Maveric169
The Voices Talk to Me
- Joined
- 5 Dec 2002
- Messages
- 1,148
Well some of you may recall posts that I have made reguarding S.M.A.R.T. enabled HDD's. Most of them nowdays are. S.M.A.R.T. BTW stands for Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology, this built-in technology in your harddrives is supposed to warn you before your harddrive fails or begins exibiting signs of wear that will lead to failure based on about 10 different statisics including data error rate, read errors, power cycles and uptime, spinup time, etc.
Sounds great right? This great technology will warn you BEFORE your harddive fails so you have ample time to replace it. Right? WRONG!!!!
As I have warned others countless times on this board, DO NOT TRUST "S.M.A.R.T." as it is anything but!
Just today my 80GB Western Digital primary harddrive failed. I looks like one of the read armature drive arm motors failed. So the first thing I do is I do the dumb-dumb check. Check all connections, strip the system down to bare minimum and try again. No dice. Still get this LOUD clicking sound comming from the harddrive. So I gently tap the drive, and then it works for a bit then LOUD clicks again and nothing.
Next step, force a checkdisk repair operation on next boot. Some sucess, checkdisk finds tons of problems, relocates the affected files, replaces some with internal backups and were are working again, in a VERY fragile mode. After a few tries I get the system to normal boot and I quickly find and download "Active Smart", a active trial software that will check and monitor the data provided by the harddrive.
The Result, the drive is failing FAST! But what does S.M.A.R.T. it's self say?... A OK, no problem!!! This is obviously NOT the case, as I am fighting for every second of drive operation.
Now I have a fairly current backup, about a 2 weeks old, yet older than I would like with a rapidly failing drive on my hands. So I make a quick run to Sams Club and pick up a 160GB WesternDigital Caviar harddrive (It was $80 same price BestBuy wanted for an 80GB), get it home, prepped, and installed.
I fire up Acronis Drive Image and copy the the entire drive to the new 160GB Harddrive. Copy completes, reboot, verify everything is good, and the just as that is done, the 80GB drive FLATLINES!!! It tried to spinup, but no joy, it is forever dead!
Here is the great part, S.M.A.R.T. still said the drive was OK, on reboot with the drive flatlined!!! No warning messages, no alerts from S.M.A.R.T., but I got one from XP saying the drive is not responding.
The bottom line of this recent event is DO NOT TRUST, the not so smart, S.M.A.R.T.!
Backups! Learn it, Live it, Use it!
Sounds great right? This great technology will warn you BEFORE your harddive fails so you have ample time to replace it. Right? WRONG!!!!
As I have warned others countless times on this board, DO NOT TRUST "S.M.A.R.T." as it is anything but!
Just today my 80GB Western Digital primary harddrive failed. I looks like one of the read armature drive arm motors failed. So the first thing I do is I do the dumb-dumb check. Check all connections, strip the system down to bare minimum and try again. No dice. Still get this LOUD clicking sound comming from the harddrive. So I gently tap the drive, and then it works for a bit then LOUD clicks again and nothing.
Next step, force a checkdisk repair operation on next boot. Some sucess, checkdisk finds tons of problems, relocates the affected files, replaces some with internal backups and were are working again, in a VERY fragile mode. After a few tries I get the system to normal boot and I quickly find and download "Active Smart", a active trial software that will check and monitor the data provided by the harddrive.
The Result, the drive is failing FAST! But what does S.M.A.R.T. it's self say?... A OK, no problem!!! This is obviously NOT the case, as I am fighting for every second of drive operation.
Now I have a fairly current backup, about a 2 weeks old, yet older than I would like with a rapidly failing drive on my hands. So I make a quick run to Sams Club and pick up a 160GB WesternDigital Caviar harddrive (It was $80 same price BestBuy wanted for an 80GB), get it home, prepped, and installed.
I fire up Acronis Drive Image and copy the the entire drive to the new 160GB Harddrive. Copy completes, reboot, verify everything is good, and the just as that is done, the 80GB drive FLATLINES!!! It tried to spinup, but no joy, it is forever dead!
Here is the great part, S.M.A.R.T. still said the drive was OK, on reboot with the drive flatlined!!! No warning messages, no alerts from S.M.A.R.T., but I got one from XP saying the drive is not responding.
The bottom line of this recent event is DO NOT TRUST, the not so smart, S.M.A.R.T.!
Backups! Learn it, Live it, Use it!