How to Check Your PC's Hard-Drive Health Using Built-In Windows Tools and Free Utilities

The simplest way to check drive health in Windows 11 is through the Settings app. Users navigate to System, then Storage, then Advanced storage settings, and Disks & volumes. Selecting a drive and clicking Properties reveals estimated remaining life, spare capacity, and temperature for supported NVMe SSDs. Microsoft notes that this health monitoring does not cover SATA SSDs or traditional HDDs, so a lack of information does not mean the drive is healthy.

Another quick check can be performed through PowerShell. Opening a PowerShell tab in Windows Terminal and typing Get-PhysicalDisk shows a HealthStatus column with statuses of Healthy, Warning, Unhealthy, or Unknown. Older methods such as wmic diskdrive get status are no longer recommended, as WMIC has been removed from supported versions of Windows 11.

For a more detailed assessment, the free tool CrystalDiskInfo reads SMART data from many drives, including NVMe models, and assigns a health status of Good, Caution, Bad, or Unknown. If the result is Caution or Bad, users should prioritize backing up data and verify the issue with the drive manufacturer's diagnostic software, such as SeaTools for Seagate drives or Samsung Magician for supported Samsung SSDs. Persistent warnings, an Unhealthy result, or mechanical symptoms are reasons to replace the drive.

CHKDSK serves a different purpose, checking the file system and metadata for errors. The /f option fixes file-system errors, and /r locates bad sectors and attempts to recover readable data. However, fixing a file-system problem does not make questionable hardware healthy. According to Engadget, CrystalDiskInfo can issue a Caution status based on three SMART attributes: reallocated sectors, pending sectors, and uncorrectable sectors.

Users should remember that a healthy status is not a lifetime guarantee, and regular backups remain essential.