Preventing A Drive Fail

g4m3rof1337

g4m3rof1337

Active Member
I'm going to start looking into my drives, to see if others have had issues with them failing. I was wondering if there is a way to notice a possible fail attack, and possibly prevent it. I'm kind of aware of the S.M.A.R.T in the BIOS, but I haven't been in my BIOS for awhile.
 
Fail attack? Are you talking in relation to a server or some sort of malicious software? Or are you just wondering if there is a way to detect early problems with a hard drive?

If the latter, then S.M.A.R.T is your friend. It can warn of potential drive failure. It is also prone to false positives. Basically, if you have a drive that fails its S.M.A.R.T self-test, examine it closer with more detailed utilities. Better yet, make it a point to periodically examine your drives closely.
 
Alright, so just make sure S.M.A.R.T is enabled and running then?

Will it alert me on my desktop, or in the BIOS?


Thanks.
 
there are programs that read the SMART stats from the drive. google around for a SMART monitor. Also, ive noticed Vista and Windows 7 have some kind of built in mechanism because i had a drive fail and a couple weeks before, Vista told me about a potential failure
 
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g4m3rof1337 said:
Alright, so just make sure S.M.A.R.T is enabled and running then?

Will it alert me on my desktop, or in the BIOS?
Click to expand...

Yes, if you have an option in the BIOS to enable S.M.A.R.T reporting, make sure that is enabled. In many cases, the BIOS will report an error if there is a potential problem with the drive.


gamerman4 said:
...ive noticed Vista and Windows 7 have some kind of built in mechanism...
Click to expand...


I have seen the same functionality in Windows 7. You can even manually run the self-tests from the Drive Management app.
 
I just did a quick HD Tune scan, and all the tiles came out green, is it safe to assume my drive won't fail, soon? Lol.
 
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