Urgent: Need tool 4 HDD health monitoring

[piergen]

I wonder if there is any tool that can read health of my HDD's?
There are tons in windows but what options are there in Linux?

I would really hope there is a tool a can install without using terminal cause I dont have webaccess for the Xubuntu right now.

Pls let me know if yo are aware of such a tool, preferable a .deb file so I can easily install without hazzle. Also I hope tools like that are not littered with tons of depandecies. Cause those dependancies are a major challange without online connection.


If there excist any smart terminal commands that will let med check health status pls let me know and pls write down the command. I have enebled the s.m.a.r.t in BIOS.
I have 4 drives running Raid 0 if that matters.

[oz]

If there excist any smart terminal commands that will let med check health status pls let me know

smartmontools (smartctl) always works great for me using the command line:

smartmontools

Manpage of SMARTCTL

[piergen]

Hmm turns out no can do.
Too many dependencies. Impossible to install without internt connection.
I need to keep looking.

Btw with all smart bulid-in tools in Linux I was kind of hoping there was some tool
allready installed by default that I could use. If someone knows of such a thing for Xubuntu Hardy 8.04 let me know.

[oz]

If using a liveCD to check drive status is a viable option in your case, you can try running the Parted Magic LiveCD that comes with smartctl and other "good to have on hand" utilities. In addition, hard drive manufacturers usually provide some utilities for checking their drives that can be run from a CD. You can check their website for those.

[rokytnji]

UBCD has drive checking tools and is bootable as live session also.

[reginaldperrin]

You say you are using Xubuntu?
I thought there was already built into the Ubuntu OS and derivatives a program to do what you want.
In Ubuntu (at least) it is called Disk Utility, it is in System -> Administration -> Disk Utility.
It shows all the drives attached to your system, and is able to show their respective SMART data too, which is what you probably want.
This shows disk health, and will assist in determining whether a disk is in danger of imminent failure.

[SkipDaShu]

You say you are using Xubuntu?
I thought there was already built into the Ubuntu OS and derivatives a program to do what you want.
In Ubuntu (at least) it is called Disk Utility, it is in System -> Administration -> Disk Utility.
It shows all the drives attached to your system, and is able to show their respective SMART data too, which is what you probably want.
This shows disk health, and will assist in determining whether a disk is in danger of imminent failure.

I'm not sure that was in v8.04 though.

[DanceMan]

UBCD has drive checking tools and is bootable as live session also.

Download and burn the UBCD, then boot with it. It contains all the manufacturer hdd test utilities. It is linux based, and it contains all kinds of freeware diagnostics.

[piergen]

Nope noe such tools by default in Xubuntu 8.04.
I did download seatools by Seagate and run both short and long tests on all 4 drives. Tests came out allright on all 4 drives. No sectors damaged, temps varied between 39 and 42 degree Celsius which according to googles large test on their own drives was about right for longest life span.

Don't know why the accoustic signature from the drives changed but at the moment I dont worry too much. Reading up on the seatools it seems the drives will be fine as long as they all passed both tests. So I decided to trust seagate for now and ignore the noises.

Anyway i do have complete backup now and will take the time one day to install rsync with all them dependdencies to insure i always keep a updated copy the backup.

[reginaldperrin]

Any reason why you wouldn't or couldn't upgrade to a newer version? The version you are using is now nearly 3 years old, which is quite a long time in computer years.