SMART Failure predicted

I've been working a bit on my brother's computer to bring it back to life after 5+ months without use. There were tons of updates for Windows, so I installed them, got stuck in a reboot loop during configuration of the new updates, did a system restore and installed the updates again. I also (at his request) removed all components of McAfee security center. When I rebooted it after removing McAfee, I get the following error message:

"SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 4: Hitachi HTS542525k0SA00-(S1)

WARNING: Immediately back0up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure may be immenent.

Press F1 to Continue."

Several questions now:
1. How serious is this message? Obviously, a hard drive failure is very serious, but how "immenent" is it?

2. What options do I have to resolve this?

3. My brother's not available at the moment to consult about where to go from here, but I definitely want to back up his data in case it fails before I can talk to him. What is the best way to back up everything without getting into all his personal files?

 

It is V E R Y serious. You may only have one or two successful boots until the drive dies completely, or it may last another week, or month. "SMART failure" messages should not be taken lightly and should be interpreted as "this may be my last chance to save my stuff so I'll do it NOW!"

First, do NOT use the PC anymore until you get a new hard drive. Then use some cloning software either from the drive manufacturer, or use one of the programs I linked to below to completely copy the failing drive to the new one. -OR- buy a stack of blank CDs or DVDs and start burning the stuff you don't want to lose. Keep in mind that doing this requires you to boot into Windows and it may be the last boot. -OR- Buy an enclosure, build the drive into it, and hook it up to a functional PC via a USB port and save your stuff that way (or open up the functional PC and connect the drive directly to the motherboard).

See the methods above. Obviously, booting to Windows is not an option if you don't want to (or cannot) access his personal files, so making a full mirror image (also called "cloning") of the drive would be the best.

Good luck!

Here's some free cloning programs:
http://majorgeeks.com/Digital_Dolly_d5183.html
http://majorgeeks.com/EaseUs_Disk_Copy_d4845.html
http://majorgeeks.com/HDClone_Free_Edition_d3809.html
These programs are bootable; this means you'd create a boot CD or boot floppy, then boot to it to clone the drives. There are many other cloning/copy/backup type programs available here at Major Geeks. As I said earlier, you can probably also download free cloning software from the hard drive manufacturer's web site if it is not included with the the new hard drive purchase.

 

Ok, I think I get most of what you're saying... but I don't want to take any chances. Let me make sure:
1. To clone, I need to download the clone software onto a blank CD using my computer.
2. I should then put the disk in his computer and restart it (but how? Using F1 or the power button?)
3. When the computer restarts.... it will automatically detect the disk, or do I need to go into BIOS to change the settings to boot from disk?
4. Where will the clone be stored? On the CD? Seems like there wouldn't be enough disk space on it...

BTW, I'm not buying anything, as it's not my computer and I'm not sure what my brother can afford.

 

1. Yes.
2. Yes. Restart the PC with the cloning software in the drive.
3. You should check the BIOS and make sure the CD is set as the first boot device.
4. As I stated above: "do NOT use the PC anymore until you get a new hard drive". This is where the clone will go: to the new hard drive. So- you'd run out to your local PC store, grab a hard drive at least as big as the current hard drive, or bigger. To find out how big the current drive is, open up the PC and look at the drive (ALWAYS unplug the power cord before opening ANY computer case!). Or you can get the model number of the drive, and maybe the size too, from the BIOS. Then do a Google search for the model of the drive. Anyway- once you get the new hard drive, you'd install it in the PC where the old drive is (unplug the power cord first!). Then, with both hard drives properly connected, you'd boot to the cloning software.
There are other options that I mentioned above:

Hard drive enclosures are fairly inexpensive; you should be able to buy one at any PC store for under $25 or so. Or you can just skip the enclosure, hook up his drive directly to your PC, then burn his stuff to CD/DVD. Tons of free CD burning programs can be found here; one of my personal favorites is AShampoo Studio 2009; it's free for 10 days, then requires free email registration to continue using it past 10 days.
:-D

 

OH! I thought I needed to clone immediately before getting a hard drive. Thank you for the help!

 

As long as you leave the PC turned off and out of use until you're 100% prepared to clone the drive (or rescue the data using one of the other methods), everything should be OK. Just be sure that NOBODY uses the PC, and that it is kept turned off.

Glad I could help! If you have any other questions, feel free to post. Good luck! Let us know how it goes!
:-D

 

Sorry for coming in late. While I agree this is serious, I don't think the first thing I would do is go out and get a new drive and start cloning. That is certainly a valid suggestion, and you would not be wrong to immediately replace the drive, but S.M.A.R.T. technology is not precise. Many folks never enable it from the start because of inaccurate error reporting. Many who get a S.M.A.R.T. error, run chkdsk /r then continue to use the drive for years, error free. Your error says drive 4. Note some RAID controllers (even in ATA mode) don't play well with S.M.A.R.T.

If me, I would make sure I had a recent back up of my critical data. Then chkdsk the drive and go to the drive maker's web site and download their latest diagnostics program (in your case, Hitachi Drive Fitness Test), and test it again. If chkdsk completed (which can take many hours with large drives) and the diagnostics passed, I would keep using the disk - but keep an ear out for abnormal sounds, increased number of clicks, increased case vibrations, and make sure there's air moving across the drive. I would also make sure my +12V was sitting pretty stable at or near +12V. Note - a good supply will stay within ±.6V - but the ATX Form Factor standard allows the +12VDC on cheap supplies to go no more than ± 10% (± 1.2V) - a lot, IMO - good thing none of us try to cut costs by going with cheap, off-brand, generic supplies, right?

All this assumes, however, the drive does not now sound like a garbage disposal and the case is not vibrating across the floor - that is, the drive's mechanical noises and vibrations are normal.

Of course, if this drive is old, and I were looking for an excuse to get a new 1Tb drive, a S.M.A.R.T. error is all I would need.

 

True, SMART technology is not precise, but, on the other hand, I have never seen a false SMART failure message. I have seen plenty of drives fail without a SMART message, but every time I've have ever seen a SMART message, the drive was indeed failing. It may also me a good idea to get a 'second opinion' by running the Hitachi diagnostic. But, on the other hand, I have had drives that weren't totally dead finally fail completely during the diagnostic. Maybe it was coincidence, or maybe it was the 'stress' of the diagnostic test, but I have had more than one drive with a SMART failure message completely die during a second diagnostic test. I have had this same experience with running chkdsk. Just last week I had a drive that I thought was basically healthy (there were no obvious issues with it including no SMART message; just the message that a 'boot up chkdsk had been scheduled' and the PCs owner continually canceled it) up and die during stage 5 of chkdsk. It reported "not enough free space to finish chkdsk" and that was it. There was over 87gb of free space on the 120gb drive. So, yes, there's a chance that the SMART failure message is premature or inaccurate, and maybe buying a new hard drive is 'jumping the gun' a little bit. But buying a pack of blank CDs/DVDs and burning the more important stuff would be a real good idea. Blank discs are cheap ($8 for 50 blank CDs, $12 for 50 blank DVDs) when compared to the 'price' of data lost to a hard drive crash.

 

Well, as I noted, I have seen drives that continued to run fine - so YMMV.

And of course a drive might fail during diagnostics-as it might during copying, or cloning.

 

Ok, months later, my brother bought a hard drive. Before I continue, I just want to make sure I have everything straight.

I failed to mention before that the computer is a laptop.

Would it be feasible to use thumbdrives to save everything rather than CDs?
Once I have the files saved, how do I get the old hard drive out and the new one in?
What do I need to do after installing the new hard drive?

 

1.) You could but it could take a long time to trasnfer.
2.) You need to find the manual to your laptop on how to get to the hard drive.
3.) Reinstall your OS and reinstall programs and restore files. Basically it's going to run/act like a new pc.

 

Ok, I've got the laptop and new hard drive in front of me--I started the computer, got the SMART message, pressed F1, and the computer booted--but the desktop's black and the only icon available is the recycle bin. When I try to open My Computer from the start menu to get his files, I get the following error message: "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item." Does this mean the hard drive's already fried? Any chance of saving his files?

Thanks again for everyone's advice.

 

Not good

You could try to restart and try again but the computer may not boot again. May want to try to move the drive to another PC but you have you limit the number of times you start the drive as it could fail very easily now.

 

He's told me that he'd prefer to save his files, but he's ok with it if I can't get rid of it. At this point, would it be better just to install the new drive?

 

I would try to save the files if you can. Can you access other stuff like My Documents etc? or is it just windows permission error?

 

The start menu looks very Windows 95ish. There was a "documents" option, but I couldn't get it to open, either.

I tried restarting as previously recommended, and CheckDisk started automatically. Will update when it's done...

 

The drive could be done with.

I would say possibly booting up a linux cd and see what you can get from there.

 

A linux CD? Where would I get one of those?

 

A Linux bootable CD which loads the OS from the CD and not the bad hard drive would could allow you to access you data and stop the permissions error. You will have to use some commands to mount the drive and view it. It may seem overwhelming at first but you will get the hang of it.

For this I would recommend Knoppix http://www.knoppix.net

 

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding how to download Knoppix--I don't want to use BitTorrent, and when I try to download from a mirror, it gives me a link to quite a lot of files, and I'm not sure what to do with them all.

Additionally, the CheckDisk failed in stage 3--error "Insufficient disk space to correct errors in index $SII of file 9."

 

You need to download a ISO should be one large file with the extension .iso and burn it using a ISO burner. I would use Active ISO burner. It's free and good.

 

Can I get some more info on this part? I've almost got the program downloaded, but I'm not sure what to do with the CD after I run it on the computer. Speaking of that, I should insert the CD, restart the computer, and it should automatically run if boot from CD is selected in the BIOS settings, right? I'm a novice computer geek, so I kind of need step-by-step instructions on tough fixes.

 

Yes it should. If not pres escape or another simlare key it should say do to get to a boot menu.

 

I still need more information about the commands I'll need to use. I've tried to look at the Knoppix FAQ, but there's so much information there, I can't find what I need. Thank you!

 

Once you are booted into into knoppix run this command in the konsole

And then I can give you the next command

 

I've booted using the CD, it ran some startup stuff, and now I've got a black screen with an X cursor. It seems to have frozen on this point.

EDIT: Now it's moving again.... Asking me to remove the CD.

EDIT: After I removed the CD and pressed enter, it shut down.

 

I'm sorry there isn't a need to do that.

When you get into knoppix it should be like

/dev/hda1 /dev/sda1 or something similar. Knoppix should pickup the drive but it will be in read only mode.

 

You should be at at desktop of knoppix. Give it some time to boot as it may take some time. However if it's frozen try to do it again.

 

I edited my post above... not sure what to do now.

 

Did you remove the cd or mess with it when it was trying to boot?

 

I removed the CD when it said something like "Remove the CD and press return in 2 minutes" and the CD drive popped open automatically.

 

Strange

Can you try and do it again?

 

Same thing... Linux started, Knoppix started, got the black screen with the X cursor, and then it went through a system shutdown process, asked me to "remove the cd, close the cdrom drive and hit return [2 minutes]."

From this page (ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/), I used the "KNOPPIX_V6.0.1CD-2009-02-08-EN.iso" file. It seemed to be the most recent CD version available. Is that part alright?

 

Really weird issue.

I wonder if it has to do with the bad hard drive. I doubt it.

 

Any ideas on what I should do from here?

 

Could try another Linux distro but that would take a long time to re-download and reburn.

EDIT: How bad do you need the data?

 

As I said before, he would prefer to keep it, but told me it's ok if I can't get it. Looks like most of his documents are also on his thumb drive, and his wedding pictures are on the PC, but I think most of them are also uploaded on Facebook... I'll clarify with him before I continue, but I think it'd be ok to start from scratch.

 

Just got the go-ahead to forget about the files and install the new hard drive. I do not have the original manual for the computer--I think my brother lost it in a move. Is there a way I can find the model number of his computer through BIOS or something similar so I can look for the manual online?

 

What is the model of the laptop? It should be on the bottom.

 

It's a Gateway. It says W350A on the bottom, but also that it's a T-series below the screen. I can't find W350A on Gateway's support site, and I don't know which T-series it is. I've searched W350A manuals on Google, but I haven't found anything useful yet...

 

On the bottom of your laptop is the plates that are removable?

 

Yes, there are 2. I've tried removing the one that looks like it would house the hard drive, but once the I unscrewed the screw (it won't come out, but is completely unscrewed), it does not open easily and I'm afraid it may break if I exert too much force.

 

Try to remove both. They should come out easily if you did it right.

If it doesn't come out don't force it. You may have missed a screw. Double check carefully.

 

Just opened the new hard drive package... he bought the wrong size.:mad Won't be installing today, most likely.

 

Did he buy a 3.5 inch drive and not a 2.5 inch laptop drive?

 

Yes... I was there, and that's the one the sales person told us to get, even though we made it clear that it was a laptop... :mad

 

Where did you buy it?

 

Best Buy.

 

I must have been reading your mind. I thought best buy :-D

Nice sales rep eh?

Really isn't his fault for buying the wrong size. You told him it was a laptop. Buy a 2.5" Drive not a 3.5" when you go back to return it.

Blame best buy

 

I know--I'm not thrilled with their sales reps, either, but I'm not sure where else to go. I'm upset with them for recommending the wrong size, and upset with him because he's too busy to exchange it today when I've spent quite a lot of my weekend trying to repair it.