Need to Test 4 Hard Drives
- Thread starter Sukkafish
- Start date
Solution
- May 29, 2013
- 37,269
- 3,261
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A USB docking station would be my recommendation. Something like this -- https://www.frys.com/product/8937763
- Mar 16, 2013
- 171,303
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$20 for a docking station is far, far cheaper than borking up your whole PC.
The concept is...you don't turn the potentially infected drive on (in the docking station) until after your system is actually running.
The virus does not have a chance to do anything.
Or...learn a little bit of Linux.
Create a Linux USB or DVD.
Disconnect your normal drive(s), boot from that Linux USB, and investigate these problematic drives.
- May 29, 2013
- 37,269
- 3,261
- 156,790
If these drives are potentially virus infected, then I would just drill a hole through each one and throw them out. It isn't worth it to me. BUT, if you find that unacceptable, your best bet would be to disconnect your PC from your network and your current hard drive. Boot a portable Linux and use a USB docking station. You might not want to spend any money but that is the smart thing to do.
doolittle
Splendid
- Jul 19, 2004
- 2,086
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Fully agree with the bootable USB solution - I do this all the time with used and refurb drives, it's actually the first thing I do when I get any drive is do a full surface scan on them, destructively with the r/w test for at least one pass. Since you only have 4 drives, most mobos have 4 SATA ports and drive mounts unless you have a SFF prebuilt so all you may need are 4 working SATA cables.
The quick and dirty way would be to remove your working HDD then connect up all the disks you want to test. Grab a copy of DBAN and put in on a USB then boot from it. The drives may get a bit warm since it's a destructive test, so best leave the lid off the PC (especially if they are stacked directly on top of each other) and maybe a fan to force cooling is never a bad idea.
If you want to use a bootable linux OS (which is kind of cool, you can at least surf the net while the drives are being tested) here is a quick guide:
Remove all your HDDs, grab a copy of Ubuntu 17.10.1 desktop ISO then put it on a USB stick and boot from it in live mode, and you should have a 100% running desktop OS.
Install SmartMonTools that will allow you to see the SMART status of your drive, which may give an indication of if there is a health problem or not. The 2nd page mentions of using GSmartControl as a GUI if you are not a terminal / console person, so install that if you like too.
Install "gparted" using "sudo apt-get -y install gparted", it may make things simpler to remove / create paritions on multiple drives at once. Example here.
Optionally you can install "lmsensors" to monitor system temps while you run the hdd scans, more info here
So now, just open up 4 terminals and in each one run "badblocks -svw /dev/sd{x}" where {x} is "a", "b", "c", and "d" respective to each drive in each window. Open up another and run "watch sensors" to see system temps, and yet another to see individual drive temps where you can run a small script, here is what I use (after running "apt-get -y install hddtemp" of course):
If all this is a bit much, just use DBAN lol
cheers
The quick and dirty way would be to remove your working HDD then connect up all the disks you want to test. Grab a copy of DBAN and put in on a USB then boot from it. The drives may get a bit warm since it's a destructive test, so best leave the lid off the PC (especially if they are stacked directly on top of each other) and maybe a fan to force cooling is never a bad idea.
If you want to use a bootable linux OS (which is kind of cool, you can at least surf the net while the drives are being tested) here is a quick guide:
Remove all your HDDs, grab a copy of Ubuntu 17.10.1 desktop ISO then put it on a USB stick and boot from it in live mode, and you should have a 100% running desktop OS.
Install SmartMonTools that will allow you to see the SMART status of your drive, which may give an indication of if there is a health problem or not. The 2nd page mentions of using GSmartControl as a GUI if you are not a terminal / console person, so install that if you like too.
Install "gparted" using "sudo apt-get -y install gparted", it may make things simpler to remove / create paritions on multiple drives at once. Example here.
Optionally you can install "lmsensors" to monitor system temps while you run the hdd scans, more info here
So now, just open up 4 terminals and in each one run "badblocks -svw /dev/sd{x}" where {x} is "a", "b", "c", and "d" respective to each drive in each window. Open up another and run "watch sensors" to see system temps, and yet another to see individual drive temps where you can run a small script, here is what I use (after running "apt-get -y install hddtemp" of course):
Code:
watch "for i in a b c d;do sudo /usr/sbin/hddtemp /dev/sd${i};done"If all this is a bit much, just use DBAN lol
cheers
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