A little history, so you know what this hard drive's been doing...

I've got a laptop running XP Home (sp2, I believe) that BSOD'd last week, then gave me a "missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM " error when booting; it wouldn't even boot to Safe Mode.

Using UBCD4Win, I rolled back the registry and got the laptop to boot on its own. However, it was still "shaky" -- slow, prone to freezes, etc. ChkDsk found nothing wrong.

Then it BSOD'd again a couple days later, and when I re-booted I would see the HP logo and the option to go to BIOS setup, and after that just a dark screen. During the dark screen I didn't hear the hard drive "working" like you would expect it to during a boot-up, so it seems that the boot process was simply stopping. Notably, I couldn't even boot from the UBCD4Win in the CD drive! I could get to BIOS setup, and ran both the short and long HDD tests; results were fine.

Upon booting it up again, I got a new error:
--------------
SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 0: Toshiba MK6021GAS-(PM)
WARNING: Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard disk drive.
A failure may be imminent.
Press F1 to continue.
--------------

I pressed F1, and the laptop proceeded to boot up, with a dialog box informing me that it had "recovered from a serious error."

So...

With my trustee UBCD4Win disc in hand, what in blazes do I need to do to test and fix this thing, if that is possible? Since ChkDsk and the HDD test turned up nothing... I'm not sure how to proceed.

Thanks for any guidance! The laptop is a HP Pavilion zv5000.

When you get that error stating that ...

SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 0: Toshiba MK6021GAS-(PM)
WARNING: Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard disk drive.
A failure may be imminent.


You had better take it seriously... backup your data now. Do not gamble with it now or you will likely loose the data soon.

There is a very slim possibility that you can get the Toshiba diagnostic software from their website, have it ZERO out the drive ( it may call it a low level format ) and recover from this if it is caused by excessive errors on the drive... this is such a slim chance that I would not count on it nor would I trust the drive.

Certain smart errors can be fixed with a zero wipe. However as rdsok states this may not correct the problem fully and the error may return or the drive simply fail.

Backup your data and buy a new hdd.

Smart error messages usually mean there is something seriously wrong with the mechanics of the hdd. Bin it and get a new one.

If you wish to try and fix it, you will still need to backup your data as it's a destructive method, if there is a hidden restore partition this will be deleted by a zero wipe and you may not be able restore your OS. So before you start make sure you have a OS installation CD.

You need to run the hdd manufacturers hdd diagnostic tool on the hdd, this will give you a error code on the smart warning this will give some indication if a zero format will fix the problem. However from experience it's unlikely that it will, so I'm afraid it will require a new hdd.

To find out what bad SMART attributes the drive has you need to run HDTune. Well, if you are able to boot into the project again. While the guys are right that sometimes you can still use the drive, it just really depends on what attributes are being reported as bad or questionable. I usually see #5 reported as bad and always recommend to my customers they replace the drive. I always explain that HDD health is not a perfect science but I'd rather play it safe, especially since maybe 10% of my customers actually backup their data!!
So if you are able to see what attributes are bad for your HDD, do some Google searching to see if they are fatal or potentially fatal to the drive and see what is recommended.

Hopefully you can backup your data before the drive goes completely dead. Be warned also that the backup will probably take a few hours. Bad drives take longer to backup because of problems with the drive and laptop hard drives are slower.

If you replace the drive, stroll over to NewEgg. Be careful when picking your new drive. If you don't have much money and can get away with only a 20Gig HDD, NewEgg has one for $30! If you want a little more space it will cost you $50-80. Do not pick a 4200 RPM drive, make sure you get at least a 5200. If you are looking for performance then you are looking to spend roughly $80-$120 for a 7200RPM drive.
Shortly after I got my laptop back in May I noticed it's performance decrease. So I fired up HDTune and it reported #5 attribute as bad. After some research I wanted to be safe rather than sorry. I personally do not care about battery life, I just want the best performance. So back then I think I dropped $110 for a 7200 drive.

Good luck fixing your system!!

Okay, so... Got a few follow-up questions.

According to the person I am buying this laptop from, it performed just fine. I noticed right away upon obtaining it that it seemed a bit sluggish -- but maybe that's because laptop hdd's are not as speedy? Anyway, he was wondering, due to the suddenness of the problems, if perhaps a virus might be the culprit...?

Or what about a bad OS upgrade? The laptop initially had auto-upgrade running; might that have introduced some kind of problem?

OR... do SMART errors only occur when there are PHYSICAL problems with the drive (as opposed to viruses or software conflicts)?

Finally: Where does HDTune come from , and what the heck is the "#5 attribute"?


Thanks for your thoughts on all this.

I'm not aware of any virus that causes SMART errors on a hard disk. Dude, this error is coming from the drive hardware itself to the disk controller/bios on your computer... not to say some viruses can't affect those areas of a computer, but I'm not aware of CompUSA, Best Buy, or hitachi, maxtor, seagate or other vendors releasing such a virus so as to bump up their sales of new drives

A few ppl have already suggested you backup your data and go shopping for a new drive... take the advice seriously. You just never can tell... sometimes you can see a drive last a while after starting to get some SMART errors (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) as Steel said - it depends on what is actually causing the drive (and yes - the hardware itself) to generate the errors, and what type of errors they actually are.

HDTune is one of the disk diagnostic utilities included with the UBCD4WIN project. When Steel refers to 'attributes' he's talking about physical characteristics and error conditions that the SMART feature on your hard drive keeps track of and reports on. Attribute #5 is "Reallocated Sector Count" and has to do with how many sectors the drive has had to mark as "bad" and remap to a different area of the hard disk to maintain operation. Once a certain number of sectors go bad, you're looking at a pattern of failure and degradation that could mean the end of that drives life is near. HDTune let's you take a look at the 'health' of the drive by reporting these statistics to you in a gui...

And call Toshiba to see if the thing might still be under warranty...

http://www.hdtune.com/

If your having trouble locating HDD tune, here's the direct link. This tool can be run within windows.

As steje said this is very unlikely to be a virus, as far as I'm aware there's no virus that gives out false Smart messages. The message you are seeing is from the hdd itself, it's warning you it has physical problems and you should act immediately. Perhaps it's bad sector error threshold has been exceeded or it could be a number of other things the most important thing is to back up your data.

HAVE YOU BACKED UP YOUR DATA YET???

While asking more questions have you backed up your data yet??? This is the most important thing you can do, ask more questions when you have done this task.

Believe me everything else is secondary until you have backed up your data, do this before anything else.

You've had 4 people giving you advice and the one common thread is to back up your data. If you lose your drive the only way to get your data back will be through a data recovery lab in a clean room. This will not be cheap and will cost from around $200+ upwards depending on what's wrong with the drive and the amount of data to be recovered.

BACK UP YOUR DATA

Sorry to keep on at you, but this is the most single important thing you can do right now.

But should I back up my data?

j/k Thanks for harping on that. It IS very important. Fortunately for me, the data is already backed up. I didn't really have anything consequential on this machine yet anyway, since I just got it.

As for my follow-ups.... I just wanted to double-check that SMART failures can't be caused or mimicked by viruses or bad MS updates. Current status: can't boot up; back to the plain black screen. Is there really any point in slaving the drive and running HDTune on it? Seems the drive is failing no matter what, and HDTune would only tell me how badly or how quickly... right?

In the meantime, I'll call the relative from whom I obtained this laptop and see what, if anything, may still be under warranty.

As I've said I'm unaware of any virus that can give false SMART error messages, however it's extremely unlikely that this is a virus.



Smart can give false messages whoever if you are experiencing problems ie windows loading very slowly, PC not booting into OS it's probably not a false error message but a genuine message indicating hdd failure is going to happen.

I think ppl only started talking about HDTune as a reaction to the idea that 'some' SMART errors could be 'fixable' with things like LLF or zero wipe techniques. In Galisteo8's case, I don't think there's much point in running HDTune other than to soothe curiosity... get a new drive man .

Personal peev... I know some ppl are fans of 'resetting' SMART errors or otherwise seemingly fixing them with LLF and zero wipes, but I think that can often lead to a false sense of security.

I believe you all. However, I *did* get it to boot off the CD again, so I ran HDTune out of curiosity... and wonder of wonders, the only "bad" attribute was in fact #5:

(05) Reallocated Sector Count
Current 5
Worst 5
Threshhold 50
Data 1014
Status FAILED


So far, I've found some good pricing at TigerDirect.com: a 60 Gig Seagate, 5400 RPM, about $70.

Would there be a significant performance improvement in a 7200 over a 5400, in a laptop?

--Galisteo8

Yes again.. as Steeltrepid said... if you can get a 7200rpm drive.

Alas, I do not think a 7200 rpm is compatible with my model.

This is the speed the drive motor spins at and has nothing to do with compatibility. Drive physical size, storage capacity and interface type is all you need to concern yourself with.

You can only fix bad sector errors with a low level format providing that the sectors aren't physically damaged, I have fixed a few with this method however I've always replaced the drive in any PC where I've found this error. There is no guarantee that using a low level format will eliminate the error and that it won't re-appear.

I've still got a 40gb at home that gave out a smart warning that still works, although I've had to partition around the bad sector that can't be fixed. That drive is in a USB external case and works fine, although I wouldn't trust it with anything I needed to keep just because it has in the past failed a SMART error.

Don't forget when you send back a drive to any hdd manufacturer they "fix" the drives and ship them out to other warranty returns.