Managing And Customizing The Drive; Checking Drive Health - Western Digital My Passport User Manual

Managing and Customizing the Drive

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This chapter includes the following topics:

Checking Drive Health

Erasing the Drive
Registering the Drive
Restoring the WD Software and Disk Image
Setting the Drive Sleep Timer
Using the WD Quick View Icon
Checking Drive Status
Monitoring Icon Alerts
Opening the WD SmartWare Software
Safely Disconnecting the Drive
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 is
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 drive has a built-in Data Lifeguard
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 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
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.
1.
Open the WD Drive Utilities software by clicking either:
The WD Drive Utilities desktop shortcut icon if you created one when you
installed the application
All Programs > Western Digital > WD Apps > WD Drive Utilities
See Figure 4 on page 8.
MY PASSPORT ULTRA METAL EDITION
™
diagnostic utility that tests the drive for error
MANAGING AND CUSTOMIZING THE DRIVE – 51
USER MANUAL