How to Check If Your Hard Drive is going to Fail

Last time we covered how long do hard drives last and backing up your data. However, it would be convenient to know before hand if a hard drive is going to fail. That way, you can back up your data more often than usual or simply replace your hard drive and not have to be stressed that your hard drive might fail on you at anytime.

Luckily, there is a tool in Windows that can perform a check on your hard drive and make a prediction whether your hard drive might fail due to problems that it detects. And this tool is called the Performance Monitor.

Note that this article only covers Windows.

How to Check Your Hard Drive with Performance Monitor

Starting System Diagnostics

In Start Menu, search for performance monitor and open the app.

In the Performance Monitor app, go to Data Collector Sets > System, then right click on System Diagnostics, then click Start.

Viewing System Diagnostics Report

Now go to Reports > System > System Diagnostics, and select the newly generated report. If the data collection process is still running, allow it to finish.

Under Warnings, click the plus sign next the Disk Check, and look at the result of SMART Predict Failure Check.

If the check failed is 0 and Description is Passed. Then your hard drive passed the test and is fine. Otherwise, either Windows doesn't know how to check your hard drive, or it detected a problem. In either case, I would recommend backing up your data immediately and potentially looking at replacing your hard drive.

End

If your hard drive is acting up and you suspect that it might be failing, this tool can help you confirm your suspicions. However, you should not rely on this tool alone, and you should still back up your data on a regular basis.