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Is it possible to check an external USB Drive health (SMART)?

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    Never take out the WD (e.g. MyBook) HDD from the enclosure and try to mount it internally unless you like to repair unallocated partitions. I have tried it personally.
    – user126112
    Apr 2, 2012 at 8:20
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    I think this question does a pretty good job on: "describe your situation and the specific problem you're trying to solve." What appears to be missing from the question, making it off-topic, is an open-ended "how do I do this?" at the end. Oct 30, 2015 at 19:49
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    What's wrong with asking about how to perform a specific task?
    – Tom Hale
    Dec 26, 2016 at 8:51
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    Closing this question is stupid. Almost any question on this site can be solved by recommending a product, that doesn't mean that the OP was necessarily asking for a product recommendation.
    – Hey
    Aug 4, 2018 at 17:00
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    I tried all the tools listed and couldn't get anything to read over USB. However Kaspersky Security Cloud immediately detected the drive (More Tools → Data Protection → Hard Drive Health Monitor → Details) and I was able to get all the normal SMART params over USB. I would have loved to have added this as an answer, but all the good questions on Stack Exchange stupidly always get closed as off-topic!!
    – SharpC
    Jun 2, 2019 at 11:27

6 Answers 6

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Another alternative would be CrystalDiskInfo You can download the portable version so you can test without installing.

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Most tools have trouble passing the SMART status of hard drives over USB.

Your best bet for getting the health status from the drive over USB from a generic tool is smartctl from smartmontools. A version that works on Windows with a nice GUI is available here. If this does not work, you will have to download and install the device specific management tool from the manufacturer. The management tool will have a health checker for the drive. Here is the site for western digital. Here is the site for Seagate. You could also take out the drive from the external enclosure and hook it up to your PC directly using SATA or IDE and then read the status using standard tools like HDTune or Smartctl.

smartctl support for USB is described in more detail here.

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  • The first link (HDD Guardian) is no longer available...
    – Kanchu
    Jan 2, 2018 at 7:15
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Give HDDScan a try. It does SMART value reporting from ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire and analyzes log pages from SCSI drives. It can also perform SMART tests on hard drives connected by any of the above-mentioned interfaces.

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  • This doesn't require installation as a bonus
    – Tom Hale
    Dec 26, 2016 at 5:48
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    Couldn't get it to work over USB like most other tools I've tried.
    – SharpC
    Jun 2, 2019 at 11:11
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I use HD Tune Pro (Windows, $34.95 but free trial):

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Also, there is Virtual Console USB Flash Drive Tester (mirror) (Windows, free):

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One option would be to open the enclosure and just mount it as an internal drive and use any program you would use regularly then.

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Now the program I use is spinrite.

Is SpinRite compatible with USB and Firewire devices?

The best answer to this is a firm "maybe". DOS device drivers are available for most USB and Firewire controllers. If such drivers are added to a DOS boot diskette so that your USB or Firewire drive is "seen" by DOS, SpinRite will also be able to "see" and operate with it. However, the performance of the drive through the DOS drivers and the serial (USB/Firewire) cable will likely be far lower than if the external drive were connected directly to a PC's motherboard controller. If you have the ability to temporarily relocate the IDE drive inside of the external enclosure to a PC— plugging it directly into the motherboard's controller — SpinRite will be able to operate at the drive's highest possible performance.

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    Spinrite has bad reputation. To summarize, what it claims to be doing either doesn't make sense to do or is outright impossible. Jun 29, 2017 at 16:57
  • I second @ivan_pozdeev's reply -- I used it on some older disks which were beginning to fail and retrieved a minimal amount of info, but on disks less than 10 years old (and this was in 2007/2008) SpinRite did absolutely nothing. Indeed, it only seems to shorten the lifespan of modern drives. Jun 29, 2018 at 10:43
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Building on what @James said, Seagate's SeaTools will work for Seagate/Maxtor drives and some other drive manufacturers as well. It will get SMART info, do tests and do repairs for Seagate/Maxtor.

They have Windows GUI or they a DOS version that will create bootable DOS disk.

http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/