Repair and maintain your HD from within the operating system (windows)

I'm trying to find a utility that can operate from within Windows that can do the same thing that Spinrite does. I'm not speaking to primary, or system drives, but rather secondary internal or removable drives.

I'd appreciate any advice that can be offered.

mghacklAsked: 2012-12-21

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LVL 70

Gary CaseConnect With a Mentor RetiredCommented: 2012-12-21

"... that can do the same thing that Spinrite does ..." => There's really only one competitor for Spinrite -- HDD Regenerator. I haven't purchased HDD Regenerator, but it gets fairly good reviews ... and does essentially the same thing as Spinrite (i.e. statistical analysis of defective areas that allows it to reconstruct failed areas).

It can be run from within Windows for non-system drives ... and the free download allows you to see how it works (although it won't actually do the repairs except for a single failed sector).

http://www.dposoft.net/

LVL 25

Tony GiangrecoCommented: 2012-12-21

We use Paragon Partition Manager to resolve HD issues

http://www.paragon-software.com/business/hdm-professional/comparison.html

LVL 94

nobusConnect With a Mentor Commented: 2012-12-22

as Gary says, HDDRegenerator is very good - i use it a lot, and found it faster than spinrite
it repaired many drives for me

but i never use it from Windows -always from a bootable cd

LVL 47

noxchoGlobal Support CoordinatorCommented: 2012-12-22

Actually the best tools that can maintain the drives are those done by hdd manufacturers. And each manufacturer makes tools for its hard drives. Simply go to they website and download one for Windows.

LVL 70

Gary CaseRetiredCommented: 2012-12-22

While the hard drive makers DO provide some very good diagnostic tools [e.g. WD's Data Lifeguard and Seagate's SeaTools], they do not provide the detailed statistic recovery features that Spinrite and HDD Regen do. I've had several drives that Data Lifeguard and/or SeaTools have found problems with and attempted unsuccessfully to repair, but that Spinrite was able to completely repair. After Spinrite did the repairs, the manufacturer's diagnostics passed with no problem.