Error Message - Hard Drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Peter
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Peter

I built a PC using the Asus P4C800E Deluxe mobo. Everything has been
working fine for over a year. I installed a new D: hard drive yesterday.
This is the 2nd of two physical drives (C: and D:). These are independent
SATA drives -- not RAID. The new drive is a Western Digital WD3200JD.
I'm running WinXP Pro with the latest updates.

After installing the new drive I get the following error message whenever
I boot:

4th Master Hard Disk: S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD. Backup & Replace.

Booting stops at that point. It then says to Press F1 to continue. When
I press F1 booting continues and everything including the D: drive seems
fine.

What does that error message mean? What's causing it? Could it be a
misplaced jumper on the new drive? Something else?

Peter
 
Download western digital's windlg utility from their website. It gives you
the smart status of the drive and tests it. If everything checks out ok
then turn off and/or ignore the bios smart warning.

-g
 
Peter said:
I built a PC using the Asus P4C800E Deluxe mobo. Everything has been
working fine for over a year. I installed a new D: hard drive yesterday.
This is the 2nd of two physical drives (C: and D:). These are independent
SATA drives -- not RAID. The new drive is a Western Digital WD3200JD.
I'm running WinXP Pro with the latest updates.

After installing the new drive I get the following error message whenever
I boot:

4th Master Hard Disk: S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD. Backup & Replace.

Booting stops at that point. It then says to Press F1 to continue. When
I press F1 booting continues and everything including the D: drive seems
fine.

What does that error message mean? What's causing it? Could it be a
misplaced jumper on the new drive? Something else?

Peter
Click to expand...

Does Western Digital have a diagnostic test program for
download on their web site ? Perhaps you should run a
full diagnostic and see if the disk passes. If that works,
the next thing I would get, is a utility that dumps the
SMART statistics. Perhaps between these two kinds of
programs, you will get a better picture of your
new product.

Take a look through these results and see if any match
your symptoms:

http://groups.google.ca/groups?q="S.M.A.R.T.+Status+BAD"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring,_Analysis_and_Reporting_Technology

Paul
 
I built a PC using the Asus P4C800E Deluxe mobo. Everything has been
working fine for over a year. I installed a new D: hard drive yesterday.
This is the 2nd of two physical drives (C: and D:). These are independent
SATA drives -- not RAID. The new drive is a Western Digital WD3200JD.
I'm running WinXP Pro with the latest updates.

After installing the new drive I get the following error message whenever
I boot:

4th Master Hard Disk: S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD. Backup & Replace.

Booting stops at that point. It then says to Press F1 to continue. When
I press F1 booting continues and everything including the D: drive seems
fine.

What does that error message mean? What's causing it? Could it be a
misplaced jumper on the new drive? Something else?

Peter
Click to expand...

Jumper settings:

http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2579-001037.pdf

Diagnostic software here:

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

Bill
 
Jumper settings:

http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2579-001037.pdf

Diagnostic software here:

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

Bill
Click to expand...


Thanks all for the feedback.

FYI, the PDF file mentioned above doesn't seem to apply to my drive. It
has a diagram that shows a jumper connector with 5 pairs of pins while my
actual drive has only 4 pairs of pins. I think the correct document is:
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/sata/2079-001042.pdf

I ran the diagnostic utility mentioned above and it reports the same thing
.... SMART status is bad. But, I still have no clue whether this is a
setting problem or a defective drive. (And, as mentioned in my original
message, the drive *seems* to be working OK.)

Peter
 
Thanks all for the feedback.

FYI, the PDF file mentioned above doesn't seem to apply to my drive. It
has a diagram that shows a jumper connector with 5 pairs of pins while my
actual drive has only 4 pairs of pins. I think the correct document is:
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/sata/2079-001042.pdf

I ran the diagnostic utility mentioned above and it reports the same thing
... SMART status is bad. But, I still have no clue whether this is a
setting problem or a defective drive. (And, as mentioned in my original
message, the drive *seems* to be working OK.)

Peter
Click to expand...

Well, as I understand S.M.A.R.T., it's technology that warns you of an
impending drive failure BEFORE it's obvious that the drive is failing
in order that you have time to backup all important data on the drive.
I'd certainly not think of blaming the error message on anything other
than a failing drive simply because it seems to be functioning
normally. If you have a report of a "bad drive" from two independent
S.M.A.R.T. monitoring programs, you have no option but to regard that
drive as unreliable until proven otherwise. The very first thing you
should do, therefore, is to backup the data and NOT put any new data
on the drive. Only after that's done would I begin to ponder jumper
settings and the like.

Ron
 
Thanks all for the feedback.

FYI, the PDF file mentioned above doesn't seem to apply to my drive. It
has a diagram that shows a jumper connector with 5 pairs of pins while my
actual drive has only 4 pairs of pins. I think the correct document is:
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/sata/2079-001042.pdf

I ran the diagnostic utility mentioned above and it reports the same thing
... SMART status is bad. But, I still have no clue whether this is a
setting problem or a defective drive. (And, as mentioned in my original
message, the drive *seems* to be working OK.)

Peter
Click to expand...

The SATA jumper settings were towards the bottom of the pdf, show four
pairs of pins, if they apply to your situation. If WD extended
diagnostics fail, save the results to a file and send it to WD for an
RMA. It sounds like you've got a new defective drive. Feces occurs.

Bill
 
I ran the diagnostic utility mentioned above and it reports the same thing
The SATA jumper settings were towards the bottom of the pdf, show four
pairs of pins, if they apply to your situation. If WD extended
diagnostics fail, save the results to a file and send it to WD for an
RMA. It sounds like you've got a new defective drive. Feces occurs.

Bill
Click to expand...

The latest update ... I spoke to WD and they're sending me a new drive.
Hopefully that will resolve this completely.

In the mean time, I no longer get that SMART error message when I boot the
PC. I'm not sure why but it stopped on its own. I do still get the SMART
error when I run the WD disgnostics utility.

Peter
 
Peter said:
4th Master Hard Disk: S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD. Backup & Replace.

What does that error message mean? What's causing it? Could it be a
misplaced jumper on the new drive? Something else?
Click to expand...

Well, the error message is quite clear: backup and replace. SMART has
nothing to do with jumper settings. It's an internal testing system
that tries to warn you when a drive starts to go bad.

Jumpers and SMART have nothing to do with each other.

Wrong jumper settings would simply result in a clipped drive (32Gb
limit), or a drive that's not recognised or is recognised as a slave
when you wanted it to be a master. That's all.
 
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