How to Perform Hard Drive S.M.A.R.T. Test on Windows 10 and 11

About S.M.A.R.T. test

S.M.A.R.T. is short for Self-monitoring, Analysis, Reporting and Technology. S.M.A.R.T. test can detect whether the PC hard disk is faulty and judge its reliability, preventing the hard drive from crashing suddenly.

Therefore, when your PC hard drive suddenly encounter problems like making strange noises, overheating, etc., please perform hard drive S.M.A.R.T. test in time.

Two ways to perform S.M.A.R.T. test

To ensure the reliability of the hard drive, it is very important to perform S.M.A.R.T. hard drive test regularly. In this part, we will share two effective ways to check the health condition of your hard drive.

│Method 1. Perform S.M.A.R.T. test via CMD

As the most common Windows built-in tool, CMD can handle many hard drive problems, such as resizing partition, formatting disk partition, change drive letter, etc. In addition, it also has the function of testing the hard disk, let’s take a look at how it works.

Step 1. Click the "Windows" button and input "cmd" in the taskbar, then select "Run as administrator".

Step 2. In the CMD window, input "wmic diskdrive get status" and press "Enter".

Step 3. If you see "OK", the target hard drive is healthy. When you see "Pred Fail", there're may be errors on the hard drive.

│Method 2. Make S.M.A.R.T. test with a powerful software

Besides CMD, you can also try a reliable freeware - AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard to make hard drive S.M.A.R.T. test.

Here're the reasons why we regard it as the best S.M.A.R.T. tester:

• It can be used in Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP.
• It can not only test the smart status of the hard drive, but also repair some hard drive problems, such as bad sectors, file fragments, etc.
• Its interface is bright and clean.
• It provides users with detailed graphic and text guidance.
• It also has additional hard disk management functions, including wiping hard drive, merge partition, clone disk partition, etc.

Let's see how it perform Windows hard drive smart test.

Step 1. Download and install this hard drive S.M.A.R.T. test software. Right-click the target drive, click "Properties" and "Health(SMART)".

Step 2. The result "Health Status: Good" means that your hard drive is healthy.

Step 3. If the result is "Caution", you can still use it normally. But you’d better make a data backup.

Step 4. If you see its health status shows Bad, you should find out the errors and repair them.

Step 5. If the result is bad, click the "View details" option to see the detailed information.

What to do when the SMART test is bad

When the result of the SMART test is bad, there may be problems on the hard disk, such as bad sectors and file fragments. So, to improve the hard drive health, you can try the following solutions.

│Solution 1. Check partitions on the hard drive

Bad sector refers to the place where data cannot be written in the hard drive. If these bad sectors are not repaired in time, the hard drive won't successfully read the disk, and will receive file corruption prompt. Besides, you may even encounter the blue screen issue.

Step 1. Right-click the drive you decide to check and click "Check Partition".

Step 2. There're three methods to check the partition, click the "Check partition and fix errors in this partition by using chkdsk.exe" and "OK" in order.

Step 3. Click "OK" when the bad sectors on the target hard drive are repaired.

│Solution 2. Defrag disk

Excessive file fragmentation on your hard drive can not only slow down your hard drive, but also lead to poor computer health. Therefore, you need to defrag the hard drive.

Step 1. Right-click on the drive with bad SMART status and click "Disk Defrag".

Step 2. Select the partition on the target hard drive and click "Analyze".

Step 3. In the new window, check the target drive and click "Defrag".

Step 4. It will defrag the disk, please wait patiently.

│Solution 3. Migrate disk to another hard drive

After implementing the above operations, if the hard drive is still in poor health. You can try to transfer the old hard drive to a new one, please turn to the Professional Version.

Note: We also provide the Server Edition for the Windows Server users who want to easily manage their hard drive.

Step 1. Use USB adaptor to connect the new hard drive with your PC, then click "Clone" menu and select "Clone Disk".

Step 2. In the new popped window, select the "Clone Disk Quickly" option and click "Next". 

Step 3. Select the unhealthy hard drive as your source disk and then click "Next".

Step 4. Choose the new hard drive as the destination drive, then tick "Optimize the performance of SSD" and click "Next".

Step 5. You should edit the the new hard drive, then click "Next".

Step 6. Click "Apply" and "Proceed" to perform this disk migrating task.

Conclusion

How to perform hard drive S.M.A.R.T. test? In this tutorial, we shared two methods for you to do it. We also share solutions when the hard drive is in the poor condition.

By the way, you can also enjoy more advanced functions in the Pro version, such as Allocate free space, Move installed programs to another drive, Convert primary partition to logical drive, etc.