HD S.M.A.R.T status?

[Alan Cocks]

I have a Seagate Medalist 10240 HD which has been used in a PII (266Mhz)
machine on and off, with no problems. I have recently attempted to use
the drive in another PC, a PII (400Mhz) and I immediately get a SMART
drive 'condition' FAIL warning - and the drive is prevented from
running. I presume I can go to the bios and disable the smart facility,
and for all I know, this might have been so in the original PC, from
when the HD was new (It never gave scandisck problems for example), but
what I am wondering is - should I take real notice of the SMART warning?
Or do some of these warnings need some interpretation etc?

 

[Rod Speed]

I have a Seagate Medalist 10240 HD which has been used
in a PII (266Mhz) machine on and off, with no problems. I
have recently attempted to use the drive in another PC, a PII
(400Mhz) and I immediately get a SMART drive 'condition'
FAIL warning - and the drive is prevented from running.

SMART doesnt 'prevent a drive from running'

It JUST reports the drive status and
warns of possible impending failure.

I presume I can go to the bios and disable the smart facility,

Yes, but there isnt any point in doing that. Doing
that just ignores the warning of impending failure.

and for all I know, this might have been so in the original PC,

Very likely. Most of that era didnt have SMART
in the bios and plenty of even modern system are
supplied with it disabled in the motherboard bios.

from when the HD was new (It never
gave scandisck problems for example),

SMART is a much more sophisticated predicator of imminent drive failure.

but what I am wondering is - should I
take real notice of the SMART warning?

Try Diskcheckup from http://www.passmark.com/
and see what it says about the individual SMART values.

One older drive of mine reports a rather silly power on hours
number that has quite a few SMART utes howling about the
drive about to die when its just a value thats overflowed
because the drive is on all the time for quite a few years now.

Or do some of these warnings need some interpretation etc?

Yep, some certainly do.

 

[Alan Cocks]

Rod thank you very much for your comments

Try Diskcheckup from http://www.passmark.com/
and see what it says about the individual SMART values. [...]

Or do some of these warnings need some interpretation etc?

Yep, some certainly do.

 

[Bob Davis]

Try Diskcheckup from http://www.passmark.com/
and see what it says about the individual SMART values.

I have two drives (Maxtor 6Y160P0 and WD1000JB in XP Pro), and with SMART
disabled in the bios DiskCheckup shows that it is enabled on both drives.
When SMART is enabled in the bios nothing else changes that I can see, with
DiskCheckup still showing it as enabled on both.

If it is enabled in the bios, can I assume the warning feature is active?
Will the bios report any problem or do I need a ute of some sort running to
report it?

 

[Rod Speed]

I have two drives (Maxtor 6Y160P0 and WD1000JB in XP Pro),
and with SMART disabled in the bios DiskCheckup shows that
it is enabled on both drives.

Yes, enabled on the drive is an entirely separate issue
to whether the bios SMART check is enabled. The bios
SMART check just asks the drive about its SMART status
at boot time and warns the user if the drive says its got a
SMART problem that indicates that the drive may be dying.

Basically because you can choose to have a ute that does
full time SMART monitoring while the system is booted,
and not just rely on the BIOS notification at boot time.

When SMART is enabled in the bios
nothing else changes that I can see,

Correct. You'll only see anything there if
the drive is reporting a SMART problem.

with DiskCheckup still showing it as enabled on both.

If it is enabled in the bios, can I assume the warning feature is active?

Yes, if DiskCheckup says its enabled in the drives too.

Will the bios report any problem

Yes, but only at boot time.

or do I need a ute of some sort running to report it?

Only if you want to check more often than at boot time.

The overheads are minimal, so there is no harm in using one.

 

[Bob Davis]

Yes, enabled on the drive is an entirely separate issue
to whether the bios SMART check is enabled. The bios
SMART check just asks the drive about its SMART status
at boot time and warns the user if the drive says its got a
SMART problem that indicates that the drive may be dying.

Basically because you can choose to have a ute that does
full time SMART monitoring while the system is booted,
and not just rely on the BIOS notification at boot time.


Correct. You'll only see anything there if
the drive is reporting a SMART problem.

active?

Yes, if DiskCheckup says its enabled in the drives too.


Yes, but only at boot time.


Only if you want to check more often than at boot time.

The overheads are minimal, so there is no harm in using one.

Thanks for the help. Is there a preferred SMART ute?

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanks for the help. Is there a preferred SMART ute?

Really depends on your requirements, particularly if you want
one that monitors the drive SMART status continually or not.
The one on the Hitachi site does, but only gives a pass/fail report.

I want to see the individual SMART data myself, and I use the
DiskCheckup for that. Its rather clearer on the display in my opinion.
BUT it doesnt even get the SMART data from the drive more than
once when its started, so isnt any use for continuous monitoring.

And if you want to monitor SMART status of external
drives or RAID drives, that limits your choice very severely,
very few of the smart utes support those drives.