Hard Drive Inspector

If you don't have backup copies of your important data and the hard disk fails, this would be a good time to start panicking. There are a few effective recovery methods available, but a better idea is to prevent something like this from happening. Hard Drive Inspector will monitor your disk's vital signs and it will warn you if something bad is about to occur. This way you can rest easy, knowing that you have a tool which looks out for signs of danger.

You don't need to invest too much time in order to get the software. The download is 2.64 Mb large and installing it involves going through a straightforward wizard.

The interface does not require too much interaction from the user. By default, it is a simple window that features a small list with percentages regarding your disk's reliability, performance and error resistance. Below these, a message will be displayed in case something goes wrong. It will tell you what action is required in order to prevent data loss.

Another useful gauge will display the hard drive's temperature. You can modify it by going to the options panel, where everything is organized in categories. Here you can set a time interval for a temperature check and specify a critical temperature in Fahrenheit or Celsius degrees. You can also select an action that should be performed in case the temperature reaches that critical level. You can choose from showing a message, playing a sound, putting the computer on standby and sending a warning via network or e-mail message.

The options panel also includes some options for reliability control. Like in the temperature control category, you can set a time interval for automatically checking the disk's condition. In case something goes wrong, you can set the same types of tasks that Hard Drive Inspector should perform: showing a message, playing a sound and so on.

A button from the interface's toolbar will let you switch to an advanced mode. This will add two extra sets of details, organized in separate tabs. One of the new tabs will show you technical info about your hard drive, all in a tree structure. You can find details regarding physical or logical geometry, serial number, firmware and many more. The final tab features a list of S.M.A.R.T. details. It's a long list of attributes that can be filtered according to their type. This way, you can see life critical attributes, performance attributes or error rate ones.