A couple of days ago I wrote here about a way to quickly check the health of your hard disk. Although the technique works just fine, it gives you only the information about the current status. And although the status might be reported as healthy, this can be misleading. For example, if Windows detects a problem with your drive and then automatically fixes it, the drive will appear healthy even though the underlying problems still remain.

For a more reliable test of your hard disk, check out Crystal Disk which is available in a variety of formats. The easiest option is to download the portable version of the Standard Edition, which is 4.6 MB. The program is malware-free according to VirusTotal and Web of Trust.  Read More