Installing Acronis Hard Dive Monitor

1. Download the program from the Acronis website.
2. Run the Acronis Drive Monitor setup file.
3. From the Install Menu, click on the Install Acronis Drive Monitor to launch the installation process. An installation wizard will follow.
4. Read and accept the Acronis Drive Monitor license terms.
5. Choose where to install the program. Default options will be fine.

You can run the program following installation by clicking the new icon on your Desktop or by navigating through the Start menu to Start>All Programs>Acronis>Acronis Drive Monitor. When you launch the program you will see a summary of the drives installed on your computer and any alerts associated with them. You will see yellow warning icons if minor issues have been detected or red icons if there is a serious problem. If everything is fine, you will see a green check mark beside the drive.

In addition to monitoring your hard drive, this program will occasionally remind you to perform backups of your data. You can either use a solution through Acronis or manage a backup strategy on your own. You can read our article on data backup methods for more information on backing up your computer. Remember, it’s not “if” your hard drive will fail, it’s “when.” So make sure you monitor your drive and always have a backup of your data.

All disks accumulate clutter with data fragments due to daily frequent operations, such as installing/uninstalling of applications, peripherals, and file downloading/saving/deleting, which leads to PC slowdowns, hang ups, system errors and even crashes. Defragging helps users solve this problem by reorganizing data so it is easier for the hard drive to access.

Disk SpeedUp detects all the fragments in seconds and rearranges files stored on a disk to occupy contiguous storage locations, intelligently reorganize most fragmentation for the purpose of speeding up access speed, quickening applications launch, increasing search speed, shortening system startup times and enhancing overall system performance.

Disk SpeedUp has a friendly interface and offers basic functions, such as analyze the disk, defrag the disk, defrag and optimize the selected disk/file/folder, automatic defrag when PC is idle, automatic shutdown when defrag completed and schedule preset. In addition, Disk SpeedUp is intelligent with more advanced settings to meet advanced requests, such as auto start-up with OS, customizable presets for optimized defrag and excludes option for ignoring the specific files and folders that you don’t want to defrag.

Disk SpeedUp works under Win 98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/Windows 7 operating systems.

Download Disk SpeedUp From GlarySoft here.

Other Great Disk Defragmenter tools:

Auslogics Disk Defragmenter

Non-Destructive Hard Drive Partition Utility

So what does Partition Master do? It can be used to extend the system partition to optimize performance, contains a partition recovery wizard to perform disaster recovery, and also has a copy wizard if you need to move the entire partition to another partition without having to reinstall Windows. It can be used to split a larger partition into multiple smaller ones, and  even merge two partitions into a single, larger partition.

Is It Safe To Use A Non-Destructive Hard Drive Partition Utility

Is it safe to use a non-destructive hard drive partitioning utility? Yes, but there are dangers involved. It is possible to render the disk non-bootable if something goes wrong during the process, such as a power failure. If you want to partition a disk, the most prudent way to do this would be to remove the data, partition the drive, then reinstall Windows.

Even if you never use the Easeus non-destructive hard drive partition utility , this is one of those programs you should have on a disk in your computer repair toolkit. Remember, as with a hard drive partition tool such as this or Partition Magic, you must backup your data in case there is a problem and the system partition is lost. It’s also not a bad idea to do a disk cleanup and defrag prior to running any partitioning tool. You can download Partition Master 5.8.1 Home Edition here.

If you have questions about manually partitioning your drive or using a Non-Destructive Hard Drive Partition Utility, be sure to join our free forums and ask.

Major Brand Hard Drive Tools

Western Digital Hard Drive Utility

Western Digital provides a hard disk utility called Data Lifeguard.  The Data Lifeguard program allows users to setup and copy data to their new hard disk.  I can perform repairs, diagnostics and identification on WD hard drives via a program you download and write to floppy.  Get it here.

Maxtor Hard Drive Utility

MaxBlast is Maxtor’s hard disk utility. MaxBlast 4 is a ATA/IDE hard drive installation utility that makes hdd installations and upgrades easy for beginners and pros alike.  It can automatically identify, partitioning, and format Maxtor ATA or SATA hard drives.
Get it here.

Seagate Hard Drive Utility

Seagate uses SeaTools Desktop Edition to diagnose and repair hard disk problems.  This program is made into a bootable floppy or .iso and used to repair Seagate hdd issues.
Get it here.

Hard Drive Tools Conclusion

No matter which hard drive you own, manufacturers provide these useful hard drive tools to help the end-user perform minor repairs on their hardware. Probably their most important feature is copying the contents of one hard drive to another.  While there are third-party solutions for this, it’s nice that the manufacturer helps make this experience pleasant and efficient. If you need help finding other hard drive tools, read more of our hardware tutorials.

So why do we even need to defrag a drive? Windows likes to split files in pieces and scatter those bits all over the drive. The more fragmented your hard drive is, the more work your hard drive needs to do to gather the data. This lessens the lifespan of your hard drive and slows your system down. PCTechBytes recommends defragging quarterly for average users, monthly for power users. Defragging too much is not advisable, as it can also lessen the life of your hard drive due to excessive wear and tear.

So give Auslogics Disk Defrag a try. If you don’t like it, you can always uninstall.

Major Brand Name Hard Drive Manufacturers

Western Digital – Data Lifeguard

Maxtor – MaxBlast

Seagate – SeaTools

Some of these drives may also have free backup software or drivers that you should also get. Visit the respective websites and browse their downloads areas for any software that might be available for those drives.

Other HDD Utilities We Recommend

Darik’s Boot and Nuke (DBaN) is a program you burn to disk and use to compeltely erase your hard drive. DBaN will make numerous passes across your drive, writing ones and zeros, until the contents are completely erased. Great tool if you’re disposing of the drive and are worried about security.

Cleanup Assistant is a program that helps you find and remove duplicate files, as well as locate large files that are taking up a lot of space on your hard drive. It also has a file shredder similar to DBaN.

Partition Magic is a commercial program by Symantec that allows you to move partitions without destroying data. This is called a non-destructive partitioning. Typically, if you wanted to make two partitions out of one, you would have to delete the large partition and create two. With partition Magic, you can simply resize the large one and create a second partition without losing data.