Checking Drive Health - Western Digital My Passport User Manual

On the WD Drive Utilities Drive Settings screen:
IF you want to . . .
Run drive diagnostics and status
checks,
Specify an inactive time interval to
turn off your drive,
Erase your drive so you can retrieve
the space and start over,
Register your drive to receive free
technical support during the
warranty period and keep up-to-
date on the latest WD products,

Checking Drive Health

WD Drive Utilities provides three diagnostic tools to help make sure that your drive is
performing well. Run the following tests if you are concerned that your drive is not
operating properly:
• SMART Status
SMART is a failure-prediction function that continuously monitors key internal
performance attributes of the drive. A detected increase in drive temperature,
noise, or read/write errors, for example, can provide an indication that the drive
might be approaching a serious failure condition. With advanced warning, you
could take precautionary measures, like moving your data to another drive, before
a failure occurs.
The result of a SMART status check is a pass or fail evaluation of the drive's
condition.
• Quick Drive Test
Your My Passport drive has a built-in Data Lifeguard diagnostic utility that tests
the drive for error conditions. The quick drive test checks the drive for major
performance problems.
The result of a quick drive test is a pass or fail evaluation of the drive's condition.
• Complete Drive Test
The most comprehensive drive diagnostic is the complete drive test. It
methodically tests every sector for error conditions, and inserts bad sector
markers as required.
The best time to run the drive diagnostics and status checks is on a regular basis, before
you encounter any problems with your drive. And, because they are so fast, running the
quick SMART status check and the quick drive test provides a high level of assurance
with minimal inconvenience. Then, run all three whenever you encounter disk error
conditions when writing or accessing files.
To run drive diagnostics and status checks:
1.
Click Go > Applications > WD Drive Utilities to display the WD Drive Utilities screen
(see Figure 4 on page 18).
2. If you have more than one supported My Passport drive connected to your
computer, select the one that you want to check.
THEN click . . . AND see . . .
Diagnostics "Checking Drive Health" in the
next section.
Sleep Timer "Setting the Drive Sleep Timer"
on page 20.
Drive Erase "Erasing the Drive" on
page 21.
Registration "Registering the Drive" on
page 24.
MANAGING AND CUSTOMIZING THE DRIVE – 19
MY PASSPORT FOR MAC
USER MANUAL