Samsung HUTIL v2.10 Review

Free hard drive testing for Samsung drives

By
Tim Fisher
Photo of Tim Fisher, Lifewire GM and Writer
Tim Fisher
Senior Vice President & Group General Manager, Tech & Sustainability
  • Emporia State University

Tim Fisher has more than 30 years' of professional technology experience. He's been writing about tech for more than two decades and serves as the SVP and General Manager of Lifewire.

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Updated on August 1, 2022

Samsung HUTIL is a bootable hard drive testing program that can run a surface scan test on Samsung hard drives.

It's a little more difficult to use than other programs because it doesn't have a regular graphical user interface. However, because it's a bootable program, it also means it works regardless of what operating system is installed.

What We Like

  • Works with all operating systems.

  • Isn't too hard to use.

  • Also functions as a data destruction tool.

What We Don't Like

  • Only works with Samsung hard drives.

  • Must boot to a disc to use the program.

  • Samsung HUTIL has a text-only user interface.

This review is of Samsung HUTIL version 2.10. Please let us know if there's a newer version we need to review.

More About Samsung HUTIL

Samsung HUTIL

While Samsung HUTIL can scan Samsung drives only, it will actually still load and find any non-Samsung drives, but it won't be able to run any diagnostics on them.

If you're not sure if you're using a Samsung drive or if your Samsung drive is supported, download SIW and check the manufacturer and model number of the drive from the Hardware > Storage Devices section, then compare it to this list of supported hard drives under the HUTIL section.

You can run Samsung HUTIL from a CD or floppy disk by downloading Hutil210_ISO.rar or Hutil210.rar, respectively, from the download page.

In addition to a surface scan test, Samsung HUTIL can also erase all the files on the disk using the Write Zero data sanitization method.

Using Samsung HUTIL

The Samsung HUTIL program files are held in a RAR file, which means you'll need an archive extractor like 7-Zip to open them. If you use 7-Zip to open Samsung HUTIL, it's as easy as right-clicking the RAR file and choosing 7-Zip > Extract files, and then choosing a folder to put them in.

Hutil210 ISO extraction with 7-Zip

If you need help burning the ISO file to a disc, which is very different than burning other types of files to discs, see our How to Burn an ISO Image File tutorial.

No matter which download you choose, the one intended for a CD or the one for a floppy disk, you'll need to change the boot order in BIOS to run the program. See How to Boot From a CD for more on that.

You may need to replace the hard drive if it fails any of your tests.

Thoughts on Samsung HUTIL

Samsung HUTIL isn't the easiest program to use but it's not that hard, either. Plus, it's really nice that it works with any operating system.

However, the obvious disadvantage is that it only supports Samsung hard drives. If you use a different brand of hard drive but you still need a hard drive tester, there are several others to pick from, like Seagate SeaTools, HDDScan, and Windows Drive Fitness Test.

We do like that you can use Samsung HUTIL to erase the contents of a drive. While the method of data sanitization isn't the most secure, it's still a nice feature to include. It means you can make the program double as both a Samsung HDD testing tool and a data destruction program.

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