2026-04-28

Low-level Hard Drive Diagnostics Freeware: MHDD

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM03 mins

MHDD is the most popular freeware application for low-level HDD diagnostics.

MHDD Interfaces Supported:
MHDD supports these interfaces: IDE, Serial ATA, SCSI. Also there is a possibility to access an USB storage, there are drivers for emulation (USB->SCSI).

What can MHDD do?
This software can make precise diagnostic of the mechanical part of a drive, view SMART attributes, perform Low-level format, bad sector repair, different tests and tens of other functions.

Platform:

· Intel Pentium or higher CPU
· 4 megabytes of RAM
· DR-DOS, MSDOS version 6.22 and higher
· Any boot device (USB, CDROM, FDD, HDD)
· A keyboard

IDE/SATA Controllers:

· Any integrated into motherboard north bridge (addresses: 0x1Fx for primary channel, 0x17x for secondary channel)
· PCI UDMA boards (detected automatically): HPT, Silicon Image, Promise, ITE, ATI and so on. Even some RAID boards are supported. In this case MHDD works with each physical drive separately
· UDMA/RAID controllers integrated into motherboard as additional chip

Hard disk drives:

· Any IDE or Serial-ATA drive with size bigger than 600Mbytes, in other words, LBA mode is supported in full.
· Any IDE or Serial-ATA drive with size lower than 8388607 TBytes, in other words, LBA48 mode is supported in full
· Any SCSI drive with sector size 512-528 bytes
· Any SCSI removable media such as tape, CDROM. Maximum sector size for such devices is 4096 bytes

What’s New in MHDD v4.6?

· Fixed rare hangs when working with slave device
· Fixed TOF/ATOF problem with determining maximum file size when operating with SCSI devices
· Fixed displaying firmware version instead of serial number in SMART ATT
· Added PCI device ITE 8211 PCI IDE
· Added PCI device VIA VT6421 IDE RAID
· Fixed several issues with some modern BIOSes
· Jumps while scanning now logged properly
· Resets (“R” key) while scanning now logged properly
· ASPI drivers now have latest versions

Related Links:

· MHDD FAQ
· MHDD Documentation
· Change log
· Magic Boot Disk with MHDD

MHDD Free Download:
MHDD 4.5 (older version, but includes ATA/SCSI Terminal)
· MHDD 4.5, self-extracting floppy image
· MHDD 4.5, CDROM iso-image
· MHDD 4.5, just-an-archive (MS-DOS executables only, no SCSI support)
· MHDD 4.6

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Acquiring Electronic Evidence from Hard Drive

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM01 mins

Forensic Image of the hard drive means to take an exact copy of a hard drive including deleted files and areas of the hard drive that a normal backup would not copy;
Never boot off of the hard drive;
Use write protection software to protect the original evidence;
Make a copy of the original evidence and do all work off of the copy;
Document all aspects of the hard drive;
Tag and store original evidence;
Best evidence is original evidence;

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HDD Prices

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM03 mins

When do you think the prices of HDD’s will go back down from the floods?

Different analysts are making different predictions.

Hard Drive Prices to Remain Inflated Throughout 2012(Tomshareware.com)

In Q4 2011, HDD shipments dropped by 26 percent over the same period in the previous year. Shipments will by 13 percent in Q1 and 5 percent in Q2 on an annual basis, IHS believes. In Q3, the market will stabilize and grow by 2 percent and bounce back with 49 percent in the fourth quarter of this year. Sequentially, HDD shipments are predicted to climb 14 percent in Q1, 11 percent in Q3 and 4 percent in Q4.

“The recovery of global HDD manufacturing has begun and will continue during each quarter of 2012, however, the recovery will be prolonged for at least two more quarters, as supply constraints keep unit shipments from climbing on an annual basis until third quarter.” The shortage will translate to continued inflated prices throughout 2012, the firm said.

HDD makers and component suppliers have resumed only partial production in Thailand and have shifted some of their manufacturing to other countries to alleviate the impact of the supply shortage.  According to IHS, Western Digital has been the HDD manufacturer most impacted by the floods and is not expected to return to full production until September.

IHS said that the Thailand flood has caused the global average selling price (ASP) for HDDs to jump by 28 percent in Q4 2011. Prices are forecast to decline by 3 percent in Q1 and by 9 percent in Q2.

“Prices will remain high for a number of reasons, including the higher costs associated with the relocation of production, as well as higher component costs because of flooding impacts among component makers, furthermore, PC brands have signed annual contacts with HDD makers that have locked them into elevated pricing deals for the rest of the year.” noted Fang Zhang, storage analyst for IHS.

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