Seagate SeaTools Program Won't Open

[Carbo]

Is anyone familiar with Seagate's SeaTools program they offer for testing and repairing their drives? I'm trying to run it on a Dell laptop, running Windows 7. But immediately after the computer begins to read the CD I receive an error message that the program can't be opened.
I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, so can anyone shed some light on this?
Thank you.

 

[C1]

The SeaTools program I have and have used quite a bit now for a long time is derived from an SXF which creates a boot disk. It's not intended to run in Windows. Not sure about any latest & greatest version though & which you may have.

 

[Carbo]

C1, I understand about the boot disk. I downloaded the file and burned it to a CD as an ISO. Set the BIOS to run off the CD and it did just that. . .for about 20 seconds. Then the program stops and the laptop freezes and nothing unlocks it accept a manual shut down. I now see on Seagates forums that this is an ongoing issue for many users.
All I'm trying to do is write zeros to the hard drive and do a fresh install of Windows 7.

 

[razel]

I too had startup issues. Only one that worked in one system was the text based version. You can also try hunting in your BIOS to see if there is a switch for ACHI/IDE mode and swap between the two. Remember to switch it back to whatever is your original setting.

You also mentioned that you'll be reinstalling Win7. If you have the boot CD/DVD and are comfortable with the command line, you can boot up the Win7 install and during 'choose disk portion' press SHIFT-F10 to get to a command line. run diskpart, list disk, select disk, then 'clean all.' There is no status bar when you do this and writing zeros can take several hours.

 

[Carbo]

razel, I took a read over at Seagates forums, and this issue is a well known one with no apparent fix from Seagate, despite the rants from their customers for a few years about it.
I haven't done so yet, but I think I am going to run Active Kill Disk and wipe the drive.