Is your hard-drive healthy? Here's how to find out.

There are a couple of testing programs available, depending on the maker of your hard-drive. Both Western Digital and Seagate make free programs for testing their drives. The Seagate Seatools For Windows can also test a variety of other brands as well as its own. Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows is available from this link.

The drive in this PC is one from Western Digital, and here's what each of these test programs looks like while testing this drive....

Each of these two tests are started in their own ways, but both are quite user friendly and self-explanatory, so you shouldn't have any trouble doing them.

The Seagate test program is possibly the best-known and has been around longest. Using it, you must first select the desired test from the dropdown menu as shown....

When finished, it shows its results as above. Seagate says that if your drive passes its test, you can look elsewhere for your problems, if any. I didn't have a problem - I'm just demonstrating these two available testing programs with links for you to find them if you wish. It's not a bad idea to run a test like this periodically, just to satisfy yourself that all is well, or perhaps catch something before it gets too serious. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."