The S.M.A.R.T. hard disk (Pysical Drive 0) may fail soon

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lance
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Lance

When I boot my windows 2000 service pack 4 laptop up, I
get this message from Windows Script Host:
The S.M.A.R.T. hard disk (Pysical Drive 0) may fail soon

Laptop is only a year old, and my first thought is the
drive is going to die. Someone told me it might be a
virus. Anyone know what might be the problem?

Thanks
 
Lance said:
When I boot my windows 2000 service pack 4 laptop up, I
get this message from Windows Script Host:
The S.M.A.R.T. hard disk (Pysical Drive 0) may fail soon

Laptop is only a year old, and my first thought is the
drive is going to die. Someone told me it might be a
virus. Anyone know what might be the problem?

Thanks
Click to expand...
 
Lance said:
When I boot my windows 2000 service pack 4 laptop up, I
get this message from Windows Script Host:
The S.M.A.R.T. hard disk (Pysical Drive 0) may fail soon

Laptop is only a year old, and my first thought is the
drive is going to die. Someone told me it might be a
virus. Anyone know what might be the problem?

Thanks
Click to expand...

It's probably not a virus. This is your computer's S.M.A.R.T.
(Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) system reporting that
your hard drive is failing. It's usually pretty accurate. Back up all your
important data and have the drive serviced or replaced by a technician.

--

Mike Brown
Asset Forwarding Corp.
EPA-compliant Electronics Recycling
DoD 5220.22-M Data Elimination
http://www.assetforwarding.com
 
At the very least download and run the drive diagnostic from the drive
manufacturer. Sometimes such a utility can "recertify" such a drive. And
the drive itself may be warranteed and replaceable; discuss this with
tech support (you may need to talk with them anyway to get the diagnostic.)

SMART is basically a set of error counters, with threshholds that
generate such warnings. Errors can have many causes. Sometimes, for
example, a particular drive sector may be going bad; a diagnostic can
make sure the sector is actually marked bad so the system won't use it.
In such a case, depending on why the sector is going bad, the
recertified drive may never have problems again. (Then again...)
 
Lance said:
When I boot my windows 2000 service pack 4 laptop up, I
get this message from Windows Script Host:
The S.M.A.R.T. hard disk (Pysical Drive 0) may fail soon
Click to expand...
Laptop is only a year old, and my first thought is the
drive is going to die. Someone told me it might be a
virus. Anyone know what might be the problem?
Click to expand...

It probably isn't a virus.

SMART is technology built into most modern drives for monitoring and
pre-emptive warning of failure.

Normally you should see an error during boot up, before Windows loads,
if one or more drive parameters has wandered sufficiently out of
tolerance for SMART to consider the drive as failing. That said, I
seem to recall in Windows itself the errors are recorded in the event
log rather than Windows Script Host so it may be red herring.

At very least I'd backup and run the manufacturers diagnostics on the
drives. It may well be nothing; the SMART implementation on IDE
drives tends to be pretty crap but it's worth checking out.

--
 
Your drive IS going to die.
Backup EVERYTHING!
Get a replacement drive. Bigger is better.
 
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