Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

Keep getting the error message"Pri master Hard disk: SMART status BAD,
backup and replace " on the BIOS page when i boot up my laptop. Does this
mean the disk is damaged? It freezes during check disk and won't even
format!

Any suggestions?

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

"Sandy" <sandymill@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23glKiT4HFHA.1948@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
> Keep getting the error message"Pri master Hard disk: SMART status BAD,
> backup and replace " on the BIOS page when i boot up my laptop. Does this
> mean the disk is damaged? It freezes during check disk and won't even
> format!
>
> Any suggestions?
>
>

the drive is bad, yes

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

In article <1k0d21hfrhsbi26mp95g58137php6b8ons@4ax.com>,
Ron Martell <ron.martell@gmail.com> wrote:
>"Sandy" <sandymill@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Keep getting the error message"Pri master Hard disk: SMART status BAD,
>>backup and replace " on the BIOS page when i boot up my laptop. Does this
>>mean the disk is damaged? It freezes during check disk and won't even
>>format!
>>
>>Any suggestions?
>>
>
>Run, do not walk, to the nearest computer supply store and get a new
>hard drive.
>
>Your drive is about to die. If you procrastinate you risk losing any
>chance of recovering your data from the drive, and you will still have
>to replace it.
>
>
>Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
>--
>Microsoft MVP
>On-Line Help Computer Service
>http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
>
>"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."


Assuming you don't have a backup, you should use the disk as little as
possible. Don't boot the system, etc.

I'd remove the disk and find a friend with an XP system. Plug the disk
in as a secondary and try to do an image copy of your disk to his C
drive or at least copy your data files and burn them into CDs. You
can d/l an eval copy of bootitNG or acronis to do the image
operation. When you get the new disk you can re0image it on his
machine.

A local small computer store will do this for you for a few bucks and
sell you a new disk, too.

--

a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m

Don't blame me. I voted for Gore.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

NobodyMan <none@none.net> wrote:


>
>Although this **may** be true, that does not mean it IS true.
>
>My father's brand new hard drive reported this the first time we fired
>up the new computer. We went it BIOS and turned off the SMART
>function, and then ran the drive for a while to see what would happen.
>
>You know what? He still has this drive, 100 percent functional, five
>years later. He uses it to store some data on. If he turns SMART
>back on, he gets the message indicating that failure is imminent.
>
>Baugh!


For every instance such as your father's drive there are at least
10,000 others where the S.M.A.R.T. warning was correct.


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 20:45:02 GMT, Ron Martell <ron.martell@gmail.com>
>NobodyMan <none@none.net> wrote:

>>My father's brand new hard drive reported this the first time we fired
>>up the new computer. We went it BIOS and turned off the SMART
>>function, and then ran the drive for a while to see what would happen.

>>You know what? He still has this drive, 100 percent functional, five
>>years later. He uses it to store some data on. If he turns SMART
>>back on, he gets the message indicating that failure is imminent.

That's interesting. Even allowing for the hiding of defects, 5 years
is a long time to be lucky with a failing hard drive :-)

I usually see the reverse; drives that SMART says are OK, but that
have failing sectors and slowdowns due to sector retries.

Several technologies aim to sweep bad sectors under the rug - in fact,
SMART may have been a response to consumer anger about this:
- hard drive's firmware swaps sick to good sectors on the fly
- NTFS driver code swaps sick to good clusters on the fly
- ChkDsk /F and AutoChk equivalent swaps sick to good clusters

Of these, only the last has some visibility; the other two processes
are in the background and don't report what they do. In particular,
bad sectors managed by the hard drive's firmware will not show up as
bad in the map that the OS maintains for the file system.

So while disk diagnostics will (or should) tell you whether sectors
currently in the firmware's address space are readable or not, they
can't tell you about bad sectors that have been swapped out of this
address space by the hard drive's firmware. The only record of that
would be the statistics that SMART can report - if you find a SMART
reporting tool that shows you this raw data.



>---------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
Cats have 9 lives, which makes them
ideal for experimentation!
>---------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

For Ron: I have been repairing and building PC's for 32 years and I have
seen several S.M.A.R.T. warnings that have been false. Once in a Great While
it does inform of pending failure, but rarely! Most Hard drive fail without
warning with "COD" (click of death).