Ability to Sort Drives by Letter

[voyager62]

Please add the option to sort the drives in the main and status windows by drive letter in Windows. The only visible place that most people know that Windows lists hard drives by number is in Disk Management. Since I have a multiple drives of the same or similar models it will make it easier to find the right one. Also, could you add the option to place the drive letter and label prominently and in black where the drive model is right now on the main window. I know you can sort the icons in the system tray, but that shouldn't affect sorting in the program windows.

Thank you.

12 Drives in Random Order

HDSentinel Status.png (14.47 KiB) Viewed 7886 times

[hdsentinel]

Hi Voyager2,

Thanks for your message and the image.

I can confirm, not hey are not in "random" order, but exactly the opposite: to prevent confusion and exactly to make the drive identification easier, Hard Disk Sentinel uses the same order of physical drives as they appear in Windows Disk Management.
The order of physical drives follow this in all windows/messages of Hard Disk Sentinel (including the status window too).

> Also, could you add the option to place the drive letter and label prominently and in black where the drive model is right now on the main window.

Sorry, not really sure if I understand where do you prefer the drive letter to be displayed in the main window?
Maybe if possible, please send an image, maybe make a quick draft to illustrate just to make sure.

Thanks for your suggestions!

[voyager62]

I can confirm, not hey are not in "random" order, but exactly the opposite: to prevent confusion and exactly to make the drive identification easier, Hard Disk Sentinel uses the same order of physical drives as they appear in Windows Disk Management.

Yes, but you can't use Disk Management to move and copy files. You have to use File Explorer and it doesn't offer the option of displaying or sorting by the Drive Number only by the assigned Drive Letter.
I don't want to have to unplug all 10 drives from my USB hub each time I boot the computer or disconnect the hub since it's a laptop and try to figure out how to plug them in the correct order to get the status window attached below. I have 2 or more of most models, so it makes it more difficult. I guess I can just attach labels, but still I have to unplug all the drives and plug them back in one at a time and the drive letters do change if they all aren't plugged in and I attach a flash or other drive.

BTW: Yes I realize one is going bad. I corrected the pending sectors once and now there are more.

Here are pics of what I'm asking for. Just switch the gray and black text so the drive letter and label more prominent:

Drives Sorted by Letter in Status Window

Status Window by Drive Letter.png (14.51 KiB) Viewed 7882 times

Drives Sorted by Letter in Main Window

Sort by Drive Letter Option.png (24.83 KiB) Viewed 7882 times

[voyager62]

I had forgotten about clicking on the status window to get the partition information. There they are in Logical Drive Order, but I was just thinking that you could actually combine the 2 windows into one by having a thermometer bar as background to the status window text and have the color change from green to yellow to red as the drive fills. Like the temperature bars in main window. This would make it quicker to spot which drive is running out of space before the toast message from windows.

Being in the background, wouldn't you be able to use the transparency setting so that it would fade the way the background does now?

[hdsentinel]

Thanks, I see!

Generally, yes, exactly as drive letters can change for external disks, checking the drive letter alone may cause confusion.
This is why generally the disk models, serials are the best to be used to identify drives - as they do not change.

But to help finding the drive by letter, you may use the following:

1) on the main window, there is a "click here to add comment..." field. There you can specify any comment for the actual drive, which may help identification.
2) on Configuration -> Status window page, you can define which information should be displayed in the status window. See the bottom left area which configures the information for each drives.
There you can disable the model ID and enable the comment field.

This way in the status window, the actual model ID will be no longer displayed, just the drive letter and any possible comments for the actual drive.

This may help to identify the drive.


> BTW: Yes I realize one is going bad. I corrected the pending sectors once and now there are more.

The pending sectors is a very common issue which need to be corrected - otherwise more and more will surely come.
Please check the Support -> Frequently Asked Questions -> What is a weak sector? How to repair weak sectors?
( http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_cas ... ectors.php )
which describes the situation and gives details about how to diagnose and fix pending (weak) sectors.

Thanks for the image, now I see!

[hdsentinel]

The logical and physical drives are separated because there are many situations, when there is no 1:1 relation between the logical and physical disks.
For example, a physical drive may contain numerous logical drives and also a logical drive may be on multiple physical drives (consider RAID, Storage spaces and such situations).
This is why these two sections are always different - in both the main window and in the status window - but yes, if you click on the status window, the free-space bars are also displayed for each logical drives.

> Being in the background, wouldn't you be able to use the transparency setting so that it would fade the way the background does now?

Sorry, I do not really understand... When you click on the status window to get the list of logical drives and their free space, that part is also transparent, exactly as the status window.
Or did you think about something else?