7 Free Hard Drive Testing Programs

A List of the Best Free Hard Drive Test Software Available

 

There are many free hard drive testing tools available to help you determine what, if anything, is wrong when you suspect there may be a problem with a hard drive.
Some of these tools may be built in to your operating system already while others are available from hard drive manufacturers.
Important: Replace your hard drive if it fails any of your tests.

1. Seagate SeaTools

Seagate SeaTools is free hard drive testing software that comes in two forms for home users:
  • SeaTools for DOS supports Seagate or Maxtor drives and runs independent from your operating system on its own CD or disk, making it highly reliable.

  • SeaTools for Windows is a program that installs on your Windows system. You can do basic and advanced testing of any kind of drive - internal or external - from any manufacturer.
For those looking for SeaTools Desktop, SeaTools Online, or Maxtor's PowerMax software, please note that the two tools above have replaced all three. Seagate now owns the Maxtor brand.
Note: You do not need to own a Seagate or Maxtor hard drive to use SeaTools.

2. Hitachi Drive Fitness Test

Hitachi Drive Fitness Test is free hard drive diagnostic software available for use on most drives available today.
The Hitachi Drive Fitness Test software is available as an ISO file which can be burned to a CD and then used to boot the computer. See the installation instructions from Hitachi in the link below for details.
Note: You do not need to own a Hitachi hard drive to use Drive Fitness Test (DFT).

3. Microsoft Windows Built-In Error Checking

Error Checking, sometimes referred to as scandisk, is a hard drive testing tool that comes with Microsoft Windows that can scan your hard drive in search of a wide range of errors.
This tool can also attempt to correct a number of hard drive problems.

4. Samsung HUTIL

Samsung HUTIL is a free hard drive diagnostic utility for Samsung hard drives. HUTIL is sometimes called ES-Tool.
Samsung's HUTIL tool is available as an ISO image for burning to a CD. This makes HUTIL operating system independent and a better testing tool, in general, than those designed for use within Windows. It's also possible to run HUTIL from a bootable floppy disk.
Note: HUTIL will only test Samsung hard drives. HUTIL will load and find your non-Samsung drive you will not be able to run any diagnostics on the drive.

5. Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic

Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic is free hard drive testing software designed for Western Digital branded hard drives only.
The Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic software is available in a bootable, ISO format and allows for a number of hard drive tests. See the installation instructions from Western Digital in the link below for details.
Note: Data Lifeguard Diagnostic will also run diagnostics on hard drives from other manufacturers but the primary drive in the computer must be a Western Digital drive.

6. Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool

Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool is a free hard drive testing tool designed for Fujitsu hard drives.
The Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool (FJDT) is available in both a Windows version and an operating system independent, bootable DOS version. Unfortunately, the bootable version is designed for floppy disks - a CD image is not available.
Two tests are available with Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool, a "Quick Test" (about 3 minutes) and a "Comprehensive Test" (time will vary based on hard drive size).
Note: Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool will perform hard drive tests on Fujitsu drives only. If you have any other make of hard drive, try one of the manufacturer independent tests listed toward the beginning of this list.

7. Bart's Stuff Test

Bart's Stuff Test is a free, Windows-based hard drive stress test.
There aren't a lot of options in Bart's Stuff Test and it's not as thorough as some other tests on this list. However, it's a decent addition to your hard drive testing arsenal, especially if you're having problems testing with an ISO based tool above but want something besides Window's default tool.


Windows lifecycle fact sheet

Every Windows product has a lifecycle. The lifecycle begins when a product is released and ends when it's no longer supported or sold. Knowing key dates in this lifecycle helps you make informed decisions about when to upgrade or make other changes to your software. Here are the rights and limits of the Windows lifecycle.

End of support

End of support refers to the date when Microsoft no longer provides automatic fixes, updates, or online technical assistance. This is the time to make sure you have the latest available service pack installed. Without Microsoft support, you will no longer receive security updates that can help protect your PC from harmful viruses, spyware, and other malicious software that can steal your personal information.


Desktop operating systems Date of general availability Retail software end of sales End of sales for PCs with Windows preinstalled Latest service pack End of mainstream support End of extended support
Windows XP December 31, 2001 June 30, 2008 October 22, 2010 Service Pack 3 April 14, 2009 April 8, 2014
Windows Vista January 30, 2007 October 22, 2010 October 22, 2011 Service Pack 2 April 10, 2012 April 11, 2017
Windows 7 October 22, 2009 To be determined To be determined Service Pack 1 January 13, 2015 January 14, 2020
Windows 8 October 30, 2012 To be determined To be determined Not yet available January 9, 2018 January 10, 2023


Top 10 Ultrabooks

Our list of the best ultrabooks, with a good blend of sleekness, performance and features.

1. Samsung Series 9 NP-900X3C
2. HP Spectre XT
3. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon
4. Samsung Series 5 Touch
5. Asus Taichi 31-DH71
6. Toshiba Portege Z930
7. HP Envy 4
8. Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13
9. Asus VivoBook S550
10.Dell XPS 12

Top 10 Laptops 2013

Our list of the best laptops with a good blend of performance and features.
1. HP Envy dv6-7206tx
2. Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 (59-346619)
3. HP Pavilion m4-1003tx
4. Sony Vaio S Series (SVS15115FNB)
5. Lenovo IdeaPad Z500 (59-341235)
6. Dell Inspiron 15R Turbo
7. HP Pavilion G6-2227tu
8. Acer Aspire V3-571G (33114G75Makk)
9. HP Pavilion G6-2301ax
10.Asus F202E-CT148H VivoBook


10 Best Alternatives To Google's Android App Store

The number of apps in Google Play is to cross 1,00,00,00 milestone, but even then most of the users want to explore new avenues for apps. The reason could be the search for novelty, more fun or for the apps that stand for specific purpose. And so many other app stores and websites have mushroomed in mammoth numbers to cater this want, but the trustworthiness of most of these is questioned. Read on to know 10 best of them as compiled by Economic Times.


#10 Android Pit


Androidpit.com lets you discover and download apps either directly to your phone or on your PC. In addition to the apk apps, the site also provides a dedicated ‘Test’ area with app reviews, screenshots and ratings. About more than 50 percent of the apps can be downloaded directly from this site and for others, it redirects to Google Play store.


There is also an Android Pit app in Google Play which acts as substitute to the main website. Try it now.




#9 1Mobile Market


1mobile.com is the easy way to find and download the best free Android apps and games. The site also recommends apps under specific categories like games, app starter kit, photo editing, music apps are ease of discovery and download.


The website says that it has the collection of more than 3,00,000 free android apps. There is also an android app for 1Mobile which inculcates the features of main website.





#8 SlideMe


Slideme.org is an Android client for managing the discovery and download of Android applications. The site has similar UI as that of Google Play, where you have to create a free account first to download the apps. The interface is fluid and you have the option of limiting apps displayed per page and the number of screenshots to save data costs. There is also an option to select the country to display the local apps and you can lock the app with a PIN. You can also download SlideMe android app from the Google Store.







#7 Amazon Appstore


You can download Amazon Appstore from Amazon.com/getappstore. This android app store was opened on March 22, 2011 and now available in more than nearly 200 countries. The app store has big collections of both the free and paid apps. Amazon’s Kindle tablet has altogether has omitted the Google Play and it relies on company’s app store. 


The Amazon Appstore includes a "free app a day" feature. Every day, an application, frequently a game, is offered for free. On the launch day, this game was Angry Birds Rio (Ad-Free), in itself a promotional game.





#6 Mobo Market


Moborobo.com has apps, games, dedicated section for wallpapers, themes, latest news, reviews and a discussion forum. You also get a built-in download manager where you can monitor the downloads in progress and it also helps in installing and uninstalling the downloaded apps.
 










#5 AAOMarket


AAOMarket is the Android client of AndAppOnline.com application store. Almost all apps on this marketplace are free. The site claims that they have limited apps because they want to feature only quality apps. However one drawback is that there is progress indicator while downloading the apps, and so you might not know the download time.


#4 F-droid


The F-Droid Repository is an easily-installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The server contains the details of multiple versions of each application like Froyo, Honeycomb, Gingerbread, Ice Cream sandwich, and Jelly Bean, so that you can install the correct one. You can get the F-droid app from F-droid.





#3 Good E-reader App Store


Apps.goodreader.com provides a very basic UI that lists hot and popular apps along with categories to browse through. The plus side is that, the website provides user ratings right next to the app name in the main interface. It also acts as aggregator of other app stores from where you can download the apps too.


APKs FROM THE WEB


#2 AppBrain


AppBrain is a trusted source for Android apps. You have to visit appbrain.com from your device's browser and create an account. Then you need to download and install AppBrain's app from the Play Store.  With AppBrain you can Discover the best Android apps via search, rankings and categories; Easily install and manage your apps directly from the web browser and on the phone with our free Android app; Share the apps installed on; your phone with your friends; New and hot apps of the day; Find top Android apps with a price drop and many other features.





#1 Opera App Store


The Opera Mobile Store is a platform-independent browser-based application store for mobile-phone owners and a digital application distribution platform for developers, owned and maintained by Opera Software ASA. Launched and powered by a third-party provider in March, 2011 the Opera Mobile Store was relaunched on a new platform, after acquisition of Handster, a mobile application store platform company, in January 2012. The Opera App Store has surpassed 100,000 apps as per reports in June.


The service allows users to browse and download applications for over 3000 different mobile phone models on Android, Java, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, iOS, and Windows Mobile. To access the store, just open the web browser on your Android device and type apps.opera.com. The service will auto-detect your device and you can download APKs directly to the device. About 70 percent of the apps are free on this store.







Use Google to get Serial for any Software

Most of the people downloading a trial and using it, only after the Expiration of trial they try for Serial No, Keygen, Patch. But many aren't known where to get Serial No, Some websites May be infect your system with Trojan horse, Viruses, Ad ware, Spy ware....

So for beginners this is a simple way to find hack with less
Effort and it saves time too, But make sure you have antivirus
activated before trying to get some Serials, Patches to avoid
data loss.

Just follow the steps as instructed below:

1) Go to Google
2) Type this syntax in the search bar " 94FBR"
3) Replace Product name with desired software and leave a
Space then type 94FBR
4) Press enter, that's it

Now you receive Many pages which contain Serial no,
Patches....

Just make a try, this simple trick works for many people.

Demo: 94fbr Photoshop CS5
(It will list the pages contains the keys for Photoshop CS5

All Mobiles Secret Codes

Samsung Secret Codes

Software version: *#9999#
IMEI  number: *#06#
Serail number: *#0001#
Battery status-Memory capicity: *#9998*246#
Debug screen: *#9998*324# - *#8999*324#
LCD kontrast: *#9998*523#


LG Secret Codes

LG all models test mode: Type 2945#*# on the main screen.
2945*#01*# Secret menu for LG
IMEI (ALL): *#06#
IMEI and SW (LG 510): *#07#
Software version (LG B1200): *8375#
Recount cheksum (LG B1200): *6861#
Factory test (B1200): #PWR 668
Simlock menu (LG B1200): 1945#*5101#
Simlock menu (LG 510W, 5200): 2945#*5101#
Simlock menu (LG 7020, 7010): 2945#*70001#


Motorola Secret Codes

IMEI number: *#06#
Code to lock keys  Press together *7
Note: [] (pause) means the * key held in until box appears.
Select phone line - (use this to write things below the provider name):
[] [] [] 0 0 8 [] 1 []
Add phonebook to main menu:
[] [] [] 1 0 5 [] 1 []


 
Nokia Secret Codes

*#06# for checking the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity).
*#7780# reset to factory setting
*#67705646# This will clear the LCD display(operator logo).
*#0000# To view software version.
*#2820# Bluetooth device address.
*#746025625# Sim clock allowed status.
*#62209526# - Display the MAC address of the WLAN adapter. This is available only in the newer devices that supports WLAN.

Balance Transfer Tricks For All Mobile Networks

This trick will help those people who want mobile balance in an Emergency and there is not any Mobile retailer. But ,Friend of person have same mobile network then he can transfer balance from his mobile to that mobile. 

Here Are Working Balance Transfer Tricks For All Mobile Networks.


Airtel : 

To Transfer Balance In Airtel Just Dial *141# And Follow The Onscreen Instructions.
You Can Transfer From 5 To 30 Rupees Of Balance In Airtel.
Tata Docomo :
To Transfer Balance In Tata Docomo SMS as BT MobileNumber Amount And Send It To 54321. 
E.g. BT 9876543210 30 To Transfer 30 Rupees Of Balance.
!dea :
To Transfer Balance In !dea Network Send SMS as GIVE MobileNumber Amount And Send It To 55567.
E.g. GIVE 9876543210 30 To Transfer 30 Rupees.

Vodafone :
To Transfer Balance In Vodafone Dial *131*Amount*Mobile No#
E.g. *131*50*9876543210# To Transfer 50 Rupees Of Balance.
Uninor :
To Transfer Balance In Uninor Just Dial *202*MobileNumber*Amount#
E.g. *202*9876543210*30# To Transfer 30 Rupees.
Aircel :
To Transfer Balance In Aircel Just Dial *122*666# And Follow The Instructions.
You Can Transfer 10,20 Or 100 Rupees Of Balance.



BSNL :
To Transfer Balance In BSNL Just Send SMS GIFT MobileNumber Amount To 53733.
E.g. GIFT 9876543210 50 To Transfer 50 Rupees Of Balance.

How To Delete Your Facebook Account Permanently ?


Facebook is a great social networking site in these days.I think that Facebook is better. Sorry , it's my opinion , not yours. But sometimes we want to deactivate our Facebook Account .I do not know that what's the reason? Daily ,many Facebook Users deactivate their Facebook account.
Deactivation of Facebook account is not deleting process. When you deactivate your Facebook account then  it's been the step to block of all your friends .They can't like, or contact with you.
We are going to talk about today's topic step by step with the help of screenshots.

How to deactivate your Facebook Account ?

If you deactivate your Facebook account  & when you login again in your Facebook account  .Then your Facebook account is activated again.

  • Just click on image to Deactivate your Facebook Account.
  • You can put certain reason in box.

How To Delete Your Facebook Account Permanently ?

In this state ,your all Facebook information like pictures,status,friends list will be deleted permanently.You can never browse again your Facebook Account.
  • Click on given image to delete Facebook Account Permanently.

NOTE-First,read all information carefully before to deactivate your Facebook Account permanently.

24 Great Facebook Tricks and Hacks

24 Great Facebook Tricks and Hacks

1. Hide Your Online Status From Selected Friends:

So you want to use Facebook chat but don’t want some people to see your online status? Simply open up the Facebook Chat and click on Friends List. Start creating a new list called BlockList.

Once the list is created, add those friends to the list that you want to appear offline to. When the list is complete, hover your mouse to the little green icon adjacent to the list and click Go Offline. Bingo! You will now appear offline to everybody in the BlockList.

2. View a Friend’s Profile Without Messy Applications:

If you are like me, you often get annoyed by the dozens of silly applications that people have added to their profile. Here’s a Grease Monkey script that allows you to view any profile without all those applications. Remember: the Mozilla Firefox web browser is a prerequisite for running Greasemonkey.

3. Display Your Facebook Status On Your WordPress Blog:

Want to display your Facebook status updates on your WordPress blog? There is a plugin that does exactly that. StatusPress lets you display your status updates to a widget on your WordPress blog.

4. Access Facebook Chat Through Your Desktop:

No need to go to Facebook.com if all you want to do is use Facebook chat. You can do it right from your desktop using clients like social.im , Adium or ChitChat.

5. Update Facebook Status From Firefox:

If you are a firefox addict you don’t need to use any other software to update your Facebook status. Simply install the FireStatus add-on and update your status right from your browser. You can also use the Facebook Toolbar to completely manage Facebook from your Firefox browser.

6. Create A Photo Collage From Pictures Of Your Facebook Friends:

Easily create a photo collage from profile pictures of all your Facebook friends using a simple Facebook app called Photo Collage.

7. Add A New friend But Hide It From Your Status Update:

A great tutorial by Tim Watson walks you through the process of hiding specific actions from your status updates.

8. Schedule Facebook Messages To Be Send Later:

If you want to schedule your Facebook messages to be send sometime in the future, Sendible is a great tool to do that. You can also use Sendible to schedule your status updates.

9. How To Share Flickr Photos On Facebook:

My Flickr is a Facebook application that lets you display your Flickr photos and photo sets on Facebook so your friends can view and comment on them without leaving Facebook.

10. How To Download Facebook Photo Albums:

Ever felt the need to download complete photo albums from Facebook. You can easily do it with either a Windows desktop application named FotoBounce or a great Firefox add-on FacePad.


11. Upload Photos On Facebook From Your Phone:

All the smart phones like iPhone and Blackberry make it simple to upload photos to your Facebook account but how would you do it if you have a regular phone? Here is a great tutorial to walk you through that.

12. Magic Circles On Facebook:

You might have heard about the Konami code that makes red blurry circles on your Facebook page. This might be one of the most popular Facebook hidden tricks. Here’s how to do it:
Press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Enter key then press up & down & Magic circles will appear!
To stop them simply reload your page.



13. Use Your Facebook Like A Pirate:

Do you love talking like a pirate? You can set your Facebook to appear like a pirate page by going into Current Language Settings and setting it to English (Pirate).



14. How To Insert Cool Symbols In Your Status Updates:

Make your status updates interesting by inserting cool symbols. Simply copying them from this list and pasting in your status updates.


15. Automatically Poke Friends That Poke You:

Don’t have enough time to poke back friends who poke you on Facebook? Automate it with a Grease Monkey script called Facebook Autopoke.

16. Upload Photos From PicasaTo Facebook:

Upload photos to your Facebook account directly from Picasa using the Picasa app for Facebook. You can also upload the Picasa captions and resize your photos before uploading them to Facebook.

17. Search Facebook Like A Pro:

Not everybody knows how powerful Facebook search is. Similar to any large search engine, Facebook search has a lot of advanced options to help you search like a pro. For example if you are looking for a person named John Marsh and filter your results down to only people who are married, you can try name: John Marsh status:married. A complete list of search tips for Facebook can be found here.


18. How To Update Facebook Status From Gmail:

Facebook gadget for Gmail allows you to update your Facebook status right from your Gmail.


19. How To Access Gmail From Facebook:

If you seldom have to leave Facebook just to go check your Gmail inbox, check out Fmail. It is a great application that lets you check your Gmail from within your Facebook inbox.

20. See Facebook Twitter style:

If you love Twitter more than Facebook, you can view your Facebook just like you view your Twitter using this grease monkey script.

21. Import Facebook Friends To Twitter:

FB140 is a simple tool that lets you find all your Facebook friends that are using Twitter so you can easily follow them.

22. Access Facebook From Microsoft Outlook:

This is a great tip for people attending colleges or working in places that block Facebook, but allow you access to Microsoft Outlook. Simple install the FBlook plugin and access Facebook from Outlook.

23. Display Your Facebook Status Upside Down:

This is a cool and fun trick. To display upside down status updates, simply head over to FlipText and type in your status. Then simply click on Flip Text and copy-paste the upside down text into your Facebook status box.

24. Update Facebook Status Using Twitter:

Wouldn’t you love to update your status on both Facebook and Twitter at the same time. Just install the Twitter application for Facebook. Once synced, your tweets including the #fb tag would automatically be posted as status updates on your Facebook.

How To Restart Windows Without Restarting

Guys sometimes you come across a stage where you need to restart your computer at the time of installing new software well but you don’t wanna restart as due to some reasons so what we can do is a Cold Reboot which does not Restarts your Computer but Restarts your System.

Follow these below Steps to see how it work: 

1. Whenever you want to Cold Reboot your Computer simply HOLD Shift Key and then click on restart button check example below...
 
2. So now you got it how you can easily restart your Windows without restarting your computer.
 
3. So have fun guys and make sure you comment below if you find any problems.

Free Face Recognition Software for Automatic Log in to Windows 7


Now days technology is changing very rapidly and every day something new discovered. Now Login to windows 7 through Face Recognition using a web-cam is one of the enhancements; a lot of us experimenting. Not only this save our typing but also is a more secure way if very much conscious about the security issue.

If you are also using Windows 7 and do have a webcam attached to the pc then you can test this a very little and tiny application called Blink; which may enable you to  log in to windows just by looking into the webcam only for just a second and your account wil be logged? How this is made possible because of the free software BLINK by Luxand which employs the advanced face recognition technologies to provide automatic, quick and reliable log in to one or many computer users.

 
Windows 8 is expected to have an Android like pattern logon screen where users can set a password based on user patterns. That can turn worth while on touch screen devices and get rid of the boring text passwords. That being said Windows 7 users don’t have anything cool to boast about at least when at logon screen. Neither do we have pattern logon or facial recognition screen in stock OS. While pattern logon may hit Windows 7 in the form of third-party app soon (Developers! Developers!) here is a free facial recognition software add-on.

This tool can be used as a free alternative to the commercially available “Fast Access” face recognition software that comes installed on many Dell laptops. Unlike Blink!, Fast Access being a premium product is feature rich.

Bypass Software Trial Period Manually in Windows

Now you can bypass software trial period manually and use that again and again.

Follow the below Steps:

1. First you have to uninstall that application whose trial period is over and you wanna use it again.

2. Now open the “Regedit” you can open it by going to Start > Run > Regedit.

3. Navigate to HK Local Machine > Software > Your Software name.

4. Now simply Delete the Key.

5. You have to do this for HK Current user if key is there too.

6. Now go to Run and Type “%temp%”.

7. Delete all files in temporary folder, these are all the files created by software temporary installation and de-installation.

8. Go to C:// Users > Username > App-data ( Check all 3 directories “Local”, “LocalLow”, “Roaming” for your software entry there might be a folder for your software, if you find one Delete that.

9.Now every main step is done you can restart your computer and then Reinstall application.

That’s it now you will get your software’s trial period back, well yes steps are long but it’s the manual way you can bypass the trial period of your software and you can perform this everytime your software expires.

Create Bootable USB Pen Drive for Windows 7

Installing Windows from a USB flash drive has several advantages : First of all, the overall speed of the installation process will increase significantly, carrying a USB stick is much more convenient than a DVD, and finally it becomes possible to install the OS even on those systems that do not have a DVD drive, such as a netbook.
In this post, I will show you how to load the Windows installation on to your USB flash drive and make it bootable just like the DVD.

Tools Required :-

1. USB flash drive with a minimum capacity of 4 GB.
2. Windows 7 Setup DVD.

Step 1 : Plug-in your USB flash drive.
Step 2 : Open the PowerShell (OR Command Prompt if PowerShell Not Exist). If you are using Windows 7/Vista then open it with administrator rights*.



* Goto Start -> All Programs -> Accessories ->Windows PowerShell ->  Right-click on “Windows PowerShell” and select “Run as Administrator”.

Step 3: In the PowerShell, type DISKPART

This will start the Microsoft DiskPart utility as shown below:
Now issue the following command: LIST DISK
This will show you a list of  available disks on your system.
Disk 0 is usually the hard disk. In my case, 
Disk 1 is the USB drive (this can be a different one in your case).
Now issue the command as shown below:

SELECT DISK 1


above command, 1 is the USB drive number on my system. If you have a different number on your system, then you need to replace 1 with that number.

Step-4: Now issue the following list of commands one by one as shown below:

CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK
ASSIGN
EXIT


Close Power Shell and proceed to the next step.

Step 5: Insert the Windows 7/Vista installation disc and note down the “drive letter” of your DVD drive. In my case, it is “H:”.

Open the command prompt. If you are using Windows 7/Vista then open it with administrator rights*.
* Goto Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Right-click on “Command Prompt” and select “Run as Administrator”.

Now type the following list of commands as shown below:
H:
CD BOOT
BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 G:(NOTE:
G: is your USB drive letter)

EXIT














Step-6: Copy the contents of your Windows 7/Vista installation disk into the USB flash drive.
Directly Copy-Paste All DVD file into Usb Stick Then…

Your USB stick is now ready to boot and install the OS for you. Don’t forget to enable the “USB Boot” option and change the “Boot priority to USB device from hard disk” in your BIOS settings.