@Poster
Would you rather we tell you that your drive can be fixed for a fee? You created a thread earlier where you got responses, and still, this thread was created.
Let me go through what is happening in FULL DETAILS now, maybe you'D see some reason:
IntroductionHard drives are known to fail at some time due to a lot of factors(physical shock, electrical shock and environmental factors).
In an effort to help users avoid data loss, drive manufacturers are now incorporating logic into their drives that acts as an "early warning system" for pending drive problems. This system is called
Self-
Monitoring
Analysis and
Reporting
Technology (
SMART). The hard disk's integrated controller works with various sensors to monitor various aspects of the drive's performance, determines from this information if the drive is behaving normally or not, and makes available status information to software that probes the drive and look at it.
The fundamental principle behind SMART is that many problems with hard disks don't occur suddenly. They result from a slow degradation of various mechanical or electronic components.
SMART evolved from a technology developed by
IBM called
Predictive
Failure
Analysis (PFA).
Drive Failure Types:PFA divides failures into two categories:
- Predictable Failures
- Unpredictable Failures
Predictable failures occur slowly over time, and often provide clues to their gradual failing that can be detected. An example of such a predictable failure is the spindle motor bearing burnout: this will often occur over a long time, and can be detected by paying attention to how long the drive takes to spin up or down, by monitoring the temperature of the bearings, or by keeping track of how much current the spindle motor uses.
An example of an
unpredictable failure would be the burnout of a chip on the hard disk's logic board: often, this will "just happen" one day. Clearly, these sorts of unpredictable failures cannot be planned for.
Real DealClearly, SMART is a useful tool but not one that is foolproof: it can detect some sorts of problems, but others it has no clue about.
A good analogy for this feature would be to consider it like the warning lights on the dashboard of your car: something to pay attention to, but not to totally rely upon.
You should not assume that because SMART generated an alert, there is definitely a drive problem, or conversely, that the lack of an alarm means the drive cannot possibly be having a problem.
It certainly is no replacement for proper hard disk care and maintenance, or routine and current backups.
"SMART FAILURE PREDICTED ON HARD DISK 2:ST9120821AS-(S1).\
WARNING: IMMEDIATELY BACK UP DATA & REPLACE YOUR HARD DRIVE. A FAILURE MAY BE IMMINENT.
Read the area in bold marks: Keyword there is "MAY . Remember, in your other thread, I told you getting that message is not a final say that your drive is going to crash!
I have a colleague that has been getting thesame message since last year and still is waiting for the"supposed" imminent failure.
So, if the message bothers you so much, two things you can do:
- Go into the BIOS and switch off the S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring tool.
- Get a new harddisk.
Besides that, there's probably no escaping the messagefor life