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I am known for killing my laptop hardrive for what I believe is downloading to much stuff.

Does anyone know of any good reliable tools to check to life of your laptop hard drive? I heard such tools exists. I do not wish to download something with massive spyware/malware as I do not really believe in anti-viruses as they slow down my already ancient laptop (2gb memory). This is why I am seeking a reliable tool.

I personally stick with a 5 year rule myself. If a HDD is used regularly and is 5 years old, I will start to try and replace that HDD before a failure.

This probably doesn't help you, but it is what I do personally so that I don't lose my data over the years.

Sharlenwar wrote:I personally stick with a 5 year rule myself. If a HDD is used regularly and is 5 years old, I will start to try and replace that HDD before a failure.

This probably doesn't help you, but it is what I do personally so that I don't lose my data over the years.

I wish my laptop could last 5yrs. Ive had laptop hd's die on me on exactly 30days. They always die within a year. This laptop I got from a pawnshop so I have no warranty so I definetly don't want my laptop to die on me.

I would not imagine very reliable tools would exist for checking a hard drive's life. What typically dies on a hard drive is the moving, mechanical part: the arm. And there is no reliable way to know when that is going to go. You can make life a bit easier on your HDD's arm by defragmenting your HDD every once in a while. That packs in the data closer and tries to assemble as much related data as possible on the same tracks, meaning less arm moving for the same data.

No such reliable software exist? I been lied to?

I don't know for sure. I would just doubt it because of the nature of how HDD fail. I cannot figure out how software could judge the life left in a mechanical arm inside a component. There may be software packages out there that can do some integrity tests to check for certain life signs from the platter, but the platter is pretty much never the reason for an HDD failure.