hey does anyone know a free program i can download to estimate a hard drive life length, thanks

Maybe you could read up on the claimed MTBF of the drive?

you can just use a ruler

maybe you have selective reading trog but i did have hard drive life lenght not hard drive length

if you really need other words ill give you lifespan of hdd

also rulers dont work that way

thanks

I was making a subtle joke that your subject sux

you can just use a ruler

haha the WIT of qgl

Correct me if im wrong but i dont think there is such a thing?

Closest you can come is programs like SpinRite 6.0 which warns you of impending problems by measuring the amount of errors the drive creates while writing data or something along those lines. (Saw it on Call for Help a while ago)
But i dont think theres a program out there that will say, Oh you harddrive will die in 2 years time.

thanks resonate, i just wanted everyone to know i didnt really know what i was talking about, just assumed there'd be something like it or some info on hard drive usage times

i wish i had eighty-eight's comebacks

I think you can query your hard-drive's S.M.A.R.T function to see various stats on your hard-drive. A dying hard-drive should show some problems.

Grab a linux live-cd like RecoveryIsPossible (32MB) that has the 'smartctl' tool and follow the instructions on this page. Smartctl gives a decent indication on how your drive has been performing. You can run a quick and extended test to determine in more detail how your drive is doing.

After running smartctl, you'll see an output like this:

http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~boldajis/images/smartctl.jpg