How To Test If Hard Drive Works?

gumbob3 · May 27, 2016

Today I bought a Western digital caviar blue 500gb hard drive at a garage sale for a coupler of bucks. It appears to be in excellent condition, but the back cover is missing (side without all of the internals). The only PC I have is an old (10yr) prebuilt Dell. I assume the power supply doesn't have a SATA power I could hook it up to (probably just enough connectors for what the system needs, right?). If I removed the current HDD, which I don't really want to do, It wouldn't have an OS. Unless you could test HDD in the BIOS? Is there any other way to test this HDD? Thanks!

gumbob3 · May 27, 2016

USAFRet · May 27, 2016

gumbob3 :

Today I bought a Western digital caviar blue 500gb hard drive at a garage sale for a coupler of bucks. It appears to be in excellent condition, but the back cover is missing (side without all of the internals). The only PC I have is an old (10yr) prebuilt Dell. I assume the power supply doesn't have a SATA power I could hook it up to (probably just enough connectors for what the system needs, right?). If I removed the current HDD, which I don't really want to do, It wouldn't have an OS. Unless you could test HDD in the BIOS? Is there any other way to test this HDD? Thanks!

Do you have a pic of this?

USAFRet · May 27, 2016

There are multiple ways of doing this without an OS on that drive.

Primarily, create a Linux LiveCD. Go here: http://www.ubuntu.com/

Create a DVD for this.
Disconnect the original drive, and connect this new thing
Boot from that DVD
See what happens with the garage sale HDD

gumbob3 · May 27, 2016

So I could also create a flash drive with Linux OS on it and set the BIOS to boot from a flash drive, then test the HDD?

USAFRet · May 27, 2016

gumbob3 :

Yes.
A Linux Live DVD or USB should be in everyones toolbox, if you are into working with old and unknown parts.

Consider this...you have no idea of what is on that drive, if anything. Assuming it works, of course.
Virus? Highly illegal images? Other weird stuff?

Not a good idea to try to use this with your other drives, until you verify it works and is completely wiped.

I would never put a garage sale drive into a PC with other drives with 'my stuff' on them.

PsyKhiqZero · May 27, 2016

If you pc doesn't have sata power, then you motherboard likely wony have sata connectors. But even in a 10 year old pc, you should have a sata hdd.

Create the recovery disk for the dell, replace the old hdd with the new one then see if you can install windows. If it makes it through the install you should be good to go.

USAFRet · May 27, 2016

PsyKhiqZero :

Why install an OS on it? He's just trying to verify functionality.

PsyKhiqZero · May 27, 2016

The install will pretty much verify functionality. If its not needed the it can be reformated anyway. My method, while not the most effective, doesnt require any additinal linux software or knowledge

USAFRet · May 27, 2016

PsyKhiqZero :

Yeah, I guess.
But I still say a Linux Live CD or USB should be in everyones toolbox.
Free, and a good skillset to have. And can be used to test more than just the HDD functionality.

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How To Test If Hard Drive Works?

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