Do you trust bios diagnostic tests?

[ell]

Hi, I took in a older Compaq laptop with BSOD issues, the drive was not detected from dart or any of my other boot discs I ran the built in hard drive diagnostic and took over an hour and said the drive failed, as I suspected. Then I thought I'd pull the drive and put it into a bench pc and run compete WD diagnostic. Well it passed with flying colors.... Windows prompts to format the drive before it can be used. So why did the hp bios diagnostic say it's bad?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

They're never 100% accurate. Often they cry wolf, many times they totally miss any warning and the drive just ups and craps out.

Thing is...drives are so cheap these days....if you ever suspect it's a drive (if you do this for a living for at least a couple of years you should have a pretty good "seat of the pants" feel if a drive is going south or not...when it doubt..just replace it!

An hour+ of your time to sit there and run diags is XXX money?
The cost of a HDD is XX money? (typically less than our hourly rates)...
Swap it with a new one, client gets new HDD with longer life and performance boost. Win-win!

 

[ell]

They're never 100% accurate. Often they cry wolf, many times they totally miss any warning and the drive just ups and craps out.

Thing is...drives are so cheap these days....if you ever suspect it's a drive (if you do this for a living for at least a couple of years you should have a pretty good "seat of the pants" feel if a drive is going south or not...when it doubt..just replace it!

An hour+ of your time to sit there and run diags is XXX money?
The cost of a HDD is XX money? (typically less than our hourly rates)...
Swap it with a new one, client gets new HDD with longer life and performance boost. Win-win!

Shes not going to replace the drive, dumping the old machine, I ran the extra tests on my own time, now concerned maybe the bios test was wrong, or perhaps there was a mobo issue that caused the failed test???

 

[Go-To Gordon]

Windows prompts to format the drive before it can be used.

and you think the drive is fine? I've seen the wd lifeguard sw be wrong tons of times.

 

[ell]

and you think the drive is fine? I've seen the wd lifeguard sw be wrong tons of times.

I ran it and easeus drive check both clean, weird.

 

[Go-To Gordon]

Not that I trust the bios diagnostic much but I don't trust a drive that was working and then windows asks to format! I've been using the drive health tool in parted magic with good results.