S.M.A.R.T. hard drive warning

How much faith to you put in these warnings? A friend has a computer
that halts on one of these warning about every third time it boots. He is
given the option to press any key to continue, he does and the computer
continues and runs fine.
Do these warnings often trigger false positives? Or is hard drive
failure in the near future on his computer?

Joe

"Joe" wrote in message

 > How much faith to you put in these warnings? A friend has a
 > computer that halts on one of these warning about every third time it
 > boots. He is given the option to press any key to continue, he does
 > and the computer continues and runs fine.
 > Do these warnings often trigger false positives? Or is hard drive
 > failure in the near future on his computer?
 >
 > Joe
 >


When does his computer halt? During or just after the POST but before
the bootstrap code gets loaded to then load the OS? Or after the OS
starts loading? Of after the OS had loaded and your friend logins to
run whatever he has for non-global startup items?

I wouldn't bother with configuring the BIOS, OS, or a utility that loads
on startup/login to stop your system because of how *it* interprets the
SMART data collected from the drive. If it only alerted me then I'd use
it but I wouldn't use it if it is going to halt my system. Use the
diagnostic software provided by the drive manufacturer and make your own
decision. See what your BIOS, OS, or utility are alerting you about.
Could be the drive has a temperature sensor and the drive is getting too
hot because you put other drives against it, blocked airflow with ribbon
cables, or its bearings might be wearing out. Make sure the drive gets
some airflow and use a fan on it if needed.

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1583&page=4" target="_blank">http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1583&page=4</a>
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/qual/features_SMART.htm" target="_blank">http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/qual/features_SMART.htm</a>
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.ariolic.com/activesmart/smart-technology.html" target="_blank">http://www.ariolic.com/activesmart/smart-technology.html</a>
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.pctechguide.com/04disks_SMART.htm" target="_blank">http://www.pctechguide.com/04disks_SMART.htm</a>

If your data is actually important to you, you do backups, right?

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