Is my hard disk in danger?

[Mr Anderson]

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of "Active Smart 2.41"

(http://www.ariolic.com).

As soon as I started the programme a warning popup windows appears with the
following message:

"WARNING! The drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, 122.9 GB [S/N: Y31XRT1E] indicated a
S.M.A.R.T error condition. Immediately back-up your data and replace this
hard drive!
A failure may be imminent"

In the status window of the programme the item "Reallocated Sector Count" is
red

Threshold 63
Value 3
Worst 3

What does it mean? Is really my hard drive about to crash??

Thanks for your time

 

[Joep]

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of "Active Smart 2.41"

(http://www.ariolic.com).

As soon as I started the programme a warning popup windows appears with the
following message:

"WARNING! The drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, 122.9 GB [S/N: Y31XRT1E] indicated a
S.M.A.R.T error condition. Immediately back-up your data and replace this
hard drive!
A failure may be imminent"

How much 'clearer' do they have to make this warning for you to understand
it? What part of it makes you doubt? What are the doubts?

 

[terry_b17]

hi ,
i would download and run maxtors diagnostic utility to verify the
condition of the drive . i would back up asap if it gives any
indication of problem .
hope this helps ,
terry

==============
Posted through www.HowToFixComputers.com/bb - free access to hardware troubleshooting newsgroups.

 

[Mr Anderson]

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of "Active Smart 2.41"

(http://www.ariolic.com).

As soon as I started the programme a warning popup windows appears with the
following message:

"WARNING! The drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, 122.9 GB [S/N: Y31XRT1E] indicated a
S.M.A.R.T error condition. Immediately back-up your data and replace this
hard drive!
A failure may be imminent"

How much 'clearer' do they have to make this warning for you to understand
it? What part of it makes you doubt? What are the doubts?

not the warning message makes me to have any doubts. But the red item which
causes the warning message. The problem is I cannot undertand what
"Reallocated Sector Count" means and why my hard drive is in danger
according to active smart.

 

[Mr Anderson]

hi ,
i would download and run maxtors diagnostic utility to verify the
condition of the drive . i would back up asap if it gives any
indication of problem .
hope this helps ,
terry

thanks for your answer but on maxtor's site I couldn't find any di
diagnostic utility save for powermax that runs under dos and I have winXp

==============
Posted through www.HowToFixComputers.com/bb - free access to hardware

troubleshooting newsgroups.

 

[J. Clarke]

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of "Active Smart
2.41"

(http://www.ariolic.com).

As soon as I started the programme a warning popup windows appears with the
following message:

"WARNING! The drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, 122.9 GB [S/N: Y31XRT1E] indicated
a S.M.A.R.T error condition. Immediately back-up your data and replace this
hard drive!
A failure may be imminent"

How much 'clearer' do they have to make this warning for you to
understand it? What part of it makes you doubt? What are the doubts?

not the warning message makes me to have any doubts. But the red item
which causes the warning message. The problem is I cannot undertand what
"Reallocated Sector Count" means and why my hard drive is in danger
according to active smart.

Every time the disk detects a bad sector it at the first opportunity maps it
to a spare--this is called "reallocation". As to what "reallocated sector
count" means to your program, I have no idea--it appears that the program
reports things backwards from the way common sense would have it, so that a
low number is bad and a high one is good. Apparently it does some kind of
weird calculation on the real number to get one that makes no sense at all.
One of these days somebody needs to line up all the technicians in the
world, bore holes in their heads, and pour in a few pints of common sense,
but I suspect that Satan will be seen in LL. Bean shopping for warm clothes
before that happens.

Well, given that 100 is perfect and when the count however calculated gets
down to 63 that's bad and it's being reported as 3 I'd say that that's
_real_ bad.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of "Active Smart 2.41"

(http://www.ariolic.com).

As soon as I started the programme a warning popup windows appears with the
following message:

"WARNING! The drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, 122.9 GB [S/N: Y31XRT1E] indicated a
S.M.A.R.T error condition. Immediately back-up your data and replace this
hard drive!
A failure may be imminent"

How much 'clearer' do they have to make this warning for you to understand
it? What part of it makes you doubt? What are the doubts?

not the warning message makes me to have any doubts. But the red item which
causes the warning message. The problem is I cannot undertand what
"Reallocated Sector Count" means and why my hard drive is in danger
according to active smart.

It means that it did encouter a lof of sectors it could just
barely read or not read at all and had to replace. Take the
warning literally and back-up now.

Arno

 

[Will Dormann]

thanks for your answer but on maxtor's site I couldn't find any di
diagnostic utility save for powermax that runs under dos and I have winXp

Powermax runs from a bootable floppy. You *did* read the instructions,
right?!


-WD

 

[Mr Anderson]

winXp

Powermax runs from a bootable floppy. You *did* read the instructions,
right?!


-WD

I know that, but power max tells me "cannot find dos. Press any key to
continue" and when you press any key your pc is rebootted (<---did I write
this last word correctly?)

 

[Mr Anderson]

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of "Active Smart
2.41"

(http://www.ariolic.com).

As soon as I started the programme a warning popup windows appears with
the
following message:

"WARNING! The drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, 122.9 GB [S/N: Y31XRT1E] indicated
a S.M.A.R.T error condition. Immediately back-up your data and

replace
this

hard drive!
A failure may be imminent"


How much 'clearer' do they have to make this warning for you to
understand it? What part of it makes you doubt? What are the doubts?

not the warning message makes me to have any doubts. But the red item
which causes the warning message. The problem is I cannot undertand what
"Reallocated Sector Count" means and why my hard drive is in danger
according to active smart.

Every time the disk detects a bad sector it at the first opportunity maps it
to a spare--this is called "reallocation". As to what "reallocated sector
count" means to your program, I have no idea--it appears that the program
reports things backwards from the way common sense would have it, so that a
low number is bad and a high one is good. Apparently it does some kind of
weird calculation on the real number to get one that makes no sense at all.
One of these days somebody needs to line up all the technicians in the
world, bore holes in their heads, and pour in a few pints of common sense,
but I suspect that Satan will be seen in LL. Bean shopping for warm clothes
before that happens.

Count"
is

Well, given that 100 is perfect and when the count however calculated gets
down to 63 that's bad and it's being reported as 3 I'd say that that's
_real_ bad.

I cannnot understand the whole sense of your answer (I'm italian) but I
think you advise me not to worry, don't you?
However I am scared by Arno Wagner's answer

It means that it did encouter a lof of sectors it could just
barely read or not read at all and had to replace. Take the
warning literally and back-up now

I am really confused!! What should I do????

 

[Mr Anderson]

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of "Active Smart 2.41"

(http://www.ariolic.com).

As soon as I started the programme a warning popup windows appears with
the
following message:

"WARNING! The drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, 122.9 GB [S/N: Y31XRT1E] indicated a
S.M.A.R.T error condition. Immediately back-up your data and replace this
hard drive!
A failure may be imminent"


How much 'clearer' do they have to make this warning for you to understand
it? What part of it makes you doubt? What are the doubts?

not the warning message makes me to have any doubts. But the red item which
causes the warning message. The problem is I cannot undertand what
"Reallocated Sector Count" means and why my hard drive is in danger
according to active smart.

It means that it did encouter a lof of sectors it could just
barely read or not read at all and had to replace. Take the
warning literally and back-up now.

ok, back-up and then? Drop my hd in the rubbish?

 

[Joep]

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of "Active Smart 2.41"

(http://www.ariolic.com).

As soon as I started the programme a warning popup windows appears

with
the

following message:

"WARNING! The drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, 122.9 GB [S/N: Y31XRT1E] indicated a
S.M.A.R.T error condition. Immediately back-up your data and replace this
hard drive!
A failure may be imminent"

How much 'clearer' do they have to make this warning for you to understand
it? What part of it makes you doubt? What are the doubts?

not the warning message makes me to have any doubts. But the red item which
causes the warning message. The problem is I cannot undertand what
"Reallocated Sector Count" means and why my hard drive is in danger
according to active smart.

In the status window of the programme the item "Reallocated Sector Count" is

Threshold 63
Value 3
Worst 3

Why use a SMART tool if you don't understand SMART. Also, I can't imagine
that the tool you're using doesn'et explain it's warnings in the help files.

 

[Joep]

-WD

I know that, but power max tells me "cannot find dos. Press any key to
continue" and when you press any key your pc is rebootted (<---did I write
this last word correctly?)

It's useless anyway, the SMART threshold is exceeded. The manufacturer set
the threshold for this attribute at 63, so whenever this value gets worse
the maufacturer decided that something had to be seriously wrong. Assuming
it started counting down from 100 you're way below threshold. The whole
meaning of SMART is to warn BEFORE the disaster happens, so you have time to
backup your data.

 

[CJT]

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of "Active Smart 2.41"

(http://www.ariolic.com).

As soon as I started the programme a warning popup windows appears with the
following message:

"WARNING! The drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, 122.9 GB [S/N: Y31XRT1E] indicated a
S.M.A.R.T error condition. Immediately back-up your data and replace this
hard drive!
A failure may be imminent"

In the status window of the programme the item "Reallocated Sector Count" is
red

Threshold 63
Value 3
Worst 3

What does it mean? Is really my hard drive about to crash??

Thanks for your time

Back it up NOW if you value your information.

Then, if you insist, tinker with it to your heart's content.

 

[CJT]

"Joep" <j o e p @ d i y d a t a r e c o v e r y . n l> ha scritto nel
messaggio

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of "Active Smart

2.41"

(http://www.ariolic.com).

As soon as I started the programme a warning popup windows appears

with

the

following message:

"WARNING! The drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, 122.9 GB [S/N: Y31XRT1E]

indicated a

understand


which


It means that it did encouter a lof of sectors it could just
barely read or not read at all and had to replace. Take the
warning literally and back-up now.

ok, back-up and then? Drop my hd in the rubbish?

probably

they don't last forever

 

[Will Dormann]

I am really confused!! What should I do????

Back up your data and replace the drive NOW.


-WD

 

[CJT]

Mr Anderson wrote:

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of "Active Smart
2.41"

(http://www.ariolic.com).

As soon as I started the programme a warning popup windows appears with

the

following message:

"WARNING! The drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, 122.9 GB [S/N: Y31XRT1E] indicated
a S.M.A.R.T error condition. Immediately back-up your data and replace
this

hard drive!
A failure may be imminent"


How much 'clearer' do they have to make this warning for you to
understand it? What part of it makes you doubt? What are the doubts?

not the warning message makes me to have any doubts. But the red item
which causes the warning message. The problem is I cannot undertand what
"Reallocated Sector Count" means and why my hard drive is in danger
according to active smart.

Every time the disk detects a bad sector it at the first opportunity maps it
to a spare--this is called "reallocation". As to what "reallocated sector
count" means to your program, I have no idea--it appears that the program
reports things backwards from the way common sense would have it, so that a
low number is bad and a high one is good. Apparently it does some kind of
weird calculation on the real number to get one that makes no sense at all.
One of these days somebody needs to line up all the technicians in the
world, bore holes in their heads, and pour in a few pints of common sense,
but I suspect that Satan will be seen in LL. Bean shopping for warm clothes
before that happens.

I think the folks who came up with S.M.A.R.T. decided they wanted all
the measures to be "good" at high numbers (most of them start at 100,
I think) and decline from there with declining prospects for the drive.
I don't know precisely what "reallocated sector count" means physically,
but I suspect it's something like the number of sectors which can still
be reallocated before failure.

At any rate, I'd listen to what they're saying. An ounce of prevention
is worth a pound of cure.

 

[Roger Blake]

I am really confused!! What should I do????

If you are really this confused over such a simple and straightforward
matter, I would humbly suggest that you ditch the computer and get a
typewriter.

 

[Mr Anderson]

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of "Active Smart 2.41"

(http://www.ariolic.com).

As soon as I started the programme a warning popup windows appears with
the
following message:

"WARNING! The drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, 122.9 GB [S/N: Y31XRT1E]

indicated

a

not the warning message makes me to have any doubts. But the red item which
causes the warning message. The problem is I cannot undertand what
"Reallocated Sector Count" means and why my hard drive is in danger
according to active smart.
Count"
is

Why use a SMART tool if you don't understand SMART. Also, I can't imagine
that the tool you're using doesn'et explain it's warnings in the help files.

You're right!

 

[Arno Wagner]

"Joep" <j o e p @ d i y d a t a r e c o v e r y . n l> ha scritto nel
messaggio I have downloaded and installed the trial version of "Active Smart 2.41"

(http://www.ariolic.com).

As soon as I started the programme a warning popup windows appears with
the
following message:

"WARNING! The drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, 122.9 GB [S/N: Y31XRT1E] indicated a
S.M.A.R.T error condition. Immediately back-up your data and replace
this
hard drive!
A failure may be imminent"


How much 'clearer' do they have to make this warning for you to understand
it? What part of it makes you doubt? What are the doubts?

not the warning message makes me to have any doubts. But the red item which
causes the warning message. The problem is I cannot undertand what
"Reallocated Sector Count" means and why my hard drive is in danger
according to active smart.

It means that it did encouter a lof of sectors it could just
barely read or not read at all and had to replace. Take the
warning literally and back-up now.

ok, back-up and then? Drop my hd in the rubbish?

Yes, I would say so. Maybe check the warranty status before.

Arno