Hard Disk Monitoring

Hello, is it possible that Hard Disk Sentinel can hold up a disk and disk accessing speeds by any chance? perhaps by doing an HD scan/ test of some sort in the background? And is it normal that after being open for too many days Hard Disk Sentinel will stop working and need to be restarted manually?

When trying to play a file from one of my HDD's using Winamp (its a secondary HDD where i store things, my system disk is an SSD) Winamp will take a while to open said file, and until it plays said file, the entire system will get sluggish, now of course at first i thought this was a Winamp issue, but i contacted the developers and talked to them to see if its possible from WInamp, but no one but me seemed to have this odd issue and it seemed unique to me.

But then when i tried to exit Hard Disk Sentinel by right clicking its tray icon, it refused to respond and showed me no right click commands. It was basically stuck.
The only way to kill it was by using the task manager, but doing so would cause the ENTIRE system to hold up. Like literally nothing in the screen moved anymore, not even the mouse cursor or anything.

Once Hard Disk Sentinel was exited from everything was back to normal and there were no delays in playback of files or system slowness when trying to play a file via Winamp. Basically everything was back to normal for me. As long as Hard Disk Sentinel was not open i had no issues.

I kept Hard Disk Sentinel closed for days and in those days (now a week) i havent had that problem.

This has persisted throughout different reinstalls of WInamp, Hard Disk Sentinel, and Windows itself. I have no AV running so it cant be that causing them to react this way.

This odd scenario happens after Hard Disk Sentinel is open for days on end (under a week) without any reboot of any sort, its really frustrating and annoying because i have Hard Disk Sentinel to be my lifeguard and warn me and tell me about my HDD, not to make my entire computing experience a misery with me having to watch over Hard Disk Sentinel rather than it watch over my HDDs.

The Winamp developers said it couldnt be from Winamp most probably because Winamp doesnt have any drivers that could influence the system (aside from the Sonic burning engine that is)


Is there a way to fix this? I really admire Hard Disk Sentinel for its thorough and easy way to know about the health of my HDD and SSD, its the best there is to me and worth the money, but this issue is just maddening to say the least!

Hello,

Thanks for your message.

No, I can confirm that Hard Disk Sentinel itself can't cause a hard disk to "hold up" and decrease its speed.
I can confirm that by default, there are absolutely no "HD scan/ test of some sort in the background" performed, Hard Disk Sentinel only periodically checks the complete status of the hard disk by reading the self-monitoring values which contain errors and statistical information about the actual usage.
(Hard Disk Sentinel Pro can be configured to perform scheduled / automatic self tests, generally the Short self test and Extended self test you can use in Disk menu, but I suspect these are not configured now. And these also can't cause such lockup / slowness).

In the background of the problems, it may be
1) the hard disk in general: if it is not perfect, then when the disk head(s) go above the problematic sectors, the hard disk automatically tries to analyse them and if required, replace with sector(s) from the spare area.
This is a rather lengthy process and during that, the hard disk may not responding at all or just performing very-very slowly.
2) the aligment of the disk partition(s): if it is a hard disk with 4K physical sectors but the partition(s) not aligned to these, the overall performance of the drive can be very low
3) the hard disk controller driver: which may not be fully compatible with the actual hard disk and may use wrong timing. The result is that the data transfer rates may drop and the drive seems so slow.

> And is it normal that after being open for too many days Hard Disk Sentinel will stop working and need to be restarted manually?

It is not normal of course - but also not really related to Hard Disk Sentinel, even if you feel this.
Hard Disk Sentinel periodically asks the hard disk(s) in your system to provide complete hard disk status information.
During the data collection (which is usually completed in a fraction of a second) it is waiting for the hard disk drives to finish.
If something (for example the above mentioned automatic analysing of sectors, which is performed by the hard disk, regardless of the software) happens and the drive is not responding as should - then of course Hard Disk Sentinel is also waiting - and may seems not responding.

This is designed exactly to provide a clear indication about that there is something wrong with hard disk itself and/or the storage subsystem in general.
(Just like if you'd run a memory test and the test application freezes, then there is high chance that there is a problem with the RAM modules).

> but no one but me seemed to have this odd issue and it seemed unique to me.

Yes, while there is a chance that it's related to wrong configuration (eg. memory / device use) of Winamp, it may be something else.

> But then when i tried to exit Hard Disk Sentinel by right clicking its tray icon, it refused to
> respond and showed me no right click commands. It was basically stuck.

Yes, because of this, I'd say the problem is more related to the hard disk drive itself.
If you'd just experience problem with the performance, slowness, then the above mentioned points 2 and 3 (alignment and driver) would be suspicious.

> The only way to kill it was by using the task manager, but doing so would cause the ENTIRE system to hold up.
> Like literally nothing in the screen moved anymore, not even the mouse cursor or anything.

This issue may sound more likely a problem also with the storage system in general.
Would be completely expected if your system (Windows itself and/or the swapfile also) would be on the hard disk, as when it stops responding it means it can't be read/written, so completely normal that your system seems frozen.
This is described on http://www.hdsentinel.com/smart/
( " the operating system seems to be frozen (not responding) and users may reset or power off the computer at this time ... " )
Sounds interesing if the entire system (except the played data files) is on a SSD, but can happen.

> As long as Hard Disk Sentinel was not open i had no issues.

Then you're lucky. It means that the hard disk is not accesing any of the problematic area now, but it is just a question of time when you'll begin experiencing troubles.

> This has persisted throughout different reinstalls of WInamp, Hard Disk Sentinel, and Windows itself.
> I have no AV running so it cant be that causing them to react this way.

I'm afraid the troubles are not really related to these, but with the storage device(s).

> Winamp doesnt have any drivers that could influence the system (aside from the Sonic burning engine that is)

Hard Disk Sentinel also has no drivers (aside an older 32 bit driver which is not used on most modern systems), so I can confirm that this is not the case.

> Is there a way to fix this?

Yes, of course.

First of all, I'd recommend to use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option.
This way I can check the actual situation, verify the hard disk complete health status and self-monitoring S.M.A.R.T. details.
Also from this developer report I can check the driver version used for the actual hard disk controller (motherboard) just to confirm if it can cause troubles.

Also in such situations, when things seems not as good as should, I always recommend complete testing, exactly to reveal and fix any possible problems:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests
( Hard disk health is low or recently changed or I just installed a new (used) hard disk. How can I perform a deep analysis? )
The first steps menioned:
1) Disk -> Short self test
2) Disk -> Extended self test
3) Disk -> Surface test -> Read test
are completely safe to use - so they can be started to diagnose the actual situation, verify if there is a problem with the hard disk.

These and the developer report will surely allow us to check what's wrong on your system.

Thank you for the detailed reply ^-^

I believe i have slightly tweaked the settings of HD Sentinel once, but i think it was only to disable the changed hard disk icons and the floating gadget... im not sure if i messed something else up... Is it possible to completely reset the settings? Although i have reinstalled HD Sentinel several times since that i believe so the changes i made to the default settings might have been gone already?

I checked with Minitool Partition Wizard (a disk management/ partition tool) if my disk needs alignment but it says that it doesnt need any because its already aligned.

I did a quick test and it said no issues, now im doing an extended scan and after that ill do the read test (what mode should i put it on btw? theres several) ill report back when its done since according to it itll take about 4 hours or so to do the extended scan.

HD Sentinel tells me about the disk that it has 8 weak sectors and that it rates it as "Excellent" im not sure if thats less than a "Perfect" rating or not..

Ill send a developer report now, and ill add a link to this thread so that you can know its mine.

Thank you for helping me btw

> Is it possible to completely reset the settings?

Yes, for this
1) please close completely by File -> Exit
2) delete HDSentinel.ini file in the folder of Hard DisK Sentinel (by default C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel)
3) restart the software (launch HDSentinel.exe)

This will reset the settings to defaults.

> Although i have reinstalled HD Sentinel several times since that i believe so the changes i made to the default settings might have been gone already?

No, if you uninstall / reinstall / upgrade, this file is preserved, exactly to allow that a reinstalled / upgraded version
should use the same settings as you had before.


> I checked with Minitool Partition Wizard (a disk management/ partition tool) if my disk needs
> alignment but it says that it doesnt need any because its already aligned.

There is absolutely no need to use any other tools as Hard Disk Sentinel displays it immediately.
Just select the appropriate partition in the bottom left area and then Hard Disk Sentinel displays the Alignment value.
If this is 4 Kbytes (or more) on a 4K hard disk, then it is properly aligned.

For example, this image shows that the partition starts at 1 MB boundary (properly aligned):



While this is not properly aligned (starts at 512 byte boundary, which is good if the drive is an old drive, not a 4K Advanced Format drive):




> ill do the read test (what mode should i put it on btw? theres several)

Just use Disk menu -> Surface test -> Read test and start the test on the appropriate drive.
The other options may be required in special cases, for example if you prefer to stress-test the drive with higher amount of positioning and/or prefer to test specific part (for example the end) of the drive surface.


> HD Sentinel tells me about the disk that it has 8 weak sectors

Thanks, this is more than enough.
Such sectors can always causing problems, regarding their position.
Exactly as I wrote, when a hard disk finds a such weak sector, it may try to analyse them and verify if it can be re-used or not.
During that procedure it seems "stuck" - and this is what you've seen: the hard disk did not respond properly and all software and attempts using the hard disk (including the disk monitoring by Hard Disk Sentinel and playing a file with Winamp from the drive) seemed stuck / slowed and so.

> and that it rates it as "Excellent" im not sure if thats less than a "Perfect" rating or not..

It is definitely not perfect.
Usually some weak sectors are not critical, but depending on their amount, location, they may cause problems: system slowness (exactly what you see), system instability - and even data corruption / data loss in worst case.


> Ill send a developer report now, and ill add a link to this thread so that you can know its mine.

Thanks, I'll wait that (did not yet receive).
If you are interested, please check this section in 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 exactly this problem, how they can be diagnosed, fixed and how the hard disk can be repaired with Hard Disk Sentinel to make it working correctly.

Usually Disk menu -> Short self test, Extended self test stops in this situations very quickly, but some drives may work different.