Should I scan a new HDD for bad sectors?

Thanks for your reply.

Just remember beforehand to have a bootable CD/pendrive/whatever with your tools ready for the test, as your OS will not be available at all once you pull the disk.

R. I just found this out . I pulled the HDD out, put the new one in, started and 'No system found'. Put the HDD back in, back here again. At least its still functioning?

Sure, it's entirely possibly if you have the cable, that way you can use your main OS to perform any tests/installs/data transfer or whatever. I would not buy the cable just for this, but if you plan to use it afterwards it may be worth the money.

R. So I can run both the internal HDD and my new SSHD externally connected to the SATA cable which is connected to the USB port, at the same time. And run the scan test with my on board MiniTool Partition Wizard surface scanner? A. It appears yes I can.

As to the SATA/USB cable, I used the SATA/USB cable from my Seagate Backup Plus 1TB external drive. Which has a removable SATA head plug that fits onto my new SSHD and the other end to my laptop USB port. So that's working. :)

I'm trying to learn stuff, I've read a lot of the tutorials, but in certain areas like disk partitioning, back up imaging, etc., by the time I understand it all Windows 12 will be out an running ?

I just plugged in the SSHD again, and restarted the MiniTool Wizard which is showing both drives listed. I right clicked the SSHD drive and started the surface scan. It says it will take about 6 hours to scan 698GB out of the available 750GB drive. I'll post the results when done.

Results of disk scan: All green, no bad blocks or sectors.

Can't go wrong doing a disk scan on a new drive, even if it takes several hours to complete. Rather know if I got a bad sector before installing everything on it and then have to do it all over again. So its a win-win situation in the long run.

Thanks to those that helped or replied, Vista 32.