Is My Hard Drive Going Bad/Failing?

This is one that comes up from time to time and a recent foray into looking at a customer's computer made me realize I should post something to help out. The easiest way to test your hard drive for a crash if you're unsure as to its health is to download a utility from the manufacturer to run a diagnostic on it. Most of them either run a utility to copy them to a floppy or you need a program to 'burn' an iso to a CD. If you have a CD-RW (CD that has read and write capability) then I'd highly recommend Nero however there are a few options available.

Since hard drives are usually manufactured by someone else and installed in your computer (i.e. Dell doesn't have a Dell hard drive) then you'll need to check your PC manufactures website to see what drive your computer has or pull open your machine to look at the label on the hard drive. If you're unsure how to get at the hard drive you'll want to check the PC manufacturer's website or check to see if you still have the manual. The entire process should not take more than 5 minutes, it only took me 30 seconds to do on a Dell laptop.

Hard Drive Manufacturer Utility Link
Fujitsu
IBM, Hitachi, Toshiba
Maxtor
Samsung
Seagate
Western Digital

If I missed one please let me know.