Hard Drive Scanner?

[kentl901]

I'm pretty sure something is wrong with my drive.

My Mac partition keeps failing requiring a clean install every few months. I've periodically scanned it with Onyx and do permission fixes and repair disk using the Mac OS X install disk. Over time, I can't repair the disk and told to reinstall the OS.

Anyway, are there any free apps that I can use to check for disk errors?

I'm using a 2011 iMac w/ a Samsung HD. So I'm not part of the Seagate recall group.

Thanks for any advice!!

[dmk2]

Check the drive's S.M.A.R.T. status in Disk Utility. If it's not "Verified", replace your drive ASAP. You can also try SMART utilities like SMART Utility or SMARTReporter, which will give you additional information about I/O errors and bad sectors.

[Datamonger]

It sounds to me like the hard drive is indeed on it's way out. I would suggest replacing the drive and then, on a PC, should one be available to you, run SpinRite on the drive. SpinRite will do a complete scan of the disk and make the drive stable enough for you to recover any files you may need off the drive.