News and Reviews > Mini-Reviews by Members
Hard Disk Sentinel PRO - Mini-Review
iphigenie:
It gives a lot better overview than the generic SMART monitors out there.
Nice to know that my 8 months old disk is stil at 100% everywhere. Must check other machines :)
rjbull:
Though initially too impatient to use the Mini-Review template (it's a bit tedious to use with all the BBS code) [...] As a template though, it seems quite comprehensive.-IainB (February 04, 2012, 08:46 PM)
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I've never tried it, but, if you used the full template, I think it's incomplete. It may give the software name, but it doesn't seem to give a brief explanation of what the software does. The name on is own isn't always a clear enough indication of function.
IainB:
I've never tried it, but, if you used the full template, I think it's incomplete. It may give the software name, but it doesn't seem to give a brief explanation of what the software does. The name on is own isn't always a clear enough indication of function.
-rjbull (February 05, 2012, 02:58 PM)
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If you go to the Mini-Reviews by Members section, and click on New Topic, it opens up a draft post/message box already filled with the template (complete with table), for you to enter the review details. You just need to fill in the details where indicated.
The result of all that will probably be similar to the (my) opening post in this review thread. The template saves trouble (work) and provides useful reminders as to what details you could include in the review - so it's really quite handy. The BBS code is all the special commands in the template - and that is what I find a bit slow and tedious, working amongst all that. I would prefer a WYSIWYG template, that's all. Faster/simpler.
IainB:
I have been using HDS PRO v3.70, and on the Disk Performance tab it said that "Disk performance monitoring for this drive is disabled", and the tab was otherwise blank.
However, there is a fix that enables disk performance monitoring.
I only found out about it after getting HDS PRO to update itself today - from v3.70 to v4.0.
When HDS PRO restarted after the update, the Disk Performance tab it said that "Disk performance monitoring for this drive is disabled" but also gave a link for further information: http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#perf
The contents of that link are copied in the spoiler below:
SpoilerSource: http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#perf
No Performance information displayed. What is wrong?
The performance information is based on the Performance Counter objects of Windows (2000/XP/2003/Vista) systems. Hard Disk Sentinel reads these counters and displays performance information based on them. Hard Disk Sentinel has no control on these counters, how they work because they are controlled by Windows itself.
The operating system assigns performance counters to hard disks while booting. So if the disk is an external one and connected later (after Windows completed the booting sequence), the performance monitoring may not be possible.
If the performance information is missing for ALL disks, then disk performance monitoring is globally disabled. Please click Start -> Run -> CMD.EXE (to open a console window) and type diskperf -y (ENTER). You may need to restart the computer to let Windows create the performance counter objects on startup.
If the above command does not help, please try the following:
Click Start -> Run -> Regedit
navigate to the following subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Perfdisk\Performance
If there is a value called Disable Performance Counters listed there, and it has a numerical value of one (1), just change it to zero (0), and reboot.
The full procedure is available at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998009.aspx
Fix performance counters under Win7 (thanks to Neolisk): Click Start, type cmd right click cmd.exe, and select Run as administrator.
At the prompt, type lodctr /r and press ENTER. This will repair the pointers (those are stored in the registry).
If it says (Disabled) next to a provider, you can enable it with lodctr /e:(provider name). Use for (provider name) the string between the [ ] at the beginning of the entry (more information at this page).
If the above does not work, you can manually try to verify if the operating system detects the performance values. To do this, please start the performance monitoring tool from Microsoft:
Click Start -> Run and type "Perfmon".
On the bottom right side of the window (under the graphs) you can see a list of currently displayed performance counters. Please click on them and press "DEL" button to remove all.
Then above this space (on the empty graph) please right click and select "Add Counters"
Under "Performance Objects" please select "PhysicalDisk"
Under "Select counters from list" please select "% Disk Time" (or "Disk Bytes/Sec" - these two counters are displayed in Hard Disk Sentinel).
Under "Select instances from list" please select instances for your drives (eg. "0 C:") or select all.
Click on "Add" and then "Close".
Now you should see how the values are changing for the selected hard disks. Please copy or move some files to see how the graphs are changing, reflecting the actual disk usage or the transfer rate. You can compare the values displayed here and in Hard Disk Sentinel. These should be nearly the same (some differences is possible because of the different sampling times).
Here are more details about re-building performance counter objects of Windows. In case of a trouble (no performance information displayed), please check the following pages:
How to manually rebuild Performance Counter Library values
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;300956&Product=winsvr2003
PerfMon Problems (Win7)
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7performance/thread/e90f231d-0014-457d-8b1f-5f342971597a
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I followed the instructions there (more or less):
On my installation, the performance information was missing for only the main disk, but I ensured that disk performance monitoring was globally enabled anyway:
* Click Start -> Run -> CMD.EXE (to open a console window) and type diskperf -y (ENTER).
* Restarted the computer to let Windows create the performance counter objects on startup.However, on the HDS PRO Disk Performance tab it still said that "Disk performance monitoring for this drive is disabled".
So I:
* Click Start -> Run -> Regedit
* navigated to the subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Perfdisk\Performance
* selected the value called Disable Performance Counters listed there; it had a numerical value of one (1), so I changed it to zero (0), and rebooted.
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It worked a charm.
After the reboot, HDS PRO showed real-time Disk performance monitoring on my laptop's main drive.
EDIT 2012-02-16:
I spoke too soon. It worked a charm, but it didn't "stick", and the HDS panel for that drive reverted to the message:
"Disk performance monitoring for this drive is disabled"
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So I followed the instructions in the spoiler above where it says:
"If the above does not work, you can manually..."
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- and that worked a charm too, but again it did not "stick".
I am currently at a loss as to how to make it stick.
EDIT 2012-06-02:
I have been having two episodic issues with HDS PRO:
* 1. It doesn't always start up with Windows like it should, and I have not yet figured out why.
* 2. The Registry settings to enable real-time disk performance settings do not "stick", so I have now automated the workaround changes to the registry in a .reg file, contents as follows:SpoilerWindows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[BLANK]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Perfdisk\Performance]
"Disable Performance Counters"="0"
[BLANK]
The [BLANK] lines must be just that - blank lines.
The steps are:
* shut down HDS PRO (if it is running).
* in Windows Explorer, double-click on the .reg file (I call mine Enable disk perf counters.reg).
* restart HDS PRO.
That's all. The real-time disk performance monitoring should now be working in HDS PRO.
You don't need to reboot or anything.
Please note, this is in Win7-64 Home Premium. The appropriate .reg commands and even rebooting may well be different for other versions of Windows.
stg:
One quick comment... I have been using HDS Pro for a while. I had used Speedfan and others in the past, but nothing worked properly in my current computer (i.e.: unable to get any information from SMART).
HDS works just fine.
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