Check your hard drive with free diagnostic software

One of the best free third-party options for monitoring your drive is DiskCheckup by PassMark software (tinyurl.com/q33a98j). This utilises the SMART features that are present on most disk drives and allows it to detect when issues might be arising. SMART (SelfMonitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) looks at various attributes on a disk to see if performance is degrading, and programs such as DiskCheckup let the user see reports based on that information.

It’s not a catch-all, as SMART can’t say whether a disk is dying or just naturally deteriorating, but it does give users a comprehensive look at the current state of a drive and suggests when it should be replaced.

DiskCheckup is compatible with Windows 7, 8 and 10, plus the personal use version is completely free.

It’s also worth noting that many hard disk manufacturers have their own diagnostic software available for free on their websites. If you know what make your drive is then downloading the respective program would be a sensible move.