SpinRite

[YouTalking2Me]

I have always used SpinRite for my hard drive detection and repair, but it seems like it can't handle GPT partitions.

Is there a Windows/Linux recommendation someone might offer (pay or free) or is there a d7x tool I can use to scan the hard drive b/c I would like to check the health of the hard drive in a deeper way than chkdsk?

With that said, if there is a d7x tool, do I need to remove the hard drive and put it in another system or can I boot from a d7x flash drive to scan the hard drive that is having trouble booting?

[FredClaus]

Would HD Sentinel do that for you?

[YouTalking2Me]

It is one of the options I have researched but was hoping for a testimonial, and/or does d7x already include an utility that does this... Like I think I saw there was a tool called IDE something and didn't know if that was all I needed.

[Nick]

nothing I know of is included to really test the HDD, but I can add any custom app that will work from within Windows

[FredClaus]

That sounds good. I'd rather run everything from within one terminal like D7x.

[Nick]

Fred, I looked at adding HD Sentinel just because you mentioned it. I see there is a "standard" and "professional" both are paid products. I assume that you can use it on a PC as an evaluation/trial since the download links are provided online despite being paid products. I was wondering if you could tell me your process with it; do you own it or do you use the downloads as-is, and if so is there any point in doing the "standard" instead of the "professional" if they both work without payment, or ... ?

If you have a paid version, I can also help you setup your own custom app depending on how the registration works, I'd need to know more; but obviously I couldn't do this for a default custom app since it would rely on your own product registration info. With apps you pay for some of them register in different ways and some are straight out registered downloads, so it depends on how we'd need to setup the app for you. Licensing type also matters. I would assume that since there is a portable it is per-user not per-PC like it might be for the setup version. I guess I could look into it more myself but I figure you know how you use it so...

[ebell]

You are correct, the download is a trial of their Professional version of the software. Being a trial it does have some limited functionality. Here is a link to a comparison of the trial and different versions: https://www.hdsentinel.com/store.php

Both Hard Disk Sentinel and Hard Disk Sentinel Professional can be downloaded for trial purposes but in these unregistered versions some functions are not available.

The professional version ($29.95) includes a portable version or there is a link to download separately. Hint: If you download the trial version and click the register link after executing you receive a 20% discount. They state the following on their website:

The amount of computers (and hard disk drives, SSDs in those systems) is not limited - as the Portable version is used with only one computer at any given time, it can be moved to an other when preferred.