2 problems

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Guest

1) Every time I reboot, I get a SMART failure on my hd and it says I should
backup files immediately. I have a feeling that it's malware and I've run
several programs and it seemed to clean a lot out, but that error still comes
up.
2) I have an 80G WD External HDD that my computer does not recognize. It
pings when I plug it in, but there's an exclamation point in disk manager and
it shows it as a generic hdd...I believe it cannot find the driver, but when
I try to dl the driver from WD, it says that it is only needed for
Win98...because it's plug-n-play.

Any suggestions are welcome...please!
 
Hi

If you are getting a 'SMART' error message your hard disk could be about to
die. Have a look in the manual for your motherboard, backup all the files
you will need and prepare to buy a new hard disk.

--


Will Denny
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups
 
=?Utf-8?B?U3RldmU5Njg5?= said:
1) Every time I reboot, I get a SMART failure on my hd and it says I should
backup files immediately. I have a feeling that it's malware and I've run
Click to expand...

Start shopping for a new hard drive ASAP.
 
SMART is not a malware. It is an important feature to most newer hard drive.
It monitors the "health" of your hard drive and will warn you when something
will fail inside it. DO NOT IGNORE THESE ERROR MESSAGES! You hard drive will
die taking all your files/data with it. Back it up or get a new hard drive
and clone it FAST!
 
I am trying to back up my files to an external hdd, but my computer doesn't
seem to be recognizing it. When I plug it in the usb port (of which I have
tried different ones), it dings, the bubble pops up down on the task bar, but
in disk management all it says is 'External HDD'- it is has an exclamation
point over it in yellow. Does this sound like a bad drive...or just my
computer?
 
1) Every time I reboot, I get a SMART failure on my hd and it says I
should
backup files immediately. I have a feeling that it's malware and I've run
several programs and it seemed to clean a lot out, but that error still
comes
up.
2) I have an 80G WD External HDD that my computer does not recognize. It
pings when I plug it in, but there's an exclamation point in disk manager
and
it shows it as a generic hdd...I believe it cannot find the driver, but
when
I try to dl the driver from WD, it says that it is only needed for
Win98...because it's plug-n-play.

Any suggestions are welcome...please!
Click to expand...

When you get a SMART warning failure is imminent. Backup now, purchase,
install new hard drive.
 
Steve9689 said:
1) Every time I reboot, I get a SMART failure on my hd and it says I
should backup files immediately. I have a feeling that it's malware and
I've run several programs and it seemed to clean a lot out, but that error
still comes up.
Click to expand...

No... SMART is how your system monitors drive health. If SMART tells you
something is wrong, your hard drive is dying. Now would be a time to
update your backup and replace the hard drive. (If you're running Windows,
and you don't keep backups... are you high, or just stupid?)
2) I have an 80G WD External HDD that my computer does not recognize. It
pings when I plug it in, but there's an exclamation point in disk manager
and it shows it as a generic hdd...I believe it cannot find the driver,
but when I try to dl the driver from WD, it says that it is only needed
for Win98...because it's plug-n-play.
Click to expand...

What do the properties for that drive say? It could possibly be a failed
drive.
 
Please quote in the order we all read English: Conversational order.
http://ursine.ca/Top_Posting

Yves said:
SMART is not a malware. It is an important feature to most newer hard
drive.
Click to expand...

Well, more specifically PATA hard drives. SATA, SCSI, and SAS hard drives
don't have SMART.
It monitors the "health" of your hard drive and will warn you when
something will fail inside it. DO NOT IGNORE THESE ERROR MESSAGES! You
hard drive will die taking all your files/data with it. Back it up or get
a new hard drive and clone it FAST!
Click to expand...

Problem with making a disk image of a failing drive is if it has bad blocks,
you'll be copying corrupt data as well. This might be better approached
using a file-oriented backup tool like Windows Backup instead of an
image-oriented backup like Ghost or Sysimager.
 
Do you have a SMART board?

Try installing the driver anyway if you can; have you formatted the
drive yet?

Stevo
 
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