Hard Disk Monitoring

Hi,

for the last two days, I've had the issue in which HDS hangs completely. It loads up but when I try to open any dialogs etc., it just stops responding and it's not possible to run the test report. Selecting different hard drives from the list doesn't cause the hang.

The only change to the system was that I added a Raidsonic Icy Box 4-bay dock some days ago, but HDS worked fine after that. The problems started after the first reboot of the system.

Thanks for your message and excuse me for the troubles.

Anyway, can you please check what happens if the new 4-bay dock is not connected?
It is possible that it responds slower than expected - and caused that HDS is not responding (always waiting for response from that device).


Which version of the software do you use?
If older than 4.71, I'd suggest to try the latest version. As I suspect you may not be able to access the automatic update too, you may try to
- right click on the tray icon and select Exit from that menu to completely close
- install the latest version from http://www.harddisksentinel.com/hdsenti ... _setup.zip
to the folder where the previous version installed.

If this does not help, maybe just for a test, I'd try to download the latest Portable version from http://www.harddisksentinel.com/hdsenti ... rtable.zip
and extract to a new, completely empty folder. Then (after the running version closed) please try starting HDSentinel.exe from this folder.
This way we can check if the issue happens even if the software is "clean" (has no status information / settings / statistics saved).

Yes, the best would be if you could access Report menu -> Send test report to developer option, as it would help to check what can be wrong.

Hi,

I just sent you a test report with the portable version, it seems to work. Can you tell me how to start working on this issue? I have already tested running HDS without the dock and also tried deleting the ini file but they didn't help. Earlier today, I left HDS running in the tray and it had crashed after some hours.

Thanks for the report, yes, now everything seems perfect.
All 17 drives detected and displayed as should and I see no traces of slowness/slower response.

> Earlier today, I left HDS running in the tray and it had crashed after some hours.

Not really sure if I understand correctly. Do you mean running THIS "clean" Portable version (which you used to send the report)?
Or the original HDS? If yes, did you try the latest 4.71 version, or use an older version?

Do you see an error message or something similar displayed when you experienced "crashing"?

Do you see the same behaviour with THIS "clean" Portable version?

Just to check what happens if there is no statistics / settings saved. Yes, deleting the INI file may help sometimes to restore the settings to defaults. Also it is possible that the hard disk statistics / database may corrupted and this causes problems. I do not think so as Hard Disk Sentinel has numerous protections against this, but in theory it's possible. So it may be nice to check if you see similar behaviour with the clean "Portable" version which did not record too much statistics yet.

I still feel that the problem is that one or more devices may stop responding after some time. Maybe their internal power management function spins down the hard disk and then that device is no longer responding when Hard Disk Sentinel tries to access them.

hdsentinel wrote:Not really sure if I understand correctly. Do you mean running THIS "clean" Portable version (which you used to send the report)?
Or the original HDS? If yes, did you try the latest 4.71 version, or use an older version?

I meant the installed version (v4.71). It had caused a crash in ntdll.dll so it doesn't help much.

Do you see an error message or something similar displayed when you experienced "crashing"?

This is what I got from Event Viewer:

Do you see the same behaviour with THIS "clean" Portable version?

I'll try leaving it running and see what happens. It seems that it is running like the installed one was previously, fast and smooth menus etc.

I still feel that the problem is that one or more devices may stop responding after some time. Maybe their internal power management function spins down the hard disk and then that device is no longer responding when Hard Disk Sentinel tries to access them.

This shouldn't be the case as I got a script which keeps all external drives spinning. Also the issue of not responding occurs right away after starting HDS.

I'll see what happens and report back. If things work with the portable version, I think I'll try renaming the HDD statistics files from the installed version and test that.

The portable version seems to work, it's not sluggish and doesn't crash.

I tried uninstalling HDS and deleting the installation folder and reinstalling it. The same issue occurs right from the start, the dialogs are slow and then it ends up in the not responding state.

> I got a script which keeps all external drives spinning.

You do not need to have any script for that
Just open Configuration -> Disk Control page and in the "Do not allow spin down of disks" field, specify a star
*
character. Then Hard Disk Sentinel will prevent drives from spin down.

Thanks for the information, really interesting.

Generally, both the Portable and the installed version works similarly (except how they started and where they store statistics / settings), so I have no idea what can cause the difference on your system

Maybe something is blocking the software from performing well on that folder (?)

I must tell that the installed version also saves information to the registry as well, so clearing the installation folder (if the registry not cleared) may not be enough.

I'd try to delete the complete folder plus delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\HD Sentinel
(with all sub-keys) in the registry - and then try to re-install.

Also it may be good idea to install to a completely different folder, not the default folder where it previously installed. Maybe something (antivirus software or so?) may prevent proper operation, but it's only a weird idea.

Deleting the registry key seems to have fixed the issue. After that, I can install HDS (to the default folder) and it's functioning normally. I'll just have to see if it still crashes at some point, but I think everything's back to normal.