How to test/check a harddrive?

[nukie83]

I just had the harddrive fail on me and i had to do windows xp restore to get it running again.
I also had a number of formats in a short span of time due to a stupid monitor display problem thinking it was harddrive.

Anyways, I want to test the harddrive to see if it's okay. What is the best method in doing so?
*btw i am not too concerned with 'bad sector' per se but more concerned with overall speed of the reading and stability in accessing the data and running the computer.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Slobogob]

You should visit the manufacturers homepage and see if they provide a tool for checking your HD. Seagates Seatool is quite good, but very time consuming. WD has some decent tools too - a while back i used one and it provided me with a almost filled out RMA print once it found an error.
There are some general tools too, but i don't use those.