SMART Failure Predicted?

[siggi]

Hi all,

System: WinXP home, SP2

after having kept running for 6 years without any problem, I get now all of
a sudden this message during booting my PC:

"SMART Failure Predicted on Primary Master: Maxtor 4D060H3
WARNING (blinks!): Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard
drive. A failure may be imminent"

After choosing the option "press F1 to continue", WinXP starts and
everything is as usual. I could even do file defragmentation. After that, I
did backupimages of my harddrive (C:\ and partition F:\).

Questions
*******
* How can I test whether this is really a harddrive problem and not a false
error message?
* How can the system know that a "failure is imminent" when the harddrive
apparently is working normal?

Thank you,

Siggi

 

[Doug]

| Hi all,
|
| System: WinXP home, SP2
|
| after having kept running for 6 years without any problem, I get now all
of
| a sudden this message during booting my PC:
|
| "SMART Failure Predicted on Primary Master: Maxtor 4D060H3
| WARNING (blinks!): Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard
| drive. A failure may be imminent"
|
| After choosing the option "press F1 to continue", WinXP starts and
| everything is as usual. I could even do file defragmentation. After that,
I
| did backupimages of my harddrive (C:\ and partition F:\).
|
| Questions
| *******
| * How can I test whether this is really a harddrive problem and not a
false
| error message?
| * How can the system know that a "failure is imminent" when the harddrive
| apparently is working normal?
|
| Thank you,
|
| Siggi
|

SMART measures some 50 (give or take) parameters of HDD operation and
decides if they are inside or outside of a given threshold in an effort to
predict failure. Sort of like a cardiologist determining that a cardiac
event is imminent based on high blood pressure, coronary artery disease,
diabetes and morbid obesity, even though from your perspective your heart is
"apparently working normally." (now you wouldn't argue with your
cardiologist would you?

You can run the manufacturers diagnostic utility which may or may not detect
a failure depending on whether what SMART found is included in the
manufacturers test.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring,_Analysis,_and_Reporting_Technology

That you have current backups is good. You can either replace the drive now
(what I would do) or wait for it to fail and replace it then.

--
Doug

I'm not an MVP a VIP nor do I have ESP.
I was just trying to help.
Please use your own best judgment before implementing any suggestions or
advice herein.
No warranty is expressed or implied.
Your mileage may vary.
See store for details.

Remove shoes to E-mail.

 

[mikeyhsd]

if you have recently had some unexpected power failure where the computer shut off unexpectedly and maybe back on/off several time, the hard drive may have sustained some damage,.

you can run the diag available from drive manufacturer web site, but might now show up anything.

if you use a S.M.A.R.T program to read the data you can see what it says the possible a\errors are.

I find Speed Fan a program to monitor Temperatures and Fan speeds is useful in showing the error counters for S.M.A.R.T.




(e-mail address removed)



Hi all,

System: WinXP home, SP2

after having kept running for 6 years without any problem, I get now all of
a sudden this message during booting my PC:

"SMART Failure Predicted on Primary Master: Maxtor 4D060H3
WARNING (blinks!): Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard
drive. A failure may be imminent"

After choosing the option "press F1 to continue", WinXP starts and
everything is as usual. I could even do file defragmentation. After that, I
did backupimages of my harddrive (C:\ and partition F:\).

Questions
*******
* How can I test whether this is really a harddrive problem and not a false
error message?
* How can the system know that a "failure is imminent" when the harddrive
apparently is working normal?

Thank you,

Siggi

 

[siggi]

Thank you mikeyhsd! I'll try to run a diag tool.

Siggi
if you have recently had some unexpected power failure where the computer shut off unexpectedly and maybe back on/off several time, the hard drive may have sustained some damage,.

you can run the diag available from drive manufacturer web site, but might now show up anything.

if you use a S.M.A.R.T program to read the data you can see what it says the possible a\errors are.

I find Speed Fan a program to monitor Temperatures and Fan speeds is useful in showing the error counters for S.M.A.R.T.




(e-mail address removed)



Hi all,

System: WinXP home, SP2

after having kept running for 6 years without any problem, I get now all of
a sudden this message during booting my PC:

"SMART Failure Predicted on Primary Master: Maxtor 4D060H3
WARNING (blinks!): Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard
drive. A failure may be imminent"

After choosing the option "press F1 to continue", WinXP starts and
everything is as usual. I could even do file defragmentation. After that, I
did backupimages of my harddrive (C:\ and partition F:\).

Questions
*******
* How can I test whether this is really a harddrive problem and not a false
error message?
* How can the system know that a "failure is imminent" when the harddrive
apparently is working normal?

Thank you,

Siggi

 

[siggi]

Thank you, Doug, for this detailed answer! I like your "sort of like a
cardiologist" and will take care accordingly.

Siggi

 

[Ron Martell]

Hi all,

System: WinXP home, SP2

after having kept running for 6 years without any problem, I get now all of
a sudden this message during booting my PC:

"SMART Failure Predicted on Primary Master: Maxtor 4D060H3
WARNING (blinks!): Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard
drive. A failure may be imminent"

After choosing the option "press F1 to continue", WinXP starts and
everything is as usual. I could even do file defragmentation. After that, I
did backupimages of my harddrive (C:\ and partition F:\).

Questions
*******
* How can I test whether this is really a harddrive problem and not a false
error message?

Go to the hard drive manufacturer's web site and download their free
diagnostic test utility. Run that to check out the drive for defects.
It will almost certainly confirm the S.M.A.R.T. advisory.

* How can the system know that a "failure is imminent" when the harddrive
apparently is working normal?

As Doug said, this is similar to the way in which a cardiologist can
tell that a heart attack is imminent.


When you get a S.M.A.R.T. advisory of this type it is time to run, not
walk, to the nearest computer store and purchase a replacement hard
drive. Any delay increases the probability that the drive will die,
putting the contents beyond recovery.

Good luck
Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2008)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Hi all,

System: WinXP home, SP2

after having kept running for 6 years without any problem, I get now all of
a sudden this message during booting my PC:

"SMART Failure Predicted on Primary Master: Maxtor 4D060H3
WARNING (blinks!): Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard
drive. A failure may be imminent"

After choosing the option "press F1 to continue", WinXP starts and
everything is as usual. I could even do file defragmentation. After that, I
did backupimages of my harddrive (C:\ and partition F:\).

Questions
*******
* How can I test whether this is really a harddrive problem and not a false
error message?

Download a diagnostic utility from the hard drive's manufacturer's web
site and use it to test the hard drive.

* How can the system know that a "failure is imminent" when the harddrive
apparently is working normal?

Having seen the same error, I can only say: "Back up your data
daily until you replace that drive."

On those machines I on which I've seen those S.M.A.R.T. warnings,
catastrophic hard drive failures invariably followed. Some hard
drives lasted for a few days after the warnings first appeared, one
lasted months, and some lasted only minutes. I suppose the one that
lasted months could be considered a false alarm, as months hardly
translate to "imminent," but, on the whole, I'd suggest you take the
warnings seriously.

For the background on S.M.A.R.T., start here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring,_Analysis,_and_Reporting_Technology



--

Bruce Chambers

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[siggi]

Go to the hard drive manufacturer's web site and download their free
diagnostic test utility. Run that to check out the drive for defects.
It will almost certainly confirm the S.M.A.R.T. advisory.

Thanks, Ron. Downloaded Seagate's SeaTools. Result for both short and long
diagnostics: failure! I will buy a new drive within the next days.

Bye, bye harddrive!

Siggi

 

[siggi]

Download a diagnostic utility from the hard drive's manufacturer's web
site and use it to test the hard drive.

Seagate's SeaTools, too, said "failure".

I'd suggest you take the
warnings seriously.

I do, I will buy a new drive and copy my recent ImageDrive 7 image onto it.
Having never used ImageDrive before, and being no big computer wiz, I am
curious how the MBR and the partition table from my old drive (C:\ and F:\)
will be handled on a drive that might have more GB capacity than the old
one.

Thank you Bruce,

Siggi