Presented in this paper is a new method of identifying the critical speed of rotor-bearing systems without actually reaching at the critical speed itself. Using the method, it is not only possible to calculate the critical speed by measuring a series of rotor responses at much lower rotating speeds away from and without reaching at the critical speeds but also the damping ratio and eccentricity of the system can be identified at the same time. Two types of test rotors were tested on the Rotor Dynamics Test Facility at the Rotordyn-amics Lab, KIMM, and the theory has been confirmed experimentally. The method can be adopted to monitor changes of the dynamic characteristics of critical rotating machinery before and after overhauls, repairs, exchanges of various parts, or to detect trends of direction of subtle changes in the dynamic characteristic parameters over a long periods of time.