HDD failure signs

Hi, the hard drive in my laptop is working but I have noticed that the sound it is making is slightly different to normal. If the on-board diagnostics detect a problem will these show up automatically in Windows 10 or is there a piece of software I would have to use to check the condition of the drive? Thank you.

CHKDSK has always been my first port of call:

https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/fix-hard-drives-chkdsk-windows-10/

Is it a "clicking" sound?

Crystaldiskinfo is a good tool for checking all the parameters - run that on the drive and post up the details here for perusal....

Backup/external drives are cheap as chips, if you think your drive is dying then it's best to make a backup image ASAP.

To check your Hard Disk Health natively, open a command prompt window. First type 'wmic' and hit Enter. Then type 'diskdrive get status' and hit Enter. If the status of your hard disk is fine, you will see a message OK.

That's checking the smart status of the drives in the system, the self reporting system for hdd health.

First backup.

Then use CrystalDiskInfo Portable to see if the SMART info is ok.

https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/crystaldiskinfo_portable

Even if it says it's ok, it may not be. Lots of harddrives fail without warning.

Or use the built in windows tools to check the smart status...

Have seen many a drive fail without flagging up any S.M.A.R.T errors / warning signs, in one case the drive was playing back a movie and simply died half way through :-(

Not sure how it applies to modern drives but older ones use to "thermally recalibrate" and from memory this would make a slightly different sound to the normal seeking one - either way hope for the best and plan for the worst by making sure anything important is backed up just in case the drive is on its way out.

**EDIT**

If S.M.A.R.T is turned on the system "should" show any errors when doing its power on self test however if the laptop is never rebooted and only hibernated / sent to sleep they may not show.

Seagate have something call SeaTools for Windows that can check hard drives and fix bad sectors.

Download:

https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/downloads/seatools/#

Have a read of the Guide first.