Hard Drive Diagnostics Part #2

Okay, so hopefully you've ran chkdsk on your computer or are at least familiar with locating it.

The next test we'll want to do is boot from CD to a diagnostic tool. We have to boot from CD to ensure that the hard drive isn't being used by Windows while we're testing it. Booting from CD means that we'll burn data from a disc image (ISO) to a CD-R. (So get a blank CD-R or a bundle of them. Also make sure you have a drive that can write CD-Rs.)

Then we'll take the disc that you burn, put it in the disc drive, and reboot. Hopefully it will automatically load. If not we'll have to tinker with settings and hot keys. :P

I spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to handle this situation. I've made my final decision as "Ultimate Boot CD 4.1.1". This disc contains WAY more than just free hard drive diagnostics. It has memory testers, burn in tools, drive management, etc. That link goes straight to the download page from a mirror site. [homepage with more info: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/index.html]

So download that. It will take a while.

This is the sucky part. You have to know how to burn an ISO image to the CD-R. The best way I can explain this is by downloading a lightweight FREE burning software, InfraRecorder. It's my everyday burning software. I recommend YOU download the first installer. Everyone else should know what they're supposed to be clicking.

So download and install that. It should download pretty fast.

Okay this is taking way too long. I made a video start to end 2-minutes long that walks you through opening firefox (or IE) downloading and install InfraRecorder, and downloading and burning UBCD. Watch it. Make sure you have a blank cd in your burner. Click OK at the end of the cd burning process.

OKAY YOUTUBE FOR THE WIN - Watch the following 1st video in HQ on full screen. Very good.



This was blogger's attempt. fail.


facebook did an okay job: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1110132951670
BAH, I hope you have a facebook account. Sorry :(

Now that your disc is burnt, reboot your computer LEAVING the disc in the drive. It should load the UBCD menu. If not check to see if there's any messages on the screen that say "boot options" "boot from cd" "alternate boot options". If you find yourself somewhere you probably shouldn't be, just reboot and try again.

You have to press enter to boot the ultimate boot cd, when it asks you to.
You will use the arrow keys and enter key to make your selections.
When you get to the menu, choose Hard Disk Tools. Then choose diagnostics tools.

Gateway's GWSCAN 5.11 works great! Try that one out. You're going to see a bunch of stuff come up on the screen don't press any keys unless you're sure you want to change something. [tech tip: you can hit enter on the prompts to accept the default values]

Then choose extended scan. This will run a quick scan to determine if the drive is already badly damaged. Then an extensive scan will run afterward testing each sector. That's it. Hopefully your drive isn't bad. Be sure to remove the disc before rebooting your computer.

Good luck! :)

[According to Wikipedia."ISO image files typically have a file extension of .iso. The name ISO is taken from the ISO 9660 file system used with CD-ROM media, but an ISO image can also contain UDF file system because UDF is backward-compatible with ISO 9660." ]

InfraRecorder is released under GPL version 3.(freeware)]