Enable S.M.A.R.T. on external HDD

Recently added a WD IDE/ATA 100 80GB external HDD, connection via USB 2. Recognized by Windows, shows up in "My Computer" as G:\ drive, used Acronis 8 to clone internal drive to external, completed sucessfully.

Would like to enable S.M.A.R.T. on this external drive (Primary Slave). The BIOS in my HP 533w, Intel Celeron, does recognize S.M.A.R.T. technology. S.M.A.R.T. is enabled on the internal HDD.

Entered CMOS setup, BIOS shows "Primary Slave" as auto. Unable to enable S.M.A.R.T. under auto setting.

Should I set Primary Slave to "User Type HDD" in Bios, or should I have the external HDD turned on before I boot and enter CMOS Setup?

If the external HDD is on when entering BIOS, and I exit BIOS setup to enter normal boot to Windows, would anything be damaged by leaving the external HDD running while normal boot to Windows takes place?

OS is Windows XP Home.

Lead me by the hand. I'm an old dog and sometimes new tricks are hard to digest!

Any help on this matter will be greatly appreciated.

 

If the drive is a USB drive, it will not show up in the Bios, due to not a IDE interface. USB only enables after the boot process. The drive should have S.M.A.R.T. enabled on it by default in its firmware.

 

Thanks, brownizs, for the reply.

Really no reason to enable SMART anyway since I use the ext. HDD for backup and in case of internal primary HDD failure. Read that SMART slows the HDD.

Again, thanks for your response.