Hard Disk Sentinel Help - Installation

Windows 10,8,8.1,7,Vista,2016,2012,2008,XP,2003,2000,NT4: no preparations required before installation of Hard Disk Sentinel, it can be installed immediately after the operating system first starts. There is no need to install any 3rd party component (no Visual Basic, VC++, .NET, JAVA or similar required at all). The installer of the software installs everything, it does not download any further components or so.

Windows 98/98SE/ME users: The operating system does not have S.M.A.R.T. driver loaded by default. Before installation, you need to copy the file Smartvsd.vxd from Windows\System folder to Windows\System\IoSubsys folder and restart your computer. Please install Hard Disk Sentinel only after this procedure. (The problem described originally on http://support.microsoft.com/kb/265854 - but it is no longer accessible.)

After download, Hard Disk Sentinel can be installed on any physical, non-removable hard disk. By default, it installs into the Program files folder. It is not recommended and not supported to install to a removable storage (for example, pendrive) because Hard Disk Sentinel periodically saves the current measured values to its database (in its installation folder). Because of this database it is possible to retrieve and graphically display the previously measured values.

During the installation, the icon of the application created on the desktop and on the quick launch pad. Hard Disk Sentinel is launched automatically after the installation - if the user does not disable it.

After restart, Hard Disk Sentinel automatically start with the system when the user logs in. It can be disabled at Configuration -> Preferences -> Load with Windows option (so then it is required to start manually) or configured to start up but without displaying the main information window by disabling Configuration -> Preferences -> Display main window when started option (in the registered version only). It is recommended to have Hard Disk Sentinel running constantly in the background to allow constant monitoring, immediate alerting by the configured alerts, reporting of any (even minor) problem or temporary overheat condition - which may otherwise remain unnoticed.

Portable version

Hard Disk Sentinel Professional Portable version (available as separate download from the Download page) can be extracted to removable drive (usually a pendrive) and can be launched from that under Windows systems to diagnose, monitor, test, repair disk drives without installation. The Portable version saves all status, statistics, settings, license to this removable drive (pendrive).

In terms of licensing, the Portable version is also Hard Disk Sentinel Professional - so with a single Hard Disk Sentinel Professional license, it is possible to select if we want to use the installed OR the Portable version. For using both, two separate license required (or Hard Disk Sentinel Professional Family license). The amount of disks and systems to be diagnosed by the Portable version not limited (as long as the Portable version is used only on one system at any given time.)

Note: only one version (installed or Portable) can be active at any given time. So if the computer has installed version too, it needs to be closed by File -> Exit first before starting the Portable. The Help -> About box can be used to verify the current version, it shows the word "PORTABLE" if that version used.

Defaults

After startup, the main window displayed, showing list of detected disk drives, their status in the left area and detailed information about the selected hard disk drive or SSD. All functions, features of Hard Disk Sentinel can be accessed from this window.

By default, the application does not make any alarms/warnings but the newly found problems are logged into the hard disk log.