Hard Disk Sentinel DOS Edition (FREE)

By using the DOS edition of Hard Disk Sentinel, it is possible to examine the temperature and health information (and more) of IDE and S-ATA hard disks connected to motherboard or external controller cards. This edition can only be used if the system is running DOS (for example started from a DOS boot floppy disk). Under Windows DOS-box it is NOT working.

List of features

The following information are displayed:

• detected hard disk controllers and their vendor and device IDs. Each device has an associated number (displayed with light blue)
• size, model ID, serial number, revision of all IDE/S-ATA hard disks connected to the motherboard or these devices
• temperature, health and performance values
  Note: performance may be different compared to the detected value under Windows because under DOS the UDMA mode may not be selected previously by the BIOS
• power on time (days, hour, minutes - if supported)
  Note: this is for informational purposes only, the value displayed under Windows (after minutes of testing) is more precise
• the controller device or channel and device location (with light blue). Eg. PM = Primary master

Because of direct access of hard disks (instead of using drivers), the detection may be better under DOS. For example, all disk information of all disks connected to SiI 0680 controller are displayed under DOS - but under Windows, this controller provides only limited information. It is also possible to detect and display information about disks in RAID arrays.

When the detection is completed, it is possible to save an XML report or a TXT report about the disks (similar to the report created by the Windows version, but it is smaller and contains limited information only). When the application closes, the exit code is the lowest health value found or 255 if an error occured or hard disk not found at all.

Command line switches

• /N - disable detection of disk controllers and hard disks connected to them
• /H - high compatibility mode
• /M - maximum compatibility mode (use when some hard disk(s) are not detected)
• /D - do not display "save report" option and do not wait
• /R [report.xml] - automatically save report to filename (default: report.xml)
• /A - automatically save report to file name created from current date (MMDDHHMM.xml)
• /SEC - display hard disk security status also
• /ASK - ask for description and include it in report
• /TXT - create and save TXT report instead of XML
• /? - displays help information

If you encounter any problems during the detection, please try /H, /M and/or /N options and let us know. Please include the type of motherboard and/or hard disk controller you use and the details of attached devices (number, connector type).

Please send saved XML or TXT reports, questions or ideas to info@hdsentinel.com to help improving this tool.

Usage

This edition is FREE. You can freely use it to analyse hard disk status (eg. when you're about to repair/verify/purchase an older used computer). It is useful to make a bootable floppy/CD/Pendrive with FreeDOS and this tool.

Note: it may be required to select "IDE" or "Legacy" mode in the BIOS for SATA controllers. If the SATA controller is configured into "RAID" or "AHCI" mode, the detection may not be possible.

Downloads

Hard Disk Sentinel for DOS - application only, should be copied to DOS boot device

Hard Disk Sentinel for DOS - installer, creates FreeDOS boot disk with HDS for DOS

Hard Disk Sentinel for DOS - bootable CD ISO image, does not require floppy drive/disk

Updates

0.02