Why Hard Drive Management is Important?
Hard drive management is great when you play a long game. Not only does it help store your data but has the following benefits.
- Boosts hard drive performance
- Manages data more efficiently
- Improves HDD longevity
Here, we have compiled a few practices or solutions that you can use to maintain or help manage your hard drive and the data inside it. We will be dividing this article into 2 segments-
- Standard Hard drive checks & Troubleshooting
- Hard Drive Management
While these hard drive troubleshooting solutions may act universally, they may not directly solve your issue. If you are interested, we have more detailed information about common Hard drive Issues and Solutions.
Standard Hard Drive Checks And Troubleshooting
It is important to know how to check up on your hard drive. You may feel that an application is slowing your system down or your drive is not working as it should. These diagnostic tests and troubleshooting solutions will help you identify and rectify any issues that may arise.
1. Test Hard Drive Speed Using Task Manager
Testing your hard driv speed is important to notice any changes in your drive performance. Using the 2 methods given below, you can do just that.
Note: A HDD speed of 80MB/s – 160MB/s is ideal
You can test your hard drive speed using Task Manager. Simply follow the instructions below to learn how-
(If it is an external hard drive, plug it in before starting.)
1. Open the task manager using the Ctrl+Shift+Esc shortcut.
2. Click on the performance icon on the left.
3. Select the disk you want to monitor (in the left column) and click on it.
The task manager displays your drive performance in real time, so open or close applications as required for the desired reading.
2. Check Hard Drive Health
A) Using CMD to Get Diskdrive Status
We can use the wmic command to scan our drive and verify its status immediately. you can follow the steps below to try.
1. Use the Windows + R shortcut to open the Run window.
2. Type in cmd and click on OK.
3. Type in “wmic” and hit Enter.
4. Type in “diskdrive get status” and hit Enter to view the disk health status.
Note: If you receive “OK” the drive is in good condition. If you receive “bad” “unknown” or “caution” the disk drive is faulty.
B)Using CHKDSK To Scan Your Drive
The CHKDSK command can be used to scan your drive for bad sectors and rectify any minor corruption that is detected, you can try it out for yourself using the steps below-
Use the Windows + R shortcut to open the Run window
1. Type cmd and click on OK.
2. Type in CHKDSK /f and click on Enter.
(/f tells CHKDSK to scan for and rectify any errors.)
3. Type in CHKDSK /r and hit Enter.
(/r tells CHKDSK to scan for and fix bad sectors and recover readable data. )
C) Using Defrag And Optimize (For HDD Only)
In simple terms, defragging your hard drive reorganizes how data is stored. this makes your drive more efficient and will improve system speed.
1. Using the search bar, locate and open Defragment and Optimize Drives.
2. Select your hard drive and click Optimize to start the process.
B. Hard Drive Management
1. Convert RAW to NTFS Using Disk Management
A hard drive is considered RAW when the system cannot read it. To restore a RAW hard drive, you must format it. If you have any data that exists on the RAW drive, you will have to recover it before formatting.
1. Using the search bar, locate and open Disk Management.
2. Right-click on the RAW partition (it will be labeled as such) and select format.
3. Select your preferred file system (NTFS is recommended) and allocation size.
4. Select Quick Format and click on OK to start the formatting Process
2. Clean the External hard drive Using Diskpart
This is a complete reset. It wipes your drive with the aim for your drive to be used like a new one. You will lose all your partitions and format tables with this. If you have an old drive that you would like to repurpose or give away, you can follow the steps below to wipe it.
1. Use the Windows + R shortcut to open the Run window.
2. Type in cmd and click on OK.
3. Type in diskpart and press Enter.
4. Type in list disk and press Enter.
5. Type in select disk X and press Enter.
(Replace X with Disk number)
5. Type in clean all and press Enter.
3. How To Initialize A Hard Drive Using Disk Management
Initializing your drive is important during the setup process. You can initialize your hard drive by following the instructions below
1. Using the search bar, locate and open Disk Management.
2. Right-click on the drive and click on Initialize Disk.
3. Select the desired Disk format (MBR or GPT) and click OK.
4. Repartition Hard Drive Using Disk Management
You can create new partitions on your current hard drive by following the steps below-
1. Using the search bar, locate and open Disk Management.
2. Shrink the existing partition
- Right-click on the existing drive partition and select shrink volume.
- Provide the size you wish (cannot be greater than half of the existing partition) and click on Shrink.
3. You should now have unallocated space. Right-click on it and select New Simple Volume.
4. A New Simple Volume Wizard will guide you, and follow all the prompts as required to complete the process.
To Conclude
I hope that the hard drive management solutions will be beneficial to you. If you do run into any major drive issues that result in extreme data loss or drive corruption, make sure to use professional data recovery software to extract your data as the contents of the drive are always a greater priority than the drive itself.
