How to check sata drive for errors?

[Red Squirrel]

I have a feeling my HDD might be slowly dying. It's noisy, and its bloody slow. Sort of like if it needed to be defragmented but it gets defragmented every couple of days. Basically its faster for me to do large file handling over the network (100mbs) then locally, as the IDEs in the server are faster even over 100mbs.

Problem I realized is, the drive is a sata, so unlike IDE, it does not get reconized automaticly. So using the seagate floppy is useless as it wont find it. Anyone know of another way, perhaps in windows, tocheck if its going bad? Or would SMART tell me when the computer boots, or can that easily miss stuff?

And heres another one, are sata1 drives simply slower then IDE, and that its just sata 2 thats faster? This drive is from when sata first came around, so maybe its just normal. It's probably always been this slow, I've just come to notice latlely.

 

[firewolfsm]

SATA drives are generally the same as IDE, but with a faster interface, so if anything, they'll be faster.

As for checking the drive, the Windows CD has a built-in tool for checking drive errors. Just boot from that.

 

[RVA3]

I agree with the first replier.

A risk is to defragment automatically. Best is to defragment manually (Start, Programes, Desktop Accesories, System Tools, Defragment) twice a year or... when you removed a fair amount of programmes or added new programmes. And... in preferably safe mode without the network cable/modem cable connected (repeatly push every second on F8 during boot) and if the Start Up Menu appears choose: Save Mode. Be a little patient, because this takes more time.

After defragmenting both drives, check the logfile if there are files named with fragments. If so, then defragment after reboot again to save mode.

Reboot after defragmentation and when in normal boot and start-up of you PC, right-click at C-drive, Properties, tab Tools, Check Disk. Check both boxes and restart your PC. If after the five steps of disk checking no errors are reported, reconnect the network cable or modem cable. The PC will boot and start up in normal mode (if not changed in Msconfig!)