Returns of perfectly healthy hard drives have fallen by 85 per cent among those using Seagate's diagnostic software, SeaTools.

Before the software was made available almost half the hard drives returned to the company were found to be faultless. Multiply this by the average cost of an on site visit from an engineer - around $150 - and it is easy to see why companies have been happy to check out an automated software alternative.

It works on all current legacy ATA and SCSI drives, not just Seagate's. If, once SeaTools has run all its tests, the drive appears to be healthy, SeaTools suggests alternative areas to investigate. If it finds a fault it suggests how it should be handled.

The free download has been available since mid-October, and has already been updated several times. ®