Recommended Posts

I have the need to run some diagnostics on one of these drives and can't find the manufacturer for them on the Internet. Is there a diagnostics program (generic) I could use? I need it to be able to partiton and format in fat 32. Test for bad sectors so I know if the drive is bad or not.Thanks in advance.

Link to post
Share on other sites

From what I read in this forum/thread:

HDDs by Magnetic Data Technology

I get the impression MDT uses a variety of hard drives when they refurbish and rebrand their drives.

FDISK should be able to handle the partitioning.

A full FORMAT should test for and lock out any bad sectors.

Running CHKDSK should give you an indication of the drive's health.

Are you running XP?

Perhaps Device Manager will tell you the original drive manufacturer.

Searching their website might find you more intensive drive diagnotics for that model.

This site - Hard Disk Drive Diagnostics/Utilities - seems to have some good links to drive diagnostics.

Edited by CurlingSteve
Link to post
Share on other sites
Everest should give you the drive information. It would be under Storage > ATA.

Thanks for the replies guys. The drive has 85 viruses on it and I am just trying to format it and install another OS. I haven't got it installed in another good working PC, just in the PC it came from so there isn't anyway to get Everest nor any other programs installed on the drive to test it. It was in the middle of installing XP that it just keeps on rebooting and giving me errors that XP converts to files. Xp isn't fulling installed so it keeps trying to reinstall. I remove the partitions and start over again with the same results. It gives me 5 different Stop errors and mostly state there was a problem with the hardware or software that was recently installed. Also says to turn off Shadowing and caching in BIOS which makes no difference. It had XP installed before and now talks about new Hardware and software which is the same as before. Could a Virus cause damage to the PC itself? I changed the setting in BIOS and sometimes they change on there own back to caching.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Use KillDisk to completely wipe the drive.

Found my biggest problem was the Bios was changed to many times that when I went back and put it at the default settings all the symptoms went away. I has a Seagate Diagnostic Cd and a Maxtor Floppy diagnostic disk. After reading about Magnetic Data Tech uses old drives and refurbish them I tried the Maxtor with no luck and then tried the Seagate and it worked fine.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...