HELP: S.M.A.R.T detected a failure

[cmge]

the past few weeks everytime i boot up my second pc the following error pops up.

"Warning, SMART has detected that a hard drive failure may be imminent. Please back up your data immediately. Hit F1 to continue"

so what i did was to reformat my drive thinking it would solve the prob but it didnt i still get the same msg. does this mean my hd has gone bad and pretty much dead?. or is there a way to fix this?. any help is appreciated thanks in advance

[JAC]

It means exactly what it says. Time for an RMA.

[Jim123]

Download a diagnostics program from your HD manufacturer, it should give you more info and may even help you RMA if drive is still under warranty.

[cmge]

turns out my hd is still under warranty... hoorah.. now ive never done any sort of RMA b4 and just wondering if n e one has dealt with Maxtor b4?.. im running their powermax program coz it tokd me to do so from their site..

now i have 2 option when it comes to testing the drive basic and advance.. and from the site it tells me that if i chose basic the item will be shipped to me once they receive it and no credit card is needed.. now advance tells me that a replacement hd will be shipped to me first and a credit card is needed..

now my question is will my credit card be charged for it if i chose the advance method?.. again n e help would be appreciated

[actng]

call your HDD manufacturer and demand a new drive

[buddhaboi]

RMA it.... get a refund and never get a maxtor again....

this is the reason i stay away from maxtor.... i've own 6 in my life... 2 have had the S.M.A.R.T failure and 2 have just simply died.... 1 is still going good (but who knows).... one is just starting to act up (could be the system but i suspect it's the drive)

[JAC]

turns out my hd is still under warranty... hoorah.. now ive never done any sort of RMA b4 and just wondering if n e one has dealt with Maxtor b4?.. im running their powermax program coz it tokd me to do so from their site..

now i have 2 option when it comes to testing the drive basic and advance.. and from the site it tells me that if i chose basic the item will be shipped to me once they receive it and no credit card is needed.. now advance tells me that a replacement hd will be shipped to me first and a credit card is needed..

now my question is will my credit card be charged for it if i chose the advance method?.. again n e help would be appreciated
Under an Advance RMA, they only charge your card if you don't return the drive within the time frame specified.

[cmge]

ahhh... ok... so ive done thee basic test and it tells me to do the advance tes... o_O ... i do the advance test and it tells me that its passed all the test?.. reformatted installed win2k and still ge the same S.M.A.R.T failure.. >_< ... guh i think ive learned my lesson when buying maxtor hd's.. >_<

[Jim123]

ahhh... ok... so ive done thee basic test and it tells me to do the advance tes... o_O ... i do the advance test and it tells me that its passed all the test?.. reformatted installed win2k and still ge the same S.M.A.R.T failure.. >_< ... guh i think ive learned my lesson when buying maxtor hd's.. >_<

If the PowerMax diagnostics don't generate an 8 digit error code you will have a tough time RMA'ing your drive. It is quite possible the error is due to problems with your MB. What MB do you have?

BTW - I have found Maxtor drives to be no better or worse than others. YMMV

[othy]

Last weekend I had a WD 120gig SATA poop out on me, most disappointing.. First drive to die on me though.. Gotta RMA that sucker.. Their website says to run some diagnostic software on it but I can't even boot the pc when the drive is plugged in the controller (using other drives to boot) so something is majorly wrong there!

Still, by and large WD is a fine company.

[bmaz]

....Their website says to run some diagnostic software on it but I can't even boot the pc when the drive is plugged in the controller (using other drives to boot) so something is majorly wrong there!...
If you go to there website search for Data Lifeguard Tools follow the steps to create a bootable floppy.
Boot from the floppy and have it test the drive thats defective.


Under an Advance RMA, they only charge your card if you don't return the drive within the time frame specified.
What WD did to me once was 'hold' the ~ value of the drive they were sending to me, which was ~US$60.
Then when they got the drive they refunded the amount to my CC.
It turns out that while they were waiting for my defective drive, the Canadian dollar gained on the American so when the US$60 was 'returned' to my credit card I actually lost money in the conversion.

[othy]

If you go to there website search for Data Lifeguard Tools follow the steps to create a bootable floppy.
Boot from the floppy and have it test the drive thats defective.

I actually don't have a floppy drive anymore.. The last machine of mine that had one got passed off to my folks not too long ago. But the drive is definitely hooped, so RMA it goes..

[cmge]

If the PowerMax diagnostics don't generate an 8 digit error code you will have a tough time RMA'ing your drive. It is quite possible the error is due to problems with your MB. What MB do you have?


yeah it didnt generate any code at all... and with the advance test it passed all the tests.. my mobo for my other comp is an ASUS A7V-266E... im thinking of complaining to the place where i got it from coz im sure it still has some warranty on it... otherwise i may hafta change mobo instead?

[Spike]

Download ActiveSmart http://www.ariolic.com/ and find the smart value that's giving you the problem. I have an old Fujitsu with a problem SMART value (Power-On Hours Count at 0, which it's been at for ages) that works fine so I just turn off SMART in the bios for that computer. Of course, if it's under warranty, exchange it.

[fakishan]

WOA! this is the first time, that I have heard of this SMART technology working. Usually the hard drive dies before the SMART kicks in.

[konfusion666]

SMART is notorious for giving false alarms. One of my drives (a Maxtor!) has been giving SMART errors for the past year. Still chugging along, business as usual. I'm not a casual user, I do lots of video encoding and any bit errors will show up in divx/xvid/MPEG2 as blotches, macroblock errors, sound bugs, etc. -- never get anything.

[gimmegimme]

I had the same problem... my maxtor 160GB started giving me a SMART error about a year ago. I ran the basic test, the advanced test and the drive passed both. I've since upgraded my motherboard and the IDE cable and still get the errors. I even have SMART disabled in the BIOS! The drive still seems to work fine though.. and as someone said earlier, without an error code, it'll be hard to RMA.

[flipside]

just tell them the drive is not recognized by the bios. I would suggest do the advanced replacement. They are sticky on how the drive is packaged. I used the same packaging the replacement drive came in to return the broken drive. Saved me the hassle of looking for packaging :) .

[Shiifty]

WOA! this is the first time, that I have heard of this SMART technology working. Usually the hard drive dies before the SMART kicks in.
I had the same thing happen, I ignored the SMART warnings for about a month. Then one day it refused to boot, it was having trouble reading from areas on the drive and was buggered. I had a hell of a time getting my data off the drive. It was just out of warranty too, however it was a replacement for another drive that went tits up. Nice, Maxtor....

Backup your data and RMA the drive. It *may* be a false alarm, but can you risk it?

[akito925]

yeah thats the frist that I'd heard about the s.m.a.r.t thing. lol

if you want to get your drive rma'ed give it a few puntches.. it will give you error codes. lol

[Spike]

You shouldn't just ignore SMART warnings - that's just stupid. You have to find out which SMART value in question is giving the warning. Obviously some of the values like power-on hours count or stop start count are fairly benign but others shouldn't be taken so lightly.

[firehawk12]

^^
I've had one SMART error, though after I reset the computer it disappeared... this was years ago though.

I don't mind Maxtor, not as much as other people here seem to. :)
Their RMA is very easy though, you can even do it online.

Choose the option where you give them your CC number and they send you a hard drive first, so that you can back up your files and just use their box to send your hard drive back. Easy.

[bender]

My 3yr old maxtor drive has just died after showing the smart failure for a day. All the computers so far can see the stuff there on the HD but I can't access or copy any off it. any ideas??

[x86asm]

My 3yr old maxtor drive has just died after showing the smart failure for a day. All the computers so far can see the stuff there on the HD but I can't access or copy any off it. any ideas??

I suggest you start a new topic.

[sleepyguy]

backup your data and rma your drive (if still under warranty). go get yourself a seagate with a 5yr warranty. if you original drive is out of warranty run a disk-kill low-level format after you backed up your data and destroy it physically then junk it. you can never be too safe.

[Macross_Freek]

To all the people who said it would be tough to RMA with an error code, the last time I did an RMA which was about a year ago I did not require one at all. Is this something new?

To the OP: If you dont' want to go out and get your own packaging do the advance RMA and get them to send the drive first. Just put your old drive in the packaging they sent your new drive in and ship that off.

[robieG]

I had the same thing happen, I ignored the SMART warnings for about a month. Then one day it refused to boot, it was having trouble reading from areas on the drive and was buggered. I had a hell of a time getting my data off the drive. It was just out of warranty too, however it was a replacement for another drive that went tits up. Nice, Maxtor....

Backup your data and RMA the drive. It *may* be a false alarm, but can you risk it?

lol i did the same thing, i figured it was a false alarm since it was working fine... one day 2 weeks later. dead... :mad:

[dmdsoftware2]

WHEN WILL PEOPLE LEARN !?!?!

Don't be tempted to buy maxtor. I don't care if they are giving them out free. Don't trust maxtor drives !!!! They are the biggest pieces of crap, and getting warranty work done on them is crazy.