I have noticed that in a few posts, people are recommended to test their HDD. How do I do that and what do I get out of it?

Will it help me determine how long my HDD is going to last and what I can do to make the most out of it?

winxp has disk management which tells you about the health of your hard DRIVE...my person VIEW is dont partition the hard drive...saves wear and tear..one operarting system one hard drive and so on..Where can I find that tool?

Are there no HDD specific tools that have been developed by the manufacturer?http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=309000  there are hard drive manufactors DIAGNOSTIC tools like power maxblast=maxtor seagate and western digital ALSO have them ....or this >http://www.piki.cz/e_DriveHealth.htmAre these tools free?

Thank you for the article, I will look into it.

The reason I ask is because I bought a  few second hand (older) Hard Disk Drives that I wish to test to see if they are reliable.will winxp /bios detect them?you should now by now how fussy winxp can be..hopefully all will be ok...They will not be used with WINDOWS XP, so no worries there, Merlin.  

I have not yet tested them I will do so in a few days, they were stored in a rather cold environment and have to be on room temperature first.