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Many PC users recognize the potential threat of data loss caused by viruses and take appropriate actions for protecting
themselves against virus damage. Not many know however that
'only' about 7% of all data loss is caused by virus damage while
hardware damage is responsible for 44% of all data loss!(*)
Now that you know, don't you think it's about time you start
keeping an eye on your hard disk's health?
Use HD Workbench to:
# Monitor your hard disk's health using 'Self Monitoring Analysis
and Reporting Technology' (S.M.A.R.T.)
S.M.A.R.T. is an early warning system that can warn you if your
hard disk is about to fail (**). The early warning allows you to
migrate your data to a 'known to be good' disk.
# Take proactive actions by scanning your disk on a regular basis.
HD Workbench allows you to run quick tests, full read-only tests
and full read/write tests. The full tests verify the entire disk's
surface.
The read/write surface scan is non destructive, there is however
one exception: in case 'bad' areas are detected HD Workbench will
try to persuade the hard disk's internal error management to replace
the bad areas with sectors from the spare sector pool. Data within the
bad areas is lost.
# Use HD Workbench to 'evacuate' data from a potentially failing
disk to a 'known to be good' disk by creating a sector by sector
copy (including the MBR, partition tables and boot sectors), or
by writing the data to a raw disk image file (***).
A RAW image file is in fact a sector-by-sector partition-copy stored
in the file in raw format (that is, no compression and no skipped sectors)
| HD Workbench features: |
| Monitor overall SMART status and
the status of individual SMART attributes |
| Perform read-only or
read/write surface scans |
| Reclaim bad sectors |
| Clone disks sector
by sector |
| Create/restore raw image files |
| Mount raw image files |
| Check hard disk temperature |
| MBR backup/restore |
| Boot sector backup/restore |
| FAT, FAT32 and NTFS
file system support |
| Easy integration to the Windows
boot menu and safe mode environment |
| Requirements: |
| Windows 2000 or XP |
| SMART capable IDE/ATA
hard disk |
| Administrative rights |
| Remarks: |
| * Source: Kroll/Ontrack |
| ** Not all physical damage is
predictable |
| *** A NTFS partition is
required to receive the image file |
About S.M.A.R.T.:
Disk behavior is captured and expressed through a number of attributes
specific for each drive and model. The assumption is that certain
behavior patterns can predict drive failures.
The algorithms to analyze and express a disk's behavior using
a series of attributes and values assigned to those attributes
are determined by the manufacturer. The disk manufacturer also
determines the parameters (thresholds) for acceptable behavior.
If any of the thresholds are exceeded the disk is probably failing.
SMART enabled bioses and software that is able to interpret the
SMART attribute values and thresholds can now warn the user.
A typical SMART attribute is initially assigned the value 100.
When certain events occur a value is deducted from the initial value.
By the time the value reaches the critical value (the threshold)
a warning can be issued. A simple example is the Power_On_Hours_count:
a disk doesn't have eternal life, for every number of hours a
drive is running, 1 is deducted from the attribute value. At a
certain point the attribute will reach the threshold value.
If you experience a S.M.A.R.T. alert when using your drive, you should
immediately stop using it and contact your drive manufacturer's
technical support department for instructions. Some companies
consider a S.M.A.R.T. alert sufficient evidence that the drive
is bad, and will immediately issue a RMA for its replacement;
others require other steps to be performed, such as running the
manufacturers diagnostic software on the disk. In no event should
you ignore the alert.
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