How to check whether your PC drive is showing signs of failure
Engadget’s guide outlines Windows 11, PowerShell and SMART-based tools for checking HDD and SSD health, while warning users not to treat a clean result as a guarantee.
Storage problems can emerge through corrupted files, unusually slow access, read and write errors, crashes or a drive that disappears from Windows. Engadget advises backing up important files before extensive diagnostics if those symptoms are already present.
Windows 11 can show estimated remaining life, spare capacity and temperature for supported NVMe SSDs. It may also flag reduced reliability, low spare capacity or a drive entering read-only mode. The information varies by hardware and does not cover SATA SSDs or traditional hard drives.
PowerShell provides another check through the Get-PhysicalDisk command, which reports statuses including Healthy, Warning, Unhealthy and Unknown. Engadget notes that older advice to use WMIC is outdated because the tool has been removed from currently supported Windows 11 versions.
For a broader assessment, CrystalDiskInfo can read SMART data from many HDDs and SSDs and assign statuses such as Good, Caution, Bad or Unknown. Manufacturer software, including Seagate’s SeaTools and Samsung Magician for supported Samsung SSDs, can help verify warnings. For HDDs, SMART warnings may involve reallocated, pending or uncorrectable sectors.
CHKDSK serves a different purpose: it checks file-system and metadata errors, with options to fix file-system problems or locate bad sectors and attempt data recovery. Engadget cautions that repairing a file-system issue does not prove the underlying hardware is healthy. Even a Healthy or Good result is an indicator, not a guarantee against future failure.
