks for your comment Frank. I'll buy my copy today.

Oct 3 2011 at 12:49am

Janos Mathe @Frank: Thanks for your kind words!

You are absolutely correct about the SATA cables: it is highly recommended to use such cables as they provide much better connection and much less problems compared to "standard" cables as they sometimes even do not fit properly and cause lots of problems.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 1:01am

M.Nazmi Özmilli hi,

Thanks for deal. HDS supports SSD , I wonder that HDS always check SSD , does this occation is creating any porblem.
According to someone constantly writing and reading have problems for SSD

Oct 3 2011 at 2:17am

Janos Mathe Hi,
Yes, Hard Disk Sentinel checks and monitors the status of SSDs also, not only hard disks.

There are no problems or compatibility issues with that but if you prefer, please use Report - Send test report to developer option so I can check and advise.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 2:26am

M.Nazmi Özmilli hi,

Thanks your reply.I haven't install my SSD yet. But I wonder that HDS check SSD constantly this cocation is reduce the life of SSD ?

Oct 3 2011 at 2:48am

Frank Stephens M.Nazmi Özmilli, when HDS queries your SSD for S.M.A.R.T. status, that's a read, not a write operation, so that doesn't impact your SSD. Generally, your SSD will be used for your system volume, so programs like HDS will be installed there and will write their data there. The frequency and amount of data is too small to impact your SSD in any kind of noticeable way. People worry about SSD lifespan too much. The neat thing about HDS is that you can easily monitor your SSD's remaining lifespan. Mine sees very heavy use, and from the slow decline in remaining lifespan (about 10% per year), it should last a decade (far longer than the useful lifespan of my computer), and I'll have plenty of warning.

Oct 3 2011 at 3:06am

M.Nazmi Özmilli hi,
thanks Frank Stephens, I'm new for SSD and wondering that things.

Oct 3 2011 at 3:13am

Robert Edwards 1) I have MS Windows Home Server. Will it work in this?

2) I carry 2 USB Flash drives. Will it work on these?

Oct 3 2011 at 5:55am

Janos Mathe 1) Yes, Hard Disk Sentinel should work with MS Windows Home Server also.

2) USB Flash drives, memory cards (except some CF cards), mobile devices do not provide status information, so their health and temperature level will not be displayed. However, the Disk menu Surface test functions can be used to diagnose these devices as well to verify and repair problems with them.

Please download the trial version to verify the compatibility with your system. If you use the Report - Send test report to developer option, I can check the storage configuration and advise.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 6:02am

Eddie Tex Janos, the positive feedback on your product is impressive. What do you recommend for those of us who often troubleshoot other people's PCs and would like this type of utility to be able to measure the health of their drives?

It doesn't appear that HDSP can run in portable mode, can it?

Oct 3 2011 at 6:35am

Janos Mathe Thanks for your kindness!

The portable mode is under construction and it will be released in the near future - as it was asked by several users.

That can be copied onto a pendrive and launched from that to diagnose the drives in the system - without installation first and without saving any information/statistics/settings to the system (saving everything to the pendrive instead).

Of course existing users of HDSPro can also move to that version (using their license on the portable edition instead of the installed version on a specific system).

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 6:49am

Robert Edwards Do you have a multi-use license. One that I can leave install and one I can carry on a USB (portable version) flash drive.

Oct 3 2011 at 7:31am

VLM Janos, just writing to clarify your last statement. I assume that you mean that people, who purchase HD Sentinel Pro today, will be able to purchase an upgrade to the portable version when it becomes available ... and that you do NOT mean to say that this upgrade will be free for those who purchase today.

Is this correct?

Oct 3 2011 at 7:33am

Robert Edwards Jonos, I see on your website a family pack. Can we get a discount for that?

Oct 3 2011 at 7:35am

VLM Yes, I like Robert's suggestion. When the portable version is ready, a dual license that allows one local install and one portable install. Just input. :)

Oct 3 2011 at 7:40am

Janos Mathe Robert: for installing on your computer and using the portable on the USB pendrive, you may need to have 2 different licenses.
On the order page, please check "Volume discount prices" as even better price is available from 2 licenses.

Also, yes, you are correct: if you select the Family version, you can install it on up to 5 computers (or use one or more licenses from this pool in the future with the portable version).

There is an offer for this Family version also available at http://www.bitsdujour.com...ly-license
(just it may not be as economic as the current promotion).

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 7:45am

Eddie Tex Sold!

Oct 3 2011 at 7:46am

Janos Mathe @The Presiding Emissary for Vibrant Living Ministries and Successors: excuse me for the confusion!

Basically the portable version is not a different product, just the usage (location) of Hard Disk Sentinel Pro is different. It means that you can use a license of Hard Disk Sentinel Pro for the installed version on your computer OR that license on the pendrive with the portable version.
If you prefer both, you'd need 2 licenses or a Family pack (which allows further installations).

Thanks for the tip, that "dual" license sounds as a nice idea, I'm sure it will be available that way also when the portable version is released :-)

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 7:48am

VLM :):) Janos. And I'm sure you'll be back here, making sure we all know when the portable version becomes available!

Oct 3 2011 at 7:58am

VLM And just to be clear ... are you saying that is we buy a 5-license pack today, that when the portable becomes available we can use one (or more I suppose) of those licenses for the portable version, without any upgrade cost at that time?

I ask, because some companies do charge more for the portable version of their product, since it can be used in more places and removes the need for multiple installed licenses. And that does seem fair to me, quite fair, in fact. So I would not be surprised if you asked for some amount to upgrade to the portable from the fixed version.

Are you in a position to share your thoughts on this, or is it too early for you?

Oct 3 2011 at 8:01am

Janos Mathe Maybe - but it depends on BDJ also ;-)

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 8:01am

Janos Mathe Yes, you are correct: if you select the Family pack, you can use one (or more) of those 5 licenses with the portable version.

I know and completely agree you: maybe a portable version can be powerful (to diagnose different systems without installation) but in general, it offers the same functionality as the installed Pro version, so I'm sure it would not be fair to ask higher price.

Also that way the computer(s) have no real-time (constant) monitoring with alerts, automatic backup, scheduled tests, etc... which are also important functions.
Like an antivirus software: it is nice to have a tool to perform a scan/repair when required, but constant protection is also important :-)

To be honest, the licensing part of the portable version was not yet finalised (this is why I did not prefer to say anything about that future version), but I can make sure that if you get a license now for Hard Disk Sentinel Professional - you can use the portable version as well with the license (but then you'd need to remove the license from the the installed version).

So if you require both real time protection (as now) and the portable version (the new feature) you may need to have two licenses.

(maybe if you have other ideas, thoughts, requirements, feel free to write me to info@hdsentinel.com :-)

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 8:16am

VLM Thanks Janos, for sharing at this time. Other than the dual-license idea already mentioned above, I would add only this: Your approach is very generous. I encourage you to do the business analysis needed to ensure that you remain prosperous in all this. It is very generous of you to offer the same price for the portable as for the installed version, in this one promotion. And I wonder whether it is also the best business choice for you in the long run, even considering the difference WRT real-time monitoring.

Sorry, I don't mean to seem intrusive. This is an area where I have some considerable background and experience. And I just plain like you ... I would like for you to prosper and to enjoy the fruits of your labor. :)

Oct 3 2011 at 8:42am

Janos Mathe Thanks for your thoughts and kind words :-)
Of course, as you may see in the previous comments, I'm open for any ideas, comments, thoughts - even if they are technical or related to other areas like licensing/pricing :-)

Yes, I'm simple and I prefer to keep things simple to help instead of complicating things. This is why originally planned that the portable version should not be a new product (with different licensing, different prices).

(I just sent you an e-mail also!)

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 8:54am

VLM Received and responded to, thank you!

I have a question about the product. Does it work over a network? For example, if my computer and my partner’s computer are both on the home network, and if I have HDSentinel installed on my machine only, and if my machine can see her entire computer over the network, or even one entire disk on her computer, then can HDSentinel on my machine monitor that drive on her machine, over the network?

Oct 3 2011 at 9:19am

Janos Mathe Yes, HDSentinel Pro can provide disk status over the network - but only about the system where it is running because only that way can access and read disk status. Then you can get status about the system by using a web browser.

Please check Configuration - Integration - Enable WebStatus option and the help about this function.

So if you have installed on your computer, then you can get disk status information about your computer from the other computer (or even from a mobile phone/PDA/tablet/netbook/etc. running a web browser). That can be secured of course to prevent unauthorized access.

If you prefer to check hard disk status in the computer of your partner, then HDS need to be installed on that computer.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 9:41am

VLM Thank you Janos, that's very clear.

I must be imagining an enterprise edition, where some kernel sits on various machines, each installed kernel monitoring devices on its own machine, where one observer machine sees all, and where exception reporting becomes the norm (on the observer machine).

Or something like that. :)

Oct 3 2011 at 9:49am

Janos Mathe Oh, I see!
There is Hard Disk Sentinel Enterprise Edition available, exactly for this task :-)

Please check:
http://www.hdsentinel.com...rprise.php

You can install on the client computers you plan to monitor remotely and you can have a central management software (the Enterprise Server) which collects and displays status about the remote computers, issues alerts and so.
You can see several images about this central management console at
http://www.hdsentinel.com...creenshots

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 9:54am

Prasad Paranjpe Any idea, ballpark, how long it would take to do a low level reinitialize for a 2TB 7200 drive?

Oct 3 2011 at 11:45am

Prasad Paranjpe Can HDS return an SSD to a factory fresh state? without data of course.

Oct 3 2011 at 11:47am

VLM Yes, Janos, this is exactly what I mean, with one additional idea: Perhaps a small-scale version of the enterprise edition would be useful in homes and small offices, even more so than a family pack. I wonder whether you might consider, perhaps not today of course, but in the future, a Home Edition (or something like that) for 2, 3, 5 licenses of the enterprise edition.

Oct 3 2011 at 12:00pm

Janos Mathe The complete "reinitialise disk status" on a 2TB disk may require at least 3 days (70+ hours) as it uses several overwrite patterns with speical initialisation patterns before erasing the disk contents.
Nice way to verify the stability of the disk before first use :-)

If you prefer a much quicker way to overwrite (clear the disk surface), use Disk - Surface Test - Write test.
Some other software (incorrectly call this or similar function as low level format.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 12:08pm

Janos Mathe @Prasad: Yes of course - just it may require special attention compared to hard disks.

Because of the wear leveling and the spare area of the SSD, a simple overwrite may not be enough as it may leave data fragments inside some memory cells.
But if you use Disk - Surface Test - Reinitialise disk surface, it is absolutely sure that no recoverable data remains in any parts of the SSD.
Alternatively repeated write tests (Disk - Surface Test - Write test) will give the same results.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 12:13pm

Janos Mathe @The Presiding Emissary for Vibrant Living Ministries and Successors:
Thanks for the idea!
In general the Enterprise version was designed for larger networks (10 computers or more) but I agree that it may be useful in home environments also.
That "Home Enterprise" package will be surely considered and may be available in the future.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 12:15pm

Prasad Paranjpe sorry, I did not make my purpose for erase clear. It is not for security. In the case of SSD, I have an older Intel SSD that does not support TRIM. I periodically take it out of my laptop, image it and reinitialize it. This is done becuase the SSD performance degrades noticably.

The procedure is fast becuase it does not actually erase the drive. However, it is a pain in the neck depending on the utility used. For example, one utility requires a DOS boot and drives must all be set as IDE instead of AHCI. SSDs I have from OCZ use their utility (not Intel) and the OCZ utility is incomptible with later versions of Intel storage drivers so finding a machine to run the utility is an issue. Sorry this is long but I am hoping to make those problems go away and still use older SSDs.

Oct 3 2011 at 12:34pm

Prasad Paranjpe The reinitialize for my 2TB drive is not for security either. My use may be unintended for HDS but it may be useful for me.

I use consumer drives in a hardware RAID 5 DAS from Sans Digital. These drives are cheaper than enterprise drives but do not support TLER. Periodically, Sans Digital marks the drive as bad. The vendor utility verifies that the drive is fine but Sans Digital must write something to the drive to mark it as bad and will not let you reinsert the drive in a RAID array.

Erasing the drive using the vendors utility does something to make this marking go away. It must be low level becuase simply erasing the drive using Paragon Utilities does not work.

Using the vendor utility is a pain. I have to boot into DOS and the entire computer is unusable for over a day. I suspect that you may do something at a lower level than Paragon or that you clean the approprate sectors.

sorry but my usage is probably quite bizzare and confusing to most people.

Oct 3 2011 at 12:43pm

Janos Mathe I see, I thought you asked for secure erase to prevent data recovery.

Then I'd suggest Disk - Surface Test - Write test, it is the fastest way to fully erase the SSD (overwrite with 0's to restore the factory state). This works under Windows regardless of the BIOS setting (botj IDE / AHCI mode).

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 1:17pm

Janos Mathe Oh, I see the other issue about the 2TB hard disk.
Then the above mentioned Disk - Surface Test - Write test is the perfect option to perform a complete overwrite which should surely clear the marks you mentioned.

You can even use Disk - Surface Test - View to examine the contents of the sectors. With some investigation, maybe you can even find the traces (possibly near the beginning or end of the hard disk, depending on the RAID controller used by Sans Digital).

If you can find them, then you can start this disk test to target the affected area to really quickly clear the marks, without the need of clear the entire drive.

Personally I'd try Disk - Surface Test - Write test but before starting, selecting Configuration (in the window which lists the disk test options) and enable "Butterfly test" only. That would start clearing the beginning and end of the drive and advance to the center. Maybe just after some steps, the marks will be completely removed (without the need of complete overwrite).

However, a complete testing may help to investigate if there is any real problem with the drive.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 1:27pm

SoftCollector Dear Janos,

You have mentioned that DOS fixing of errors has been planned for implementation. Is there a general timeframe for the realization of this feature?

Kind Regards,
SC

Oct 3 2011 at 1:42pm

Prasad Paranjpe Thanks. I especially like the idea of butterfly write. I suspect the offending portions are near the beginning or end. I will pick up HDS now but I will not try it until the next DISK "failure". I may be able to figure out where they write the data. It must be in some place that the OS can not access. i suspect some good sector is marked bad and the data is stored there. I assume the surface test goes after all sectors, including the ones marked bad.

Also, I will use HDS to test the drive first. One of the drives that was marked bad passed the basic vendor test but died during the erase. In that case, the RAID DAS may have correctly suspected that the drive was near failure.

I should probably test all of my drives before I deploy them :)

Oct 3 2011 at 1:52pm

Janos Mathe @SoftCollector:
Thanks, and excuse me for the delay.
Yes, it is planned (I know, really long time ago) - but not yet possible to tell when it will be available. Due to limited development capacity, it's release is a bit delayed.
Thanks for your understanding and patience.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 2:01pm

Janos Mathe @Prasad Paranjpe:
Yes, most RAID controllers reserve some sectors (usually at the beginning or the end of the drive) and decrease the available capacity with those sectors.
It means that the OS can't see these sectors at all when the drive is used in the RAID array. They're not marked as bad, just software can't access these sectors because the RAID controller uses them to store ithe array control information.

However when you remove it from the control of the RAID controller, these sectors are again available and HDSentinel can access them and can erase/clear them as well to restore the drive to original state (which can be re-used in the RAID if you prefer).

Yes, maybe it is good idea to test the drives before creating the RAID array ;-)
Personally I'd recommend to perform the tests (upon any sign of problems and/or when the drive is first used) described at
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests
to reveal and fix any problems.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 2:09pm

Prasad Paranjpe As far as the SSD, are you sure? Many people that write about this on the web are confused. I don't think you need to write 0s or 1s to the entire drive. There is some way to do this that is called 'secure erase' but does not necessarily write to the entire drive. As I understand it, SSDs include a command to erase a page and that you don't need to write to each bit. You should just have to march through the pages. I think of this as a low level operation. The other low level operation would be to erase or overwrite the table on the drive that contains all the mappings. Again this would be quite fast.
I have not obtained and read the SSD technical data sheets but I understand that for low level operations they can be quite different that regular hard drives. So I am wondering if you treat and SSD differently at the low level.

Oct 3 2011 at 2:18pm

Prasad Paranjpe Thanks for the lucid explantion. I should definitely use HDS to "reset" drives after removing them from RAID arrays. I think that having a univeral test utility like HDS which works in Windows can be very useful. One reason I neglect these procedures is that each vendor has a different test program and proper testing usually involves booting into a DOS utility which takes ages.

Now that I have a case which has an external slot for sata drives, testing new drives should be much easier.

Oct 3 2011 at 2:26pm

Janos Mathe Yes, there is a "secure erase" function of the SSDs (also available by most HDDs also, just works differently for HDDs).

Yes, I agree that it is a different command and need to be transferred to the SSD (or hard disk) via special ways (this is what you wrote, that even the DOS tool you tried was not working with AHCI mode, just in IDE mode).
In general, this function can't be used under Windows because the disk controller driver blocks such commands (do not pass to the drive).

So I can confirm that the overwrite I suggested (performed under Windows) is really different from this function - as it just clears the entire SSD.

Can you please use Report - Send test report to developer option? That way I can check the type of your SSD used and specifically examine the possibilities with that model.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 2:29pm

wiseolowl -- I purchased the program last night and already it is showing my perfect backup drive is not so perfect.

Looking at the fact that there are some not so good sectors why cannot these bad or suspect sectors be locked away from the OS and never used again?

Back in the DOS days formats of HDD used to take a considerable time, and I always thought part of the format process was to assess bad sectors and lock them from further usage. Nowadays format programs seem to format in a flash with barely enough time to do anything properly.

So why the concentration on re-initialize the disk surface, would it not be better to lock out the bad or suspect sectors?

Oct 3 2011 at 2:37pm

Eddie Tex Everyone, without question, Janos is one of the most responsive developers I've seen here. If you like this fine product, I encourage you to support it in order to help sustain great developers like him!

Oct 3 2011 at 2:59pm

Claudio Salvio Janos,
Congratulations for a nice piece of software.
The Enterprise Edition (in its two flavors) would be very useful to some of us.
It would be great to see it here on sale at Bits du Jour .

Oct 3 2011 at 3:30pm

Prasad Paranjpe Just bought and installed HDS. Janos, I sent the report but don't worry about that SSD. That is a new SSD. The one I wanted to secure erase was the Intel X25-M 80G G1. Last time I used the Intel utility but I think technically, Intel does not support this old drive with its toolkit. The OCZ drives I mentioned will be a problem becuase OCZ utilities do not work when Intel storage drivers v10 are installed. I may or may not have a machine with v9 of the drivers installed anymore.

I am impressed with your knowledge of storage. Very professional!

If writing zeros/ones works but just takes longer it makes little difference to me. I hate rebooting into dos and changing back and forth from AHCI to IDE.

Oct 3 2011 at 3:52pm

Frank Stephens Prasad Paranjpe, yes, the Secure Erase command will restore most SSDs to their pristine state, minus wear, in minutes. Unfortunately, there are many unscrupulous software vendors who want to justify their overpriced "erasing" software, when a simple command sequence would do (it's not quite as simple as a single command). On HDDs, Secure Erase can take a long time, HD Sentinel can tell you how long, check Security Mode under the Information tab. Your SSD will support the Secure Erase command, although that doesn't guarantee that it will restore to a pristine minus wear state (most newer SSDs do, but yours is old). There are number of Linux utilities which can do the job via a boot disc, this one looks easy:
http://www.ocztechnologyf...ick-Method

Oct 3 2011 at 4:54pm

Ralph Bressler I purchased the software several hours ago and still did not get an e-mail with an activation code. Why?

Oct 3 2011 at 8:12pm

Janos Mathe @wiseolowl: Thanks for your message.
In general, these bad sectors are never used again.
Exactly as you wrote, they are marked as bad (internally in the hard disk), their contents are moved to the spare area (this is called reallocation) and all further reads and writes are then re-directed to this spare area.
So the original (bad) sector is never accessible again.
This is independent from the OS and the file system.

It means that if your drive reports a relatively low number of such bad sectors, these do not cause problems during the use of the disk. It is then important to verify if the disk status is stable or if (slowly) new and new such sectors (or other problems) reported during the usage of the drive as these may risk data loss.

Please click on the "?" next to text description and check "Bad sectors" topic. Also you may find more information at
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests

(if you make sure that the drive is stable and the tests described on the above page shows no errors, you can even acknowledge the reported problems and clear them in Hard Disk Sentinel to remove the reported errors from the text description).

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 8:47pm

Janos Mathe @Eddie: Thanks so much for your kind words :-)

@Claudio: Thanks! Yes, maybe one day the Enterprise version will be available here on BDJ also :-)

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 8:51pm

Janos Mathe @Prasad: thanks for the report, I'm investigating it and will answer in e-mail.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 8:54pm

Janos Mathe @Frank: thanks for the information!

Basically I agree, that the secure erase command is a standard ATA command which can be relatively easily sent to the hard disk/SSD - but only under DOS, if IDE mode is selected.
With AHCI, things are bit different, I'm still researching about that.

That secure erase function is planned for HDSDOS ( http://www.hdsentinel.com/hdsdos.php ), hopefully it will be available in a future version of that tool also.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 9:00pm

Janos Mathe @Ralph: Sorry for the delay.
Sometimes the processing (at Share-it, they are responsible for the order procedure) may take a bit longer time.
Can you please send some details (name, payment method, e-mail address) in e-mail to info@hdsentinel.com ? That way I can check with Share-it.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 9:04pm

Janos Mathe @Ralph: Thanks for the e-mail, I just sent back an answer.
Excuse me again for the delay at Share-it.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 9:15pm

Ron. Indeed sometimes Share-it injects a delay depending on how you pay and perhaps other factors. They've always been responsive to inquires though and I've never had a delay of over 24 hours. I never hesitate to order via Share-It.

Oct 3 2011 at 9:38pm

Janos Mathe @Ron: yes, in the past years I had no problems with Share-it. They're always reliable, responsive and helpful in all situations.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 3 2011 at 9:49pm

Steven Avery Hi Folks,

My compliments to Janos and thanks to informative posters. I went ahead on this one on "general principles". Note that HDS has a web forum, mildly active, .. an additional good sign. In the past I have shied away from these software (it tells me 100% health at the moment) but I made an exception here since this has a nicer comfort level as a long-term keeper.

Bits is doing better lately emphasizing the strong support and niche type of products and reducing the "marketeers first". Whether deliberate or accidental, nice to see.

Steven

Oct 4 2011 at 12:19am

Janos Mathe Dear Friends,

Thank you very much for participating, thanks for your questions and comments! Thanks also for BitsDuJour for the opportunity.

Feel free to contact me at info@hdsentinel.com (or by using Riport - Send test report to developer option in HDSentinel) any time if you have any questions or I can help somehow.

H.D.S. Hungary Vendor - Oct 4 2011 at 12:43am

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