1. Hard Drive Monitor Free
2. Acronis Hard Drive Health

Pros & Cons Download the latest version of Acronis Drive Monitor free. Problems with the hard drive and can even initiate backup tasks automatically. Pros Acronis backup software is installed). Pros Acronis backup software is installed).

I have this turned on in bios but it still doesn't work. My hd is a western digital. Can someone help find out what is wrong?

James,
The problem is not in the hard drive, but in the controller it is attached to and the hardware drivers. It probably requires some special ways to access SMART interface which have not been yet implemented in Drive Monitor
Make sure you reported this problem via 'report the problem' link. Try to update the drivers. Sometimes it may work on another OS (we saw cases when same hardware didn't report SMART parameters under Vista and worked fine under Windows 7)
If none of these helps, you will have to wait till we update Drive Monitor - we plan to extend hardware support in the updates

I went on the western digital web site but there were no drivers to download. Where do I go to get the controller drivers. In Device Manager I see ide ata/atapi controllers are they the ones I should update?

Hard drives don't need drivers, but the storage controllers do.
Check the driver of the controller is attached to - under 'System'->'Device manager'-> 'IDE-blah-blah controllers'

Hard Drive Monitor Free

Hello Andrey, hello Mr. Baughmann,
I've the same problem with my WD-drives, but Acronis already knows the problem. Due to the fact, that other programs can handle smart-data from wd-drives, I'm shure acronis can also handle it. It's only a matter of time.

Will acronis let us know when they will be supporting WD-drives? Also when a new version comes out can we just install it over our old version?

I'm shure we can install a new build over the 'old' one. If not, it is written in the delivered instructions.
If you've a look at acronis homepage, go to support -> product updates section, you'll find ADM and also a link to 'list of changes'. Read it mindful. I'm visiting the acronis homepage frequently.

Hi I'm a newbie and not that IT savvy so please bear with me. I've just downloaded ADM and got the 'smart monitoring is not available' message. I have a 2 year old Mesh PC running Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit, with a pair of 500 GB Samsung HD501LJ SCSI discs. Device Manager shows 4 controllers 2 NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA controllers, a Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA controller, and a Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE controller. (All of which means little to me, and the thought of custom scripts scares me). Please could someone advise me how I should proceed to try and remedy this problem. Many thanks!

The problem is caused by the nvidia nforce controller. I also own a pc with nvidia serial ata controller and adm shows the same behavior. As I also stated (see above), acronis knows about this topic and is working on a solution. Using a custom-script is not a solution, if you need specific smart-data. Have a frequent look in the product-updates section of acronis homepage and wait for an update.

Dann warte ich, bis Acronis die Software aktualisiert hat für WD-Festplatten aber auch für Samsung-Festplatten.

Hi There all

I have an Adaptec 1430SA Raid controller with 4 Samsung Spinpoint F3 and would like to Monitor, does anyone have a script to allow me to do this???

I have Adaptec Storage Manager but would like a nice one stop shop

Hope you can help

I've discovered the same problem on my PC
HW: ASUS P5N-E SLI with a nVidia i650 controller
SW Windows 7 Pro 64bit

The freeware Speedfan from http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php can read out the S.M.A.R.T. parameters without any problems if started with admin permissions. ;-)

Acronis Hard Drive Health

Well, now it is almost mid of September and ADM has still problems with WD drives in opposite to CrystalDiskInfo. :-(

Just take a look at the screenshot.

Got another build from the developers to check on 13th of october, but it didn't work. Established a debug session with acronis developers on 19th of october 2010. Acronis guys now found out the problem. After implementing and testing the new method it will be available for download.

Regarding my posting from Tue, 2010-10-19:
Established an additional debug session with acronis developers and tested a new build again.
SMART worked perfect!
After fixing some other issues a new build (> 552) will be published!

Hello,

My name is Anton Sherkhonov. I'm with Acronis Development Team.

If you have an issue with unrecognized SMART and willing to help us, please pm me or contact me at anton.sherkhonov (at) acronis.com and we'll investigate the issue.

Anton.

Hello,

My name is Anton Sherkhonov. I'm with Acronis Development Team.

If you have an issue with unrecognized SMART and willing to help us, please pm me or contact me at anton.sherkhonov (at) acronis.com and we'll investigate the issue.

Anton.

Beta 1.0 Build 561 available in the Beta forum now works fine with my WD-disks. You should also check.

Need to understand what Acronis is COMMITTED to do to support Firewire attached drives in ADM. This is NOT the type of attachment that should be left to 'Community Support'.

I have a supported drive (Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme) which provides Smart and Health info in ADM when attached via the USB. Even though the Microsoft supplied Controller support is 10 years old, I cannot imagine it lacks minimum SMART capabilities (but WHO KNOWS).

My Controller is the VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller supported by device driver version 5.1.2535.0 published 7/1/2001 by MS. The [Update Driver] capability within XP SP2 Device Manager yields the message that there is no later driver.

Do I have to move the disk to USB to obtain ADM benefits, but give up using my Firewire port?
tia

ping
the question about support for FIREWIRE controllers needs attention by Acronis Management.

Acronis staff please direct this to their attention.

tia

Howard,

Does the issue persists in build 566 of Acronis Drive Monitor?
Recognition of SMART on a disk attached via FireWire depends on the particular FireWire controller in the disk itself whether it allows passthrough commands or not.

I suggest that you use USB for the time being in case SMART via firewire is not recognized by Acronis Drive Monitor.

Anton Sherkhonov
Acronis, Inc.

Are you worried that your computer’s hard drive could die without any warning? Here’s how you can keep tabs on it and get the first warning signs of potential problems before you actually lose your critical data.

Hard drive failures are one of the most common ways people lose important data from their computers. As more of our memories and important documents are stored digitally, a hard drive failure can mean the loss of years of work. Acronis Drive Monitor helps you avert these disasters by warning you at the first signs your hard drive may be having trouble. It monitors many indicators, including heat, read/write errors, total lifespan, and more. It then notifies you via a taskbar popup or email that problems have been detected. This early warning lets you know ahead of time that you may need to purchase a new hard drive and migrate your data before it’s too late.

Getting Started

Head over to the Acronis site to download Drive Monitor (link below). You’ll need to enter your name and email, and then you can download this free tool.

Also, note that the download page may ask if you want to include a trial of their for-pay backup program. If you wish to simply install the Drive Monitor utility, click Continue without adding.

Run the installer when the download is finished. Follow the prompts and install as normal.

Once it’s installed, you can quickly get an overview of your hard drives’ health. Note that it shows 3 categories: Disk problems, Acronis backup, and Critical Events. On our computer, we had Seagate DiskWizard, an image backup utility based on Acronis Backup, installed, and Acronis detected it.

Drive Monitor stays running in your tray even when the application window is closed. It will keep monitoring your hard drives, and will alert you if there’s a problem.

Find Detailed Information About Your Hard Drives

Acronis’ simple interface lets you quickly see an overview of how the drives on your computer are performing. If you’d like more information, click the link under the description. Here we see that one of our drives have overheated, so click Show disks to get more information.

Now you can select each of your drives and see more information about them. From the Disk overview tab that opens by default, we see that our drive is being monitored, has been running for a total of 368 days, and that it’s health is good. However, it is running at 113F, which is over the recommended max of 107F.

The S.M.A.R.T. parameters tab gives us more detailed information about our drive. Most users wouldn’t know what an accepted value would be, so it also shows the status. If the value is within the accepted parameters, it will report OK; otherwise, it will show that has a problem in this area.

One very interesting piece of information we can see is the total number of Power-On Hours, Start/Stop Count, and Power Cycle Count. These could be useful indicators to check if you’re considering purchasing a second hand computer. Simply load this program, and you’ll get a better view of how long it’s been in use.

Finally, the Events tab shows each time the program gave a warning. We can see that our drive, which had been acting flaky already, is routinely overheating even when our other hard drive was running in normal temperature ranges.

Monitor Acronis Backups And Critical Errors

In addition to monitoring critical stats of your hard drives, Acronis Drive Monitor also keeps up with the status of your backup software and critical events reported by Windows. You can access these from the front page, or via the links on the left hand sidebar. If you have any edition of any Acronis Backup product installed, it will show that it was detected. Note that it can only monitor the backup status of the newest versions of Acronis Backup and True Image.

If no Acronis backup software was installed, it will show a warning that the drive may be unprotected and will give you a link to download Acronis backup software.

If you have another backup utility installed that you wish to monitor yourself, click Configure backup monitoring, and then disable monitoring on the drives you’re monitoring yourself.

Finally, you can view any detected Critical events from the Critical events tab on the left.

Get Emailed When There’s a Problem

One of Drive Monitor’s best features is the ability to send you an email whenever there’s a problem. Since this program can run on any version of Windows, including the Server and Home Server editions, you can use this feature to stay on top of your hard drives’ health even when you’re not nearby. To set this up, click Options in the top left corner.

Select Alerts on the left, and then click the Change settings link to setup your email account.

Enter the email address which you wish to receive alerts, and a name for the program. Then, enter the outgoing mail server settings for your email. If you have a Gmail account, enter the following information:

Check the Use encryption box, and then select TLS from the encryption options.

It will now send a test message to your email account, so check and make sure it sent ok.

Now you can choose to have the program automatically email you when warnings and critical alerts appear, and also to have it send regular disk status reports.

Conclusion

Whether you’ve got a brand new hard drive or one that’s seen better days, knowing the real health of your it is one of the best ways to be prepared before disaster strikes. It’s no substitute for regular backups, but can help you avert problems. Acronis Drive Monitor is a nice tool for this, and although we wish it wasn’t so centered around their backup offerings, we still found it a nice tool.

Link