I've got seven old IDE hard drives of sizes varying from 275 MB to 40 GB, and I'd like to test them. Most of them probably work, but I'd like to figure out how well. I know one of them used to fail whenever I tried to install an OS on it, but I don't know which drive that was. Another one (again, don't know which) may have been in a computer I found by the side of the road. The computer worked fine but the other mechanical parts had some mold in them so I don't know if the drive is any good. I'd like to figure out a way to test all these drives. I've got a few older computers I won't miss if something goes horribly wrong, so I'm fine with swapping drives in and out for a while. However, I'm not sure exactly how to test. What I would like to do is format, install Windows, and then look at SMART data in SpeedFan on each drive. I pick this test because it's fairly comprehensive and represents a situation some have failed in before. However, that will take a very long time. I could put each drive in as a secondary and format it in Windows, run CHKDSK, and then look at SMART data. That would take a lot less time but I don't know if that will uncover problems like crashing during OS install. Can anyone recommend me a comprehensive approach to testing old hard drives?
