# Here's what the Check Disk diagnostic does...



## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Just got the answer this morning. The Check Disk function under the diagnostics engages the hard drive's SMART disk diagnostic testing (short version).


----------



## ClaudeR (Dec 7, 2003)

check disk = disk diagnostic, brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.

Sorry Mark - I couldn't resist. Is this some sort of on-the-fly diagnostics like a CRC test, or an attempt to keep the disk defgramented?


----------



## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Just got the answer this morning. The Check Disk function under the diagnostics engages the hard drive's SMART disk diagnostic testing (short version).


Oh my, that is like telling us who is burried in Grant's tomb I guess. So, do I dare ask the question, "what does the SMART disk diagnostic testing do?"

I guess what we want to know is if this test is just a test, or if it makes repairs to corrupted sectors or something as well. The check disk function calls the smart disk diagnostic test. That is nice, but it doesn't tell us what it actually does.


----------



## wyseguy (Dec 8, 2004)

S.M.A.R.T. is a special program on the disk's firmware that constantly tracks the condition of a range of the vital parameters: driver, disk heads, surface state, electronics, etc. At the present time, S.M.A.R.T. technology is supposedly able to predict about 30% of all hard disk problems. These diagnostics are primarily found on low-cost Parallel ATA (often incorrectly referred to as "IDE" or "EIDE") and Serial ATA disks. This helps deal with the relatively low MTBFs on low cost drives.


----------



## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

The SMART diagnostics have been around on low-end AND high-end HDDs for many years. It is just recently (Win2000 I think) being fully used in PCs.

Side note: Everyone running Windows should make sure that SMART is enabled in their PC BIOS - many systems have it disabled by default.

Nice to see that the 921 is (trying) to take advantage of this technology.


----------



## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

This is code that's in the hard drive firmware, and has nothing to do with the 921 code. The fact that Eldon told me that it was the short version of the test is interesting, though, as the short version on all of my other hard drives (Maxtor and WD) takes no more than 90 seconds to run, and the test on my 921 takes several hours to run all the way through. I wonder if the 921 doesn't in fact engage the long version of the test if it detects something amiss with the drive.


----------



## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

Mark Lamutt said:


> This is code that's in the hard drive firmware, and has nothing to do with the 921 code. The fact that Eldon told me that it was the short version of the test is interesting, though, as the short version on all of my other hard drives (Maxtor and WD) takes no more than 90 seconds to run, and the test on my 921 takes several hours to run all the way through. I wonder if the 921 doesn't in fact engage the long version of the test if it detects something amiss with the drive.


Interesting. It has got from 60 seconds to 5 minutes on both my 921's.


----------



## ebaltz (Nov 23, 2004)

I have noted in previous threads that this appear to be related to the amount of disk you currently have used, i.e. the time to run the test is = to the amount of recorded content, more content longer run time. THis is the same when running the disk defragmenter in Windows, so my assumption is that the test is a kind of disk defrag/error check, which if your drive is filled with content will take the drive quite a long time to run, however if your drive is relatively empty will take very little time.


----------



## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

ebaltz said:


> I have noted in previous threads that this appear to be related to the amount of disk you currently have used, i.e. the time to run the test is = to the amount of recorded content, more content longer run ...


Doesn't appear to be related to that to me. I have two 921's One almost empty disk, one that my had 75% used. Both did the test in about 1 minute, if nothing was recording, and both satellite tuners were on sd (i tuned them both to 101). If the receiver is recording or HD is tuned, the time seems to go way up, but the worst I've seen was 10 minutes.


----------



## TEN89 (Jun 27, 2003)

Mark Lamutt said:


> This is code that's in the hard drive firmware, and has nothing to do with the 921 code. The fact that Eldon told me that it was the short version of the test is interesting, though, as the short version on all of my other hard drives (Maxtor and WD) takes no more than 90 seconds to run, and the test on my 921 takes several hours to run all the way through. I wonder if the 921 doesn't in fact engage the long version of the test if it detects something amiss with the drive.


Mines only taken less then a minute.


----------



## Zarom (Jun 4, 2005)

My hard drive test has been run quite a few times and always took less than two minutes. Today, trying to solve a No DVI picture problem, and only being able to get to an SD picture from the front panel switches, I ran the drive diagnotic and it took over two hours. It then said the drive was OK and the DVI picture was finally back.


----------



## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

Um...gang...you're scaring me. I tried to run the diagnostic and it counted down from 249 to 242 in twenty minutes...and just sat there...

:scratch:

Am I in trouble here? My 921 has actually been one of the relatively-trouble-free units.

Thanks,

Skates


----------



## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

Skates said:


> Um...gang...you're scaring me. I tried to run the diagnostic and it counted down from 249 to 242 in twenty minutes...and just sat there...
> 
> :scratch:
> 
> ...


Best to run this with no recorded DVR events and when tuned to an SD channel  I did it once when it first came out and it took over six hours!


----------



## DanB33 (Nov 17, 2003)

Skates said:


> Um...gang...you're scaring me. I tried to run the diagnostic and it counted down from 249 to 242 in twenty minutes...and just sat there...
> 
> :scratch:
> 
> ...


I did a disk check for a problem and mine did the same thing. I called Tech Service and they said I should not have run it without them telling me to. So I just let it run and it took about a day and a half to complete. There was not much recorded on the disk. Just hang in there, it will finally finish.


----------



## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

That's good to know because the other time I tried to run it, it ran for over 24 hours without completing and I had to interrupt it.

In two weeks, I have some travel coming up, so I guess I'll set it then and just let it go.


----------



## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

boylehome said:


> Best to run this with no recorded DVR events and when tuned to an SD channel  I did it once when it first came out and it took over six hours!


Even better is to run with with a paused PVR event active (this should eliminate almost all hard drive activity).

Fact is, I wouldn't put much value in this test. Results seem sporatic.


----------



## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

David_Levin said:


> Fact is, I wouldn't put much value in this test. Results seem sporatic.


I totally agree.


----------



## kmcnamara (Jan 30, 2004)

DanB33 said:


> I called Tech Service and they said I should not have run it without them telling me to.


I would've said "How was I supposed to know that Dish disapproves of using that option. Remove the option from the UI". If they're going to expose options in the menu, they can't expect people won't use them - if nothing else, just to see what they do.


----------

