SMART harddrive failure

[gc511]

Hello,

I just booted upmy cmputer and the BIOS detected a SMART hard drive failure that my primary slave hard drive by be failing. I had a feeling that something was wrong since the spin up seemed to be slow in the last few days. Anyway, I then ran HD Tach to see if the drive was running a lot slower or anyting like that, but the results seemed to be the same as the day I bought it. What could be wrong with the hard drive allowingthe BIOS to say that the drive may be dying? slow spin-up? some kind of error correction scheme? Thanks

 

[dawks]

i believe smart does a quick diagnostic of the drive at startup..

if you get a SMART Drive failure warning message, BACK-UP ASAP. And find a replacement drive soon..

Good luck.

 

[bacillus]

listen to DaZ

 

[gc511]

Thanks for the replies. I'll trash the hard drive.

 

[DeviousTrap]

Originally posted by: gc511
Thanks for the replies. I'll trash the hard drive.

How old is the hard drive? What about RMA?

 

[gc511]

The drive is about.... 3 years old. I think a little more than 3 years old. Is there still a possibility for RMA even at that age? It is a Maxtor.

 

[Paulson]

if it's a little more than 3 years old then it isn't worth it..

I'd keep it though until it totally dies, I mean you never know...

 

[gc511]

I checked it on Maxtor.com. Turns out it is expired by ONE DAY! It died today, Dec 1st, and warranty expiration was 11/30/02. Hmmm that really is something coincidence. Bad luck for me. Well, I took it out because I don't want to risk having anything mess up on my cmputer due to this drive. The drive will make a good paper weight I guess.

Thanks for all the replies.

 

[zephyrprime]

Go download and run a program called activesmart and you can see exactly what sort of problem was encountered. You should also try running the maxtor diagnostic software that was available at their site. Also, running hdtach was not the right thing to do as running it could have pushed a nearly dead drive over the edge.

 

[tart666]

normally you'd want to push it over the edge, no? So you can get in on that warranty?

 

[compudog]

My experience with SMART. I had SMART report a 3 week old drive as having a problem. I immediately installed another drive, loaded everything and set the computer back to the client. I put the "bad" drive in another PC and ran the manuf. utility. No problems. Drive OK, so I set the drive up as a secondary slave and I am still using it. Meanwhile, the replacement drive (New WD) in the client's PC was reported "bad" by the SMART about 2 weeks after I returned it to the client. I flashed the Bios (Abit) and the SMART error went away.

Still, you should suspect the drive, and prepare for the worst. But not every SMART error report can be 100% accurate.

 

[gc511]

So not every SMART error is correct? If that is the case, I'll try it out on another computer some time. The BIOS I am using is the newest available, so it's the best I can do. Thanks for the info.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I don't trust software to tell me a hardware part is failing. If my drive works and has not been giving me any unexpected errors in the OS like blue screen etc then I don't worry.

 

[PowerEngineer]

My experience with SMART drive failure warnings is similar to compudog's. I started getting SMART drive warnings of imminent disk failure every time I booted my laptop. I checked with the local hardware tech who told me that these warnings were often erroneous. Obviously I prepared for the worst...but three weeks later the warnings stopped coming in and have never returned. Go figure!

 

[gc511]

Hi,

Thank you all for your replies. I just re-hooked up my hard drive, and the SMART error was gone! Strange as many of you said, but I did backup all my important data, and wil be putting a lot of "junk" files on this drive to make sure it is working correectly. So far, it is working like normal. I guess I'll give it a week or so to see if the errors pop up. If not, I guesss the drive is still in good shape.

Thanks!

 

[Derango]

I still wouldn't put anything important on that drive. A SMART error usually means the drive is in the process of becomming dead...however, that doesn't mean its going to die tomorrow, next week, next month, 6months from now....but it is in the process of dying.

Personally, I'd be suspicious of the drive even if the error disappeared. But thats just me.

 

[tart666]

Seems that disappearing SMART errors only happen with BIOS boot monitors.

Has anyone seem a SMART errors disappear using activesmart, or speedfan, or any monitoring soft from Windows??

 

[gc511]

I just tried ActiveSMART and Powermax. Both gave me messages that the drive is fine.

The only thing i realized is that my spinup time is close to threshold in ActiveSMART, which makes me believe that was the problem.

Is there a problem with booting a hard drive cold? My room was a bit cold when I booted up the computer and got those errors since I was away for vacation a few days. Could that have caused any problems?

Thanks

 

[Trader05]

I always thought cold was better for any computer product, but maybe?

 

[gc511]

I think that cold is always better as well. But just curious b/c that is the only thing i can think that was different while I was gone.

 

[dpopiz]

as for getting an rma...I'm quite sure you can get one from maxtor no matter how old it is. I've rma'd several drives to them over the years, and I don't think they ever check when it was bought. Also, rmaing drives is great because usually, they'll just give you whatever drive they have an excess of as a replacement, so you'll usually get a much better one than you sent in.

 

[gc511]

Thanks for the tip. However, they seem to check the RMA now. As you can see, I posted the failure on 12/1/02 here , which is why i got the failure . The warranty expired on 11/30/02. I had a very hard time getting it replaced on thep hone (had to call 4 times, and then finally got someone to override the database b/c it was only off by 1 day). The representative said that technically, they should no override the database after the date, but some of the reps are nice enough to allow a small grace period.

I did get the RMA though at around the 10th of december, and you are right... the drive is better than the one I used to have =)