hard drive diagnostic tool for Toshiba laptop

[soybean]

I received an inquiry from a friend who has a friend who owns a Toshiba laptop or notebook PC.  I don't know the exact model # yet.  Anyway, the symptoms that were described to me seem to indicate a possible hard drive failure. 

I've visited Toshiba's website is search of a hard drive diagnostic tool that could be run from a floppy or CD but have not found anything.  And, I don't know what brand hard drive is in the computer. 

Any suggestions about where to get a hard drive diagnostic tool for this computer?

[patio]

The UBCD has drive diagnostics for all manuf.
Seems Toshiba used quite a few vendors for HDD's.
The diagnocstics on the ultimate boot cd won't run on the wrong HDD so it should be a safe bet just to try each one...
UBCD

Best of Luck.

[soybean]

Another question.  Toshiba sells replacement hard drives on their site.  I see they usually identify a particular drive as being, for example, "Compatible with Satellite R10 and R15 series notebooks".  If buying from a local retailer or online seller, does one need to look for compatibility of specific hard drives with specific model computers or model series?  I would hope this is as easy as buying a hard drive for a desktop, but I'm under the impression this may not be the case.

[soybean]

Thanks, patio.  I'll try UBCD if I get to the point of actually troubleshooting that computer.

[patio]

The only hangup i've had with replacing Toshiba laptop drives is the size requirements...if the manual states a 40G limit then it will not run on a larger drive...
Sounds like more of a BIOS issue to me than a manuf. one.
Last one i worked on had a DeathStar HDD ...replaced with a WD of the same size and no problems at all.

[soybean]

OK, once I get the exact model number, I should be able to determine the size of the original hard drive.  Or, of course, if I get my hands on it, I could remove the hard drive and look for info on the drive.  They tell me it's about 2 years old, so a replacement drive of the same size will probably not be hard to find.

Thanks again.