Scan disk drives for errors – Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics

If you’re having problems with your Western Digital mass storage device, it might be time to use a specialized utility to analyze it. With Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics, you have a few options for finding errors.

The interface of the Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics program is a bit old school, but after installing and running it, you gave it a list of detected connected disk drives.
By right-clicking the affected Western Digital hard drive, you can run a quick test or an extended test, which may take some time depending on the physical size of the drive in question.

Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics also provides a couple of additional tools, primarily the delete function that will erase the data currently stored on the drive.
Finally, the “View Test Results” feature will display a list of detected issues. This diagnostic tool does not seem to provide any correction or repair for the affected drives, but at least you know where the problems are if a scan is successful.
It is interesting to note that diagnostic tools also work on other hard disk providers.

A powerful application that can identify drives, diagnostics and repairs on most Western Digital hard drives

Evaluating the performance of a hard drive and diagnosing potential problems that can occur in its operation is a highly specialized task that requires dedicated tools to get the job done properly.

Designed for Western Digital Hardware
Owners of Western digital hard drives are fortunate to be able to use a program that is created specifically for these devices. It is called Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics and can be deployed to test drives and display SMART data for supported models.

The utility’s simple and simple interface lets you quickly select and start examining any of the connected drives. The information provided by Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics is quite basic: model and serial numbers, drive capabilities and current state.

Multiple diagnostic modules
If you want to run a couple of tests on the selected hard drive, you need to choose from 3 diagnostic modules. Therefore, you can implement “Quick Test” to activate a smart auto-test drive and check the Data Lifeguard information that is stored on the drive.

There is a more powerful type of scanning that you can perform, namely the “Extended Test” that thoroughly controls bad sectors through a full multimedia analysis. This type of activity is more likely to be prose for several hours on high-capacity hard drives.

Clean up the contents of the drive
The third tool you can use in Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics allows you to completely remove the file system and data. It is called ‘Write Zero’ and comes with two options, one to completely delete the drive and the other triggers a quick erase procedure.Photo:WD

As a means of assessing hard disk functional parameters and analyzing potential hardware failures, Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics provides decent performance. However, the more advanced features would definitely be welcome as this program will only run two tests and provide a simple drive cleaning tool.

Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics Instructions:

Download the Windows Data Lifeguard Diagnostics, WinDlg_vx_xx.zip
Extract and run the program, WinDlg_vx_xx.exe. If running Windows Vista (or later), you will need to Right-Click on the WinDlg_vx_xx.exe file and choose to Run As Administrator.
Read and accept the license agreement to continue.
On the main program screen, there are two windows. In the top window, you will see the drives in your system that are available for testing. The model number, serial number, capacity, and SMART status of each drive will be displayed. In the bottom window, the partition information for the selected drive will be displayed.
Highlight the drive and select the icon on the top row to test or run SMART status.
When you select the run tests icon, the “DLGDIAG – Select an Option” window appears.
You will see the following options:
- QUICK TEST – performs SMART drive quick self-test to gather and verify the Data Lifeguard information contained on the drive.
- EXTENDED TEST – performs a Full Media Scan to detect bad sectors. Test may take several hours to complete depending on the size of the drive.
- ERASE – writes zeros to the drive with options of Full Erase and Quick Erase. File system and data will be lost.
- VIEW TEST RESULT – displays the latest test results.
Select the test you wish to perform and click the Start button.
When the test completes, you will be notified with a pass/fail message. Click the Close button.