Predicted Failure

[SAAER45]

When I turned on my laptop today, I got a message which read:

SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 0: HITACHI DK23EA-40-(PM)

Warning: Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard drive. A failure may be imminent.

What does this mean? How do I remedy the problem?

 

[tlarkin]

SMART is a monitoring technology. It means it is predicting in the near future your HD will crash and you should replace it ASAP

 

[stephensmia]

Self-Monitoring And Reporting Technology
It dose not always mean that something is wrong with your harddrive because the smart will sometimes be wrong. I had to turn smart off because it was telling my that one of my drives would fail and it was a brand new drive. so its cool technology but not always right.

 

[tlarkin]

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

this gives all the info, and if you are getting smart errors it is best to start backing up your data immediately because it could fail anytime soon. It could also last you another two years, but really if your data is important you won't take that risk

 

[SAAER45]

Is their any maintenance I can do to prevent this from happening, if and when it does? I just ran a CHKDSK, dunno if that will help.

 

[tlarkin]

Nope, SMART monitors Hardware failures not software. If it is reporting problems they can only get worse. It is a monitoring technology not a repair technology. Hard disk drives are also considered replaceable parts, not repairable.