Losing Hard Drive space

Yes HD Tune is OK. You can use the trial version.

As Britton30 said try HD Tune.
If that doesn't work then download SeaTools for DOS and run it from a CD, this will run from its own OS and take your system's OS out of the scenario.

The fact that SeaTools ran on the external HDD and not the internal HDD indicates a issue, check that both power and SATA cables are firmly attached and not pinched anywhere. Switch them out for different cables if you have any spares.

Let us know how the tests go.

I spent some time with HP customer support. They really can't comment on why SeaTools may not work as they have their own ways to check the drive.

They have a standard test which I had run many times and it always says the HDD is fine. Again today everything passed.

They had me create a diagnostic disk that when launched provides more in depth diagnostic tools. We used it to test the hard drive. HP says it uses the same industry standard tests that SeaTools would use. Not sure about that but the four tests it ran did seem very similar to what SeaTools has (short, etc.). All four tests passed. There is also a long test and I will run it soon.

So in HP's eye the HDD is fine.

Prior to calling HP I contacted Seagate and they agreed that because SeaTools wasn't working on the internal drive while it worked on the external meant there was probably a problem. But HP pointed out perhaps the internal drive isn't configured to allow the testing. Seems a bit far fetched but who knows.

HP also didn't seem concerned about my missing drive space.

So is my internal drive bad? The diagnostics run through the PC manufacturer says no. Other tools have given me a problem that may indicate yes. I can go further and try even more tools but at this point I think I will just see how things behave for a while.

I would run HD Tune and SeaTools for DOS.

Always a good idea to get confirmation in a situation like this, a HP test may be a little more forgiving than the others.

As for the statement 'perhaps the internal drive isn't configured to allow the testing' might, repeat might, apply if it is a very old HDD.
Sounds to me that HP is trying to down play the issue, as all OEMs do.

Let us know what you decide to do.

karwan4pc said:

Use Mini Tool partition

Thanks and welcome to Seven forums.
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