Win a ‘Hard Disk Sentinel Professional’ Licence

Archive HD Sentinel
#1

We’ve just posted the following news: Win a ‘Hard Disk Sentinel Professional’ Licence[newsimage]http://static.myce.com//images_posts/2013/07/HD-Sentinel-Thumbnail.png[/newsimage]

The Hard Disk Sentinel Professional giveaway competition starts today with a chance for all to win.

            Read the full article here: [http://www.myce.com/news/win-a-hard-disk-sentinel-professional-licence-67772/](http://www.myce.com/news/win-a-hard-disk-sentinel-professional-licence-67772/)

            Please note that the reactions from the complete site will be synched below.
#2

I really hope the people that win these licenses will ask some questions and learn how to use this program , its easy but there are many different settings and you will want to use all of them. I do and love it.

#3

Yeah, great dev in the right direction!

#4

Hi everyone. I just had a chance to look at HDS4.40PRO, and it seems a well rounded piece of software, with good looks and tons of features. I had a quick look at most of the options and I wouldn’t remove any. Particularly I had enjoyed the “Operations” section which allows for a quick backup or any other course of action to be automatically taken in case of imminent failure. Of course, a more testing should be in order, but so far, so good.
But, and this is the reason for me being here, I have a feature request (or just you pointing me in the right direction in options) that is both required and mandatory for this software to be of any usefulness to me: ** Reporting SMART data of individual RAID member HDDs **. My current setup involves a RAID 0 of 2x 1TB Samsung drives (on Intel raid) and a backup 750 GB Seagate drive. Unfortunately, as of now, the only thing I am seeing is a “Intel Raid 0 Volume” element in drive list with no useful reporting. I know this might be a tall order, but I just came along on another piece of software, namely CrystalDiskInfo-v5.6.0 that does just that, so it’s entirely possible.
So, that’s pretty much it, it would be nice to see this feature implemented, as it seems to be quite critical to the mission success :). Cheers, Adrian.

#5

I have been using HDSPro for about 6 months. Last week, I upgraded to the Family license. I have several computers in my home, and want to monitor them all with HDSPro. Back when I was just using the Standard version, it detected an excessive number of rewrites on a particular hard drive - my OS drive. I have 5 physical hard drives in my rig, so I am not your typical user. I replaced the drive proactively before anything bad happened. That is my HDSPro success story. I have less than 5 computers in my home, but would like to see the ability to get remote alerts at my central computer without the significant cost step to the Enterprise version. No complaint, just a wish. Thanks HDSPro!

#6

[QUOTE=Job48;2693965]I have been using HDSPro for about 6 months. Last week, I upgraded to the Family license. I have several computers in my home, and want to monitor them all with HDSPro. Back when I was just using the Standard version, it detected an excessive number of rewrites on a particular hard drive - my OS drive. I have 5 physical hard drives in my rig, so I am not your typical user. I replaced the drive proactively before anything bad happened. That is my HDSPro success story. I have less than 5 computers in my home, but would like to see the ability to get remote alerts at my central computer without the significant cost step to the Enterprise version. No complaint, just a wish. Thanks HDSPro![/QUOTE]
Your story is appreciated, and so true, everyone needs to take advantage of this great proggy. :iagree:

#7

I doubt my reveiw at least this first one will be the winner .
Unless there is a temporary registration of the trial version I don’t see how I can reveiw this software . At least with much thoroughness.
Did I miss the way to do this?

The " Random Seek Test" can only be ran once & even then only the “quick Test”.
The " Short Self­test" runs only on my older IDE drive.
All other tests only work with the registered version regardless of the drive.
The " Short Self­test" gave the error below on my SATA drives:

The controller is :
NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller (ATA) [VEN: 10DE, DEV: 0266]
AFAIK the driver is current . I didn’t double check since I’m not having problems (other than this one) . I may verify that it is up to date when I have time.
With a little work I found out how to display only the System drive in the tray . That is all I need most of the time.
That is about all I can do .
The information given seems correct .
Of the 3 internal HDDs in my computer the lowest in “Health” was 99% on the older IDE drive. Performance 100% on all 3.
I only had one external handy but it was 100% also.

I got this message also:
" Real time performance monitoring is not supported on this disk."
This is supposed to be a Windows problem .
I’m working on it so if I get it working I will add another post.


#8

@AdrianMan:

I can make sure Intel RAID is completely supported and should be working (Hard Disk Sentinel was one of the first software which can detect and display complete information for not only Intel, but many other RAID controllers :slight_smile:

Please use Report -> Send test report to developer option, as this way it is possible to check what can be wrong on this particular system. Maybe a specific driver version can cause troubles - as some Intel drivers contain lots of problems and may cause that the detected information was inaccurate. Then Hard Disk Sentinel filters it - preventing displaying wrong information.

#9

@Job48:

Thanks for your message, glad to hear the software helped to avoid problems!

For remote monitoring some systems, without the Enterprise version, you may consider using Configuration -> Integration -> Enable WebStatus option. This allows checking the status of any system in your network remotely by any web browser.
Maybe the Remote Computer Sidebar Gadget ( http://www.hdsentinel.com/add-on-remote-gadget.php ) can be a good addition also for this purpose, to monitor the systems remotely from a single Win7 PC.

#10

@Cholla:

Thanks for your message. Yes, the unregistered / trial version offers limited functionality. It is designed to offer a quick overview about the status of the hard disks and verify hardware compatibility.

Yes, the Disk -> Short self test, Extended self test commands are special commands. Some hard disk controllers (more precisely their drivers) do not allow sending these commands to the hard disk.
As you can see, the NVidia chipset driver reports error 1 (Invalid function) even if the function is completely valid and supported by the hard disk.

Changing / updating the driver may help in some cases, but for some controllers even the latest drivers may block this command.
According the tests, latest NVidia chipsets (where the SATA channels run in AHCI mode) may allow starting the tests.

Not sure about the actual model of your motherboard, but you may try to use the Windows “Standard dual channel IDE controller” or “Standard AHCI Compatible controller” (depending on the motherboard / chipset) driver for the disk controller - as that may allow sending these commands to the hard disk.

#11

Hi AdrianMan,

I can make sure Intel RAID is completely supported and should be working (Hard Disk Sentinel was one of the first software which can detect and display complete information for not only Intel, but many other RAID controllers :slight_smile:

Please use Report -> Send test report to developer option, as this way it is possible to check what can be wrong on this particular system. Maybe a specific driver version can cause troubles - as some Intel drivers contain lots of problems and may cause that the detected information was inaccurate. Then Hard Disk Sentinel filters it - preventing displaying wrong information.

#12

@hdsentinel Report sent.

#13

@AdrianMan: Thanks, I received and sent answer in e-mail. Posting also here as it may help other users as well:

Thanks for the Hard Disk Sentinel report !

Yes, now I see the problem: the current driver for the Intel RAID controller is a bit old, its version is 8.9 which does not allow accessing the proper hard disk status.

The proper Intel RAID controller support is added in later versions of the Intel RAID driver. If you open Support -> Driver Zone section at www.hdsentinel.com (directly at http://www.hdsentinel.com/driverzone.php )
you may find recommended Intel RAID controller drivers there, which work correctly.

For this system, I’d recommend using the driver version 10.5, available from that page (or directly from http://www.hdsentinel.com/driver/stor_allos_10.5.0.1026_pc.zip )

After installing this driver and restart of the system, complete hard disk status should be displayed. I’d suggest to use Report -> Send test report to developer option again after that, so I can check the situation and verify if the status will be better and advise if some information is still not displayed.

I agree that the current version may provide some information (in the other tool) - but I suspect it may be not really accurate or partial only, this is why not displayed in Hard Disk Sentinel.

#14

@hdsentinel: as per instructed, I had successfully updated Intel Raid drivers from the link you provided. Unfortunately, the problem remains unchanged, HDS440PRO does not report any meaningful info on my Raid0 array HDDs. A new report had been sent from the app. Cheers.

#15

@Adrianman,

Thanks for the updated report, this is quite interesting.
In e-mail I sent further information about how to create some “raw” outputs, which would confirm which function of the Intel RAID driver may still not working correctly and what I can do to fix/improve the situation as quickly as possible.

Thanks for your attention about pointing on this situation on your system and excuse me for the annoyances.

#16

@hdsentinel: following the instructions you gave me by email, I have sent you the extended ‘raw’ report and some screen captures. Glad to be of help, count with me for everything you need in solving this issue.

#17

[QUOTE=hdsentinel;2694026]Not sure about the actual model of your motherboard, but you may try to use the Windows “Standard dual channel IDE controller” (depending on the motherboard / chipset) driver for the disk controller - as that may allow sending these commands to the hard disk.[/QUOTE]

Changing from the NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller to the
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller worked .
I also uninstalled the Nvidia as it doesn’t seem to need it.

The evaluation key hdsentinel emailed me fixed the rest.

Except I did need to follow the instructions for enabling “Disk Performance” . There was a handy link right there . I clicked it & followed both the Command.exe & registry fix. This worked.

I need to do some testing now .

#18

@cholla: Thanks so much for the information, glad to hear that now things are working correctly :wink:

Excuse me for the troubles with the NVidia drivers and the Windows performance issues. There are some things independent from us - but try to help in all possible ways.

#19

@AdrianMan: Thanks so much for your kind help in investigating this issue on your system!
With your help it was possible to improve the situation, glad to hear that the updated version I sent works correctly.

In case if this issue may happen on other systems, I’d publish the link to the updated version here:

www.hdsentinel.com/beta4/hdsentinel_pro_setup4401c_ukds1.zip

Thanks again so much for your kind help and excuse me for the annoyances!

#20

I have to say this is amazingly quick for custom fixes!

I’m impressed. :bow:

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