Hello,

1) Read the documentation ('hddcheck.doc') first, please.
2) Take a look at the included log files:
  wd.chk        The log of a WD 1.6GByte HDD. This one was my former HDD at
                work, it showed sometimes hard errors, but caused NT to crash
                periodically. This HDD is really doomed.
  wd2.chk       The same HDD one year later. The HDD was unused between the
                first check and this check. There were so many hard errors
                reported that I thought it never ends ...
  Seagate.chk   A Seagate 2GByte HDD. Very good condition. My former private
                HDD.
  Fujitsu.chk   My current private HDD. Perfect condition.
  Quantum6.chk  A 6GByte Quantum HDD. This HDD was never used but is corrupt.
                A duplicate of this drive (bought at same time) was build
                into a WinNT server and failed there after 3 month.
                During the check, the HDD did not report any errors. The
                check itself took very long (1.5 hours), but 'scandisk' for
                Win95 took 2.5 hours for the first third! After 2.5 hours I
                interrupted the test.
  Maxtor.chk    A Maxtor 1.6GByte, OK but really slow.



HOW SHOULD A LOG LOOK LIKE
==========================
Well, look at the "fujitsu.chk" logfile if you want to see a perfect HDD.
All of the values should start at around 4000 ticks and end near the 15000
mark.
Every reported read operation with more than around 15000 ticks are second or
third read tries, you can see this nicely on the WD.CHK example. There are
many reads in the 4500-13000 range, then a gap, and then at 18500 the values
start to increase again (means some read operation took that time). This is
the second read (of the same sector block). The third block is the third
tried read and some of the 4th read tries actually are considered abnormally
long and are reported as weak (this test was made with the 1st release of
HDDCHECK that had no weak sector list, but a weak sector count).
If your HDD looks like this it's time to buy a new one.
If your log is starting at the <3000 mark, then you should increase the buffer
size, if the first values start at or after the 8000 mark, then decrease the
buffer size (option /b).


WHAT ABOUT THE WEAK SECTORS
===========================
The weak sector list is a very new feature. I just had the chance to verify
that some of the sector blocks listed are always there and others appear just
shortly and then disappear.
First a word about the numbers listed there. As you know, the prg. reads
"blocks" from the drive, these blocks start with a sector and are x sectors
long. The start sector is listed (that's the that number), the length of the
block is listed in the end of the logfile along with the drive information.
What do I have to say about the blocks coming and going? Well, the blocks that
usually don't disappear are just "good weakened" sector blocks, that means if
you scan the drive several times, the HDD will always have trouble reading
these blocks and will try this more than 3 times until the drive finally
manages to read them correctly (have in mind: information is stored analogous).
The blocks that disappear are not so bad troublemakers and the drive can read
them after 2 or 3 tries, and only sometimes the drive makes a 4th (or 5th) try,
that's when they are listed as weak sectors.
Generally, you shouldn't care about the sector blocks (but it's nice to have
them in the log, right?) and you should base your judgement about the condition
of your drive on the look-and-feel of the histogram.


ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THIS PROGRAM
================================
Currently, I have some ideas in mind to improve this program, that includes
porting this program to WindowsNT(TM). But I will not continue the work if I
can't see any feedback from the guys like you (who use this program). So if
you ever want to have an update you should email me. But don't mail any stuff,
mail what I need to improve this program and that is a logfile of your drives.
Read the manual (or type "hddcheck /?", the last page contains an invitation
to do this (and some further information).
I will store this logfile along with your email address, but if you don't want
this just tell me and I will not store your email address.


WHAT ELSE?
==========
To start 'hddcheck' simply type hddcheck in your DOS-prompt. Do not use
the Windows(TM) DOS shell, you must have native DOS.

Have lots of fun with 'hddcheck'.


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Thanks to Rainer Scholz for helping me writing the document for the 1st
release.

