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PURPOSE: determine what, if any, way there is to check if the hdd needle scratched the hdd causing great damage.

The external hdd was in an enclosure and tipped over, fell 90 degrees, hitting the table with a lot of force b/c the hdd is very heavy. The hdd was running/on, and I had a file open from the hdd, but it was not writing or copying any files.

There are thousands and thousands of files on the hdd - too many too open and see if they were damaged.

Any way to check the disk? Will checking the health of the hard drive with fdisk do any good?

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  • What filesystem? You could run e2fsck if it's ext2/3/4.
    – Attie
    Commented Oct 24, 2019 at 11:23
  • Many hard drives (especially those meant for laptops) autopark the head when they detect a drop, so you could be lucky. What is the exact disk model? Tipping over and falling on its side is also not that much of a shock. Otherwise, no way to tell without actually accessing the files (try to read a dozen or so, may be do a MD5 hash and compare with a backup...).
    – xenoid
    Commented Oct 24, 2019 at 12:27
  • @Attie Yes, ext4. Thanks.
    – topencrypt
    Commented Oct 24, 2019 at 15:02
  • @xenoid Yes, I will open some, but that won't fully tell me. At the same time, if many of them had problems, it would tell me. Model #: HUS726T4TALA6L4. Thanks.
    – topencrypt
    Commented Oct 24, 2019 at 15:03
  • Not a laptop drive (really meant for datacenters), but specs boast a protection against vibrations.
    – xenoid
    Commented Oct 24, 2019 at 15:51

1 Answer 1

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You need to use a tool to perform a full surface scan of the disk drive. This is also sometimes called a “long DST” test or just a “long” test in some manufacturer’s tools. There are multiple ways to do this.

  1. chkdsk <Drive:> /r
  2. HDDScan read test
  3. The drive manufacturer’s test tool.

Other tools are available as well. The above are all free ways to do it.

Of course, I don’t need to tell you to backup all your data first. That should already be done.

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  • question has a Linux tag
    – Moab
    Commented Oct 24, 2019 at 12:55
  • at Appleoddity: Thanks. The 2 two tools seem to be for windows though. The filesystem is ext4 and I am using a linux OS to test it, though I could use windows OS if necessary.
    – topencrypt
    Commented Oct 24, 2019 at 15:01
  • I don’t need to tell you to backup all your data first. No!!!! Or at least not on your usual backup media, otherwise you run the risk to overwrite a good backup with a corrupt file.
    – xenoid
    Commented Oct 24, 2019 at 15:54
  • For Linux, see the smartmontools package. It lets you look at your SMART data and run a few tests. Caution: SMART data may look terrible, but manufacturers often encode several bytes ad a long int, so you have to see the actual doc of you drive to interpret some of the numbers.
    – xenoid
    Commented Oct 24, 2019 at 16:05
  • @xenoid Thanks for your comments. "the actual doc of you drive " What doc is this and where can I find it? Not familiar with 'smartmontools'. Should my hdd be mounted when using it? Thx.
    – topencrypt
    Commented Oct 25, 2019 at 8:41

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