Existing hard drive diagnostic vs. new external

External backup for 2 Win7 home computers.

Prices are currently at a premium for a 2T 2 1/2" USB 3x external backup drive.

I will retire the XP machine soon that is being replaced by the new Win7 machine. The XP machine has 2 drives--one of which is slower than molasses and you can hear the thing churning away when nothing should be going on (indexing off).

I've never had much luck with diagnostic software--in particular PC Doctor when it was shipped with Lenovo systems.

Given the costs involved buying the software makes little sense.

Is there, in particular, hard drive diagnostic software that really can diagnose a problematic drive?

If I knew which drive was bad then I'd put the good one in a container and use it until the USB 3 externals come down in price.

Mark

I believe all hard drive manufacturers offer their own diagnostic tools. Seagate, just for example, offers SeaTools which can be used on any hard drive.

SeaTools for Windows | Seagate

These tools try to stress the drive to expose any problems. The stressing could possibly push a failing drive over the edge. If you need to find the hard drive manufacturer, a free tool called Speccy would hold.

Speccy - System Information - Free Download

Thanks--the Seagate program is cranking away--

Mark