[sidewinder]

Purchased new Seagate external hard drive with automatic backup. Backed up laptop and desktop. Had numerous files (photos) that would not copy from desktop. It is a partioned hard drive. On re-boot, received this warning."Immediately backup your data and replace hard drive. A failure may be imminent." You could press F1 to continue.

I have backed up data and everything else possible. It has been almost two weeks since this occured. By pressing F1 the system operates normal. QUESTION: Is it a considence that this occured durning a backup? In your opinion, do you believe this warning, or is the warning in error? Your comments and suggestions will be appreciated..

sidewinder

[Carbon]

Run the SMART utility off the BIOS to see if it was an error. You'll know then.

[sidewinder]

Thanks for your response. Additional information is needed. Where does the SMART utility reside, hard drive, BIOS etc.? You indicated to run the SMART utility outside of the BIOS. Not sure exactly what is meant unless you simply activate the SMART utility (with the system operating) and then Run. I apologize for not knowing more about the SMART utility. Additional assistance would certainly be appreciated.

sidewinder

[Cew27]

i got this error i had to replace the hard drive but could someone explain what the smart utility and the smart errors are and what they mean

[Carbon]

Originally Posted by sidewinder

Thanks for your response. Additional information is needed. Where does the SMART utility reside, hard drive, BIOS etc.? You indicated to run the SMART utility outside of the BIOS. Not sure exactly what is meant unless you simply activate the SMART utility (with the system operating) and then Run. I apologize for not knowing more about the SMART utility. Additional assistance would certainly be appreciated.

sidewinder

No - I mean inside the BIOS. On motherboards I've worked with, it's usually a subheader in the BIOS menu. Activate it from there.

[wizard1974uk]

S.M.A.R.T. basically runs a diagnostic on your hard drives at boot up and can tell you in advance if the disk is ok, in your case it has detected a problem and told you to replace your hard drive.

Even though nothing has happened yet, trust me it will. I wouldn't risk using that drive any longer, I would replace it asap.

[sidewinder]

Thanks, I have come to the same conclusion. I have already purchased a new hard drive but havent had a chance to install.

I have been pondering many other questions such as: Will my copy of windows XP work with the new 320Gb hard drive,

Will windows automatically asign new drive desiginations to the new hard drive and associated disk and external drives,

If I can use my external backup hard drive to restore data to the new hard drive considering the fact that the data was backed up from a partioned drive,

If there was any to save programs on existing hard drive (the faulty drive but still working) that came installed on the computer (no disk available).

As you can see I am just full of questions. If you have any answers I would appreciate.

sidewinder