HDD Health for Windows

By PanteraSoft.Com
Free
User Rating

Key Details of HDD Health

Monitor your hard disks and get alerts on impending failure.
Last updated on April 30, 2019
There have been 3 updates
Also available on
Virus scan status:
Clean (it's extremely likely that this software program is clean)

Editors' Review

Download.com staffApril 30, 2019

PanteraSoft's HDD Health is a compact piece of freeware based on a good idea: monitoring your hard drives' S.M.A.R.T. data to alert you when temperatures get too high, disk space gets too low, or signs point to impending disk failure. HDD Health then issues pop-up, audible, or e-mail alerts in any combination you choose. But while the latest build claims compatibility with Windows 7, we found that HDD Health wouldn't display S.M.A.R.T. data in 64-bit Windows 7 installations, something other users have had issues with as well.

HDD Health is designed to run in the background, typically when Windows starts, but its system-tray icon accesses its user interface and settings. The program showed two tray icons, one each for our C drive (an SDD) and D drive (a conventional disk drive). Each showed Temp data as not available and the drive's health at 98 percent, yet neither showed either drive in the program's drives menu, nor any S.M.A.R.T. data in any of the provided fields. The Partitions tab correctly identified our system's partitions and drive letters and the capacity and available space of each, and the System tab showed basic data about our PC, but even clicking SMART Attributes on the Drives menu failed to extract the data. We rebooted and verified that our drives and BIOS had S.M.A.R.T. capability enabled; they did. We had to open the Help file from the program's system folder; another indicator of incompatibility with 64-bit Windows systems. The Help file offers good instructions for using HDD Health but shed no light on our problems.

Our experiences mirror user reports that suggest HDD Health works best in 32-bit Windows systems with a single hard disk and no external or USB drives. We recommend downloading and trying HDD Health for yourself, in your own system. If it displays S.M.A.R.T. data for your C drive, all is well, and you can let HDD Health help you keep it that way. If your system has S.M.A.R.T. enabled yet HDD Health doesn't display your drive's data, we wouldn't trust it to monitor our drives accurately, whatever its status display indicates.

HDD Health for Windows

By PanteraSoft.Com
Free
User Rating

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Full Specifications

GENERAL

Release: June 15, 2012

Latest update: April 30, 2019

Version: 4.2

OPERATING SYSTEMS

Platform: Windows

Operating System

Windows 7
Windows Vista
Windows 2000
Windows Server
Windows XP
Windows 2003
Windows 10
Windows 8

Additional Requirements: None

POPULARITY

Total Downloads: 393,032

Downloads Last Week: 5

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User Reviews

2.8/5

42 User Votes

Need latest version
siJuly 11, 2014
Pros
Gives basic info. No spyware from the latest download on the manufacturer's site. Appears to be working fine with W7HP64bit.
Cons
The latest version of HDD Health software is released June 19, 2014. This release is compatible and tested on Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/Windows 7 and Windows 8. Email notification doesn't appear to work.
Summary
C|NET you need to update your download. Crystal Disk Info is an alternative.
If you have a WDHDD, you should have this gem.
GCG1000December 26, 2013
Pros
Tracks all essential drive factors (temp, etc.); provides early warning of potential problems. Accurately provides a clear indication of the health of your HDD, in an easy to understand format. Nice GUI.
Cons
None at this time.
Summary
For users who have Western Digital HD's this is a really nice free app to have on your system.
Gives false results!
McBride82April 30, 2013
Pros
Gives you false results and is infected with spy-ware.
Cons
useless junk.
Summary
This software shoved that my brand new HDD had 90% health. I also get about 50 junk mails a day after I installed this software because it is a spy-ware. If you want a real HDD health check software I recommend HDD Sentinel.
Doesn't work
mSnusJanuary 15, 2013
Pros
none at all
Cons
The HDD is not detected. Shows some temperature and health in percents. Gives "Access violation error" when entering "Options".
Summary
Stay away from it.
Doesn't work for the 2nd hard drive.
sumanthguttaNovember 30, 2011
Pros
Works fine displaying the status of the primary hard drive. The details were similar when I compared it with another similar software.
Cons
It just doesn't show the details of my 2nd hard drive no matter what settings I change. All it shows is temperature is -1&#176;C and the health is 100% which is incorrect.
Summary
Have one hard drive ? Go ahead and use it...a very light-weight program that tells you your hard drive status.
Unable to diagnose my disk problem with this program
avantisprodNovember 15, 2011
Pros
Easy to use simple interface -- too simple
Cons
It reports my G drive is in excellent health when in fact it is performing VERY poorly. There are really no diagnostic commands to run....the program seems quite shallow. This is a very passive program.
Summary
At least it works and reports free space and temperature on all my drives accurately, which is more than I can say for most Hirens programs. Run on HP desktop with both SATA and PATA drives.
Fantastic, can be placed on the desktop on boot up.
soviet2June 11, 2011
Pros
Really good as it gives a graphical illustration of HDD health, and even flashes up warning on the tool bar with 1 minute audio bleeps for problems. There is also a temperature guide for the processor. A great bit of kit. A work of genius!
Cons
Non that I can find. What else would you need in freeware?
Summary
Takes up minimal disk space as the download is very small, and it is well worth having, as an advance warning for HDD failures. I really like this, and I am hard to please.
Good application
pistebeastApril 27, 2011
Pros
Helps keep an eye on the state of your hard drive
Cons
None known
Summary
OK - It Was Free -- Can I Buy Something Better?
anon_txatyahoo.comFebruary 8, 2011
Pros
1) Free. 2) Simple to use.
Cons
1) Does not report on external USB HDDs. 'Sees' them only as a partition to the main 'C' drive and reports ONLY size and usage of the 'partition' (drive). 2) If you plug in another, you must restart the software before it will see the 'new' USB HDD.
Summary
Given that I keep little/NO personal and 'data' files on the internal drives of my machines and keep all of that on external USB drives which I can move around from machine to machine and backup accordingly, my primary worries are not with the internal drives and more with the external USB drives. Some of the HDD mfgrs have diagnostic software you can download (but remember several of the mfgrs have been sold/acquired) and use but I'd really like a single utility that would look at ALL the different mfgrs drives' SMART data and report immediately when one starts looking hinky. Then let me use mfgr-specific software (if I can find it) to check the drive in question.
Did not function correctly in Win7 x64
steadacolJanuary 24, 2011
Pros
Simple and easy to understand. Needed a simple program to recommend to customers that only want to check the health of their hard drive. Was not cluttered with more advanced features that may confuse some.
Cons
Did not work properly in Windows 7 x64. Maybe because it is x64....not quite sure. Problem I ran into was that it says every drive I checked was 100%. Another program I used shows anywhere from 56-89% on the 3 HDDs I tested.
Summary
Can't recommend it but wish I could. It is exactly what I'm looking for, besides the whole not working thing. If it were accurate I would use it.

Developer's Description

By PanteraSoft.Com

Monitor your hard disks and get alerts on impending failure.

HDD Health is a full-featured failure-prediction agent for machines using Windows. Sitting in the system tray, it monitors hard disks and alerts you to impending failure. The program uses Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) built into all new hard disks, and can predict failures on your hard drives. A host of alerting features include e-mail, local pop-up messages, net messages, and event logging.