laptop hard drives

[Guest jaz]

was on another forum and saw this

 

My laptop (HP Compaq) is showing a black screen that says roughly that I

should back up my data because the hard disk 2 maybe failing

 

 

never had a h-d fail. do they give warning before they do crash?

 

 

 

there was no answer on the other forum.

 

thanks

[Guest Dallas]

RE: laptop hard drives

 

Sometimes if you are luck you do get subtle warnings. Most of the time your

drive will die without any warning. Defenately back up your data. At this

point you may want to put the drive in the freezer for couple of hours as

the cold will hard the platters and preserve your data. I know this sounds

crazy but we do it at work all the time to save data. Buy a hard drive

enlosure if you do not already have one for laptop drives then put the drive

in it when you are ready and back the data up. Do a diagnostic on the drive

get the error codes. Then if the hard drive is under warranty get it

replaced. This is my recommendation.

 

"jaz" wrote:

> was on another forum and saw this

>

> My laptop (HP Compaq) is showing a black screen that says roughly that I

> should back up my data because the hard disk 2 maybe failing

>

>

> never had a h-d fail. do they give warning before they do crash?

>

>

>

> there was no answer on the other forum.

>

> thanks

>

>

[Guest BillW50]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

In news:0F661013-39FE-456A-9E1B-6925FDEF792F@microsoft.com,

jaz typed on Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:39:02 -0700:

> was on another forum and saw this

>

> My laptop (HP Compaq) is showing a black screen that says roughly

> that I should back up my data because the hard disk 2 maybe failing

>

> never had a h-d fail. do they give warning before they do crash?

>

> there was no answer on the other forum.

>

> thanks

 

I had a couple brand new drives fail in days. And yes, they can take awhile

to fail or they can just suddenly quit. One of the new drives that failed on

me I kept it going for about 7 months. And then the other new one, I shut it

down one day and turned it on the next and there was nothing. Completely

dead!

 

Now on the other hand, besides the above. Hard drives are sensitive towards

bumps and shock. Desktop machines don't get moved around much so they

usually don't suffer from this. But laptops can be bounced around while they

are running and causes the head to crash into the platter. The hard drive

can take this abuse some, but it can an early death.

 

That is why SSD (solid state drives) in laptops are a big plus for such an

enviroment. For example, the Asus EEE PC uses them and you can bounce it all

day and night and there is no head and platter to crash. So that will never

cause it to fail.

 

--

Bill

Gateway Celeron M 370 (1.5GHZ)

MX6124 (laptop) w/2GB

Windows XP Home SP2 (120GB HD)

Intel® 910GML (64MB shared)

[Guest Patrick Keenan]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

 

"jaz" <jaz@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:0F661013-39FE-456A-9E1B-6925FDEF792F@microsoft.com...

> was on another forum and saw this

>

> My laptop (HP Compaq) is showing a black screen that says roughly that I

> should back up my data because the hard disk 2 maybe failing

>

>

> never had a h-d fail. do they give warning before they do crash?

 

This is the SMART feature, and there is absolutely no benefit in doubting

what it tells you.

 

At this point, the drive has a limited number of hours of operation left.

Don't waste them by running it or trying to fix it; all you should do is

recover your data.

 

Remove the drive, get a new one of the same connector type (IDE or SATA),

clone the old one to the new one. This should take about an hour unless the

drive really is failing. Install the new one and proceed.

 

If the drive is in poor shape, you'll have to reinstall or restore the OS

to the new hard disk, install your apps, then attach your old drive and

copy your data over as quickly as possible.

 

HTH

-pk

 

>

>

>

> there was no answer on the other forum.

>

> thanks

>

>

[Guest Patrick Keenan]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

 

"Dallas" <Dallas@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:47953AC0-B63A-453C-B256-9930EFEAF76D@microsoft.com...

> Sometimes if you are luck you do get subtle warnings. Most of the time

> your

> drive will die without any warning. Defenately back up your data. At this

> point you may want to put the drive in the freezer for couple of hours as

> the cold will hard the platters and preserve your data. I know this sounds

> crazy but we do it at work all the time to save data. Buy a hard drive

> enlosure if you do not already have one for laptop drives then put the

> drive

> in it when you are ready and back the data up. Do a diagnostic on the

> drive

> get the error codes. Then if the hard drive is under warranty get it

> replaced. This is my recommendation.

 

One comment about warranty replacements - yes if the warranty applies you

should exercise it but data must be backed up FIRST as the manufacturer will

show no respect to it. Once you send that drive back, whatever is on it is

lost to you.

 

-pk

 

>

> "jaz" wrote:

>

>> was on another forum and saw this

>>

>> My laptop (HP Compaq) is showing a black screen that says roughly that I

>> should back up my data because the hard disk 2 maybe failing

>>

>>

>> never had a h-d fail. do they give warning before they do crash?

>>

>>

>>

>> there was no answer on the other forum.

>>

>> thanks

>>

>>

[Guest BillW50]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

In news:%23hfthOl$IHA.5956@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl,

Patrick Keenan typed on Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:20:47 -0400:

> This is the SMART feature, and there is absolutely no benefit in

> doubting what it tells you...

 

SMART can only predict 30% of failures. So I would put 70% of a doubt.

 

https://calomel.org/smart_hd_status.html

 

--

Bill

Black Asus EEE PC 4GB 2GB SoDIMM Adata 16GB

Windows XP SP2 and Xandros Linux

[Guest John John (MVP)]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

No doubt anyone ignoring SMART warnings has to accept the possibility of

losing all the data on the disk. Some people know this and willingly

accept that possibility, the drive doesn't contain anything of value.

The others are simply not the sharpest tool in the shed...

 

John

 

BillW50 wrote:

> In news:%23hfthOl$IHA.5956@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl,

> Patrick Keenan typed on Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:20:47 -0400:

>

>>This is the SMART feature, and there is absolutely no benefit in

>>doubting what it tells you...

>

>

> SMART can only predict 30% of failures. So I would put 70% of a doubt.

>

> https://calomel.org/smart_hd_status.html

>

[Guest Navigator]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:20:47 -0400, "Patrick Keenan" <test@dev.null>

wrote:

>

>"jaz" <jaz@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

>news:0F661013-39FE-456A-9E1B-6925FDEF792F@microsoft.com...

>> was on another forum and saw this

>>

>> My laptop (HP Compaq) is showing a black screen that says roughly that I

>> should back up my data because the hard disk 2 maybe failing

>>

>>

>> never had a h-d fail. do they give warning before they do crash?

>

>This is the SMART feature, and there is absolutely no benefit in doubting

>what it tells you.

>

>At this point, the drive has a limited number of hours of operation left.

>Don't waste them by running it or trying to fix it; all you should do is

>recover your data.

>

>Remove the drive, get a new one of the same connector type (IDE or SATA),

>clone the old one to the new one. This should take about an hour unless the

>drive really is failing. Install the new one and proceed.

>

>If the drive is in poor shape, you'll have to reinstall or restore the OS

>to the new hard disk, install your apps, then attach your old drive and

>copy your data over as quickly as possible.

>

>HTH

>-pk

Having read that, I'll play the flip side of the coin: I've seen tons

of Hard Drives that indicate a failure in SMART yet were still running

months later. It's a warning but not a completely accurate one. It's

like a highway sign warning you to slow down going around a curve:

it's OK to play it safe and slow down (aka replace the drive) but you

are usually fine holding the same speed going round the curve (not

replacing the drive).

 

Ultimately the choice is up to you. If you back up your data

regularly a HD replacement is not a big deal anyway. I say run it

until it dies.

[Guest Patrick Keenan]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

 

"BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote in message

news:Of8VgZl$IHA.5956@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

> In news:%23hfthOl$IHA.5956@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl,

> Patrick Keenan typed on Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:20:47 -0400:

>> This is the SMART feature, and there is absolutely no benefit in

>> doubting what it tells you...

>

> SMART can only predict 30% of failures. So I would put 70% of a doubt.

 

I'm not sure you thought this through.

 

What you appear to be saying is that there's 70% chance that the SMART

features *missed* errors, not a 30% chance that it's reporting something as

error that isn't one.

 

Which really means that if it's reported an error, there is a significantly

higher probablity of it being a real, serious error and that the drive is

much closer to failure.

 

A black screen and system halt is a good sign that the drive should be

replaced. And with half-terabyte drives approaching $60, where's the

benefit to wasting time and losing data?

 

The only valid reason to ignore the SMART errors is to watch what happens as

a drive fails. Which is usually a pretty short show, and if the data on it

was of value you're going to pay much more to a service bureau to open the

drive and hook it up to their controllers to scrape the data off.

>

> https://calomel.org/smart_hd_status.html

 

Yeah, and if you actually read that, it doesn't say that there is any

benefit in ignoring SMART errors.

 

HTH

-pk

> --

> Bill

> Black Asus EEE PC 4GB 2GB SoDIMM Adata 16GB

> Windows XP SP2 and Xandros Linux

>

[Guest BillW50]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

In news:uuiqPim$IHA.3964@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl,

John John (MVP) typed on Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:50:51 -0300:

> No doubt anyone ignoring SMART warnings has to accept the possibility

> of losing all the data on the disk. Some people know this and

> willingly accept that possibility, the drive doesn't contain anything

> of value. The others are simply not the sharpest tool in the shed...

>

> BillW50 wrote:

>

>> In news:%23hfthOl$IHA.5956@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl,

>> Patrick Keenan typed on Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:20:47 -0400:

>>

>>> This is the SMART feature, and there is absolutely no benefit in

>>> doubting what it tells you...

>>

>>

>> SMART can only predict 30% of failures. So I would put 70% of a

>> doubt. https://calomel.org/smart_hd_status.html

 

Then again John I pushed a hard drive that started acting up brand new

without a warrantee for over 7 months. I never lost a thing. I also bought a

hard drive back in '91 and it failed within a week. I returned it and the

one I got back had a label on it and it said prototype and it had bad

sectors on it. Worse the seals were all broken.

 

I complained of course and the tech asked me if there was more bad sectors

after I got it? And I said no. He said then don't worry about it. I didn't

like that answer but I was going to nail him if it got worse. And today that

same drive still works fine. That is 17 years later.

 

--

Bill

Black Asus EEE PC 4GB 2GB SoDIMM Adata 16GB

Windows XP SP2 and Xandros Linux

[Guest John John (MVP)]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

BillW50 wrote:

> Then again John I pushed a hard drive that started acting up brand new

> without a warrantee for over 7 months. I never lost a thing. I also bought a

> hard drive back in '91 and it failed within a week. I returned it and the

> one I got back had a label on it and it said prototype and it had bad

> sectors on it. Worse the seals were all broken.

>

> I complained of course and the tech asked me if there was more bad sectors

> after I got it? And I said no. He said then don't worry about it. I didn't

> like that answer but I was going to nail him if it got worse. And today that

> same drive still works fine. That is 17 years later.

 

Some people are diagnosed with terminal illnesses and given a short time

to live, then their illness goes into remission and they live to an old

age, or their physician made an incorrect diagnosis. But an

overwhelming number of patients die within the predicted time frame.

 

SMART is not a 100% accurate prediction but it is a warning that trouble

may lay ahead. While you had one drive last 17 years after it gave you

a SMART error the flip side of the coin is that for every drive that

lasts 17 years tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of drives do

not last more than a year. On kiosk computers in coffer shops or on toy

computers where nothing of any value is stored one may chose to ignore

the errors and see how long the drive lives, on any machine that is

important for work or daily life or that is used to work with important

data ignoring the error is simply not a very smart thing to do! People

may read your posts and think that they can reasonably safely ignore

SMART warnings, they may misunderstand your post as advice given and it

may (or will) become bad advice that they wish they hadn't followed.

 

John

[Guest John John (MVP)]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

John John (MVP) wrote:

> BillW50 wrote:

>

>> Then again John I pushed a hard drive that started acting up brand new

>> without a warrantee for over 7 months. I never lost a thing. I also

>> bought a hard drive back in '91 and it failed within a week. I

>> returned it and the one I got back had a label on it and it said

>> prototype and it had bad sectors on it. Worse the seals were all broken.

>>

>> I complained of course and the tech asked me if there was more bad

>> sectors after I got it? And I said no. He said then don't worry about

>> it. I didn't like that answer but I was going to nail him if it got

>> worse. And today that same drive still works fine. That is 17 years

>> later.

>

>

> Some people are diagnosed with terminal illnesses and given a short time

> to live, then their illness goes into remission and they live to an old

> age, or their physician made an incorrect diagnosis. But an

> overwhelming number of patients die within the predicted time frame.

>

> SMART is not a 100% accurate prediction but it is a warning that trouble

> may lay ahead. While you had one drive last 17 years after it gave you

> a SMART error the flip side of the coin is that for every drive that

> lasts 17 years tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of drives do

> not last more than a year. On kiosk computers in coffer shops or on toy

> computers where nothing of any value is stored one may chose to ignore

> the errors and see how long the drive lives, on any machine that is

> important for work or daily life or that is used to work with important

> data ignoring the error is simply not a very smart thing to do! People

> may read your posts and think that they can reasonably safely ignore

> SMART warnings, they may misunderstand your post as advice given and it

> may (or will) become bad advice that they wish they hadn't followed.

 

PS: Who in the heck would use a 17 year old hard drive? Today that

would make it a drive from circa 1991, how big would that drive be? A

couple hundred MBs? What use would that be today? 17 years from now

Windows will probably need 54 terabytes of disk space to install and

today's 500 GB drives will be puny!

 

John

[Guest BillW50]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

In news:ONYMP8m$IHA.1184@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl,

Patrick Keenan typed on Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:37:03 -0400:

> "BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote in message

> news:Of8VgZl$IHA.5956@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

>> In news:%23hfthOl$IHA.5956@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl,

>> Patrick Keenan typed on Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:20:47 -0400:

>>> This is the SMART feature, and there is absolutely no benefit in

>>> doubting what it tells you...

>>

>> SMART can only predict 30% of failures. So I would put 70% of a

>> doubt.

>

> I'm not sure you thought this through.

>

> What you appear to be saying is that there's 70% chance that the SMART

> features *missed* errors, not a 30% chance that it's reporting

> something as error that isn't one.

>

> Which really means that if it's reported an error, there is a

> significantly higher probablity of it being a real, serious error and

> that the drive is much closer to failure.

>

> A black screen and system halt is a good sign that the drive should be

> replaced. And with half-terabyte drives approaching $60, where's

> the benefit to wasting time and losing data?

>

> The only valid reason to ignore the SMART errors is to watch what

> happens as a drive fails. Which is usually a pretty short show, and

> if the data on it was of value you're going to pay much more to a

> service bureau to open the drive and hook it up to their controllers

> to scrape the data off.

>> https://calomel.org/smart_hd_status.html

>

> Yeah, and if you actually read that, it doesn't say that there is any

> benefit in ignoring SMART errors.

 

No I am taking about both sides of the coin. SMART can say backup now and

get rid of that drive and the cases where the drive fails and SMART said

until the last working moments that everything is fine.

 

You seem to be concern with SMART saying the drive is going to go. Well that

isn't 100% reliable either. And there are many cases where SMART says the

drive is going to fail and it doesn't.

 

--

Bill

Black Asus EEE PC 4GB 2GB SoDIMM Adata 16GB

Windows XP SP2 and Xandros Linux

[Guest BillW50]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

In news:uzOjxfn$IHA.3380@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl,

John John (MVP) typed on Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:40:57 -0300:

> BillW50 wrote:

>

>> Then again John I pushed a hard drive that started acting up brand

>> new without a warrantee for over 7 months. I never lost a thing. I

>> also bought a hard drive back in '91 and it failed within a week. I

>> returned it and the one I got back had a label on it and it said

>> prototype and it had bad sectors on it. Worse the seals were all

>> broken. I complained of course and the tech asked me if there was more

>> bad

>> sectors after I got it? And I said no. He said then don't worry

>> about it. I didn't like that answer but I was going to nail him if

>> it got worse. And today that same drive still works fine. That is 17

>> years later.

>

> Some people are diagnosed with terminal illnesses and given a short

> time to live, then their illness goes into remission and they live to

> an old age, or their physician made an incorrect diagnosis. But an

> overwhelming number of patients die within the predicted time frame.

 

This maybe so for those that does believe they would die. Those that doesn't

believe so have far much better odds.

> SMART is not a 100% accurate prediction but it is a warning that

> trouble may lay ahead. While you had one drive last 17 years after

> it gave you a SMART error the flip side of the coin is that for every

> drive that lasts 17 years tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands

> of drives do not last more than a year. On kiosk computers in coffer

> shops or on toy computers where nothing of any value is stored one

> may chose to ignore the errors and see how long the drive lives, on

> any machine that is important for work or daily life or that is used

> to work with important data ignoring the error is simply not a very

> smart thing to do! People may read your posts and think that they

> can reasonably safely ignore SMART warnings, they may misunderstand

> your post as advice given and it may (or will) become bad advice that

> they wish they hadn't followed.

 

First of all. there was no SMART technology 17 years ago and I was just

going by there was bad sectors that I didn't like. Sure I doubted the wisdom

of the tech (the seal was broken and had bad sectors remember) and I was an

engineer and I didn't like it. But it turned out the tech was right and I

was wrong.

 

I am not saying that SMART warning are not wrong. I am just saying take them

with a grain of salt. They could be right or they could be wrong. According

to Google (who has 100,000 drives), they are right about 30% of the time.

 

--

Bill

Black Asus EEE PC 4GB 2GB SoDIMM Adata 16GB

Windows XP SP2 and Xandros Linux

[Guest BillW50]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

In news:Oud2ion$IHA.4780@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl,

John John (MVP) typed on Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:56:39 -0300:

>> BillW50 wrote:

>>

>>> Then again John I pushed a hard drive that started acting up brand

>>> new without a warrantee for over 7 months. I never lost a thing. I

>>> also bought a hard drive back in '91 and it failed within a week. I

>>> returned it and the one I got back had a label on it and it said

>>> prototype and it had bad sectors on it. Worse the seals were all

>>> broken. I complained of course and the tech asked me if there was more

>>> bad

>>> sectors after I got it? And I said no. He said then don't worry

>>> about it. I didn't like that answer but I was going to nail him if

>>> it got worse. And today that same drive still works fine. That is

>>> 17 years later.

>>

>>

>> Some people are diagnosed with terminal illnesses and given a short

>> time to live, then their illness goes into remission and they live

>> to an old age, or their physician made an incorrect diagnosis. But

>> an overwhelming number of patients die within the predicted time

>> frame. SMART is not a 100% accurate prediction but it is a warning that

>> trouble may lay ahead. While you had one drive last 17 years after

>> it gave you a SMART error the flip side of the coin is that for

>> every drive that lasts 17 years tens of thousands, or hundreds of

>> thousands of drives do not last more than a year. On kiosk

>> computers in coffer shops or on toy computers where nothing of any

>> value is stored one may chose to ignore the errors and see how long

>> the drive lives, on any machine that is important for work or daily

>> life or that is used to work with important data ignoring the error

>> is simply not a very smart thing to do! People may read your posts

>> and think that they can reasonably safely ignore SMART warnings,

>> they may misunderstand your post as advice given and it may (or

>> will) become bad advice that they wish they hadn't followed.

>

> PS: Who in the heck would use a 17 year old hard drive?

 

Today I only fire it up to see if it still works.

> Today that would make it a drive from circa 1991, how big would that drive

> be? A

> couple hundred MBs? What use would that be today?

 

It is a 20MB HD and I used for for DOS programs a lot. Yes I did buy it in

'91. I didn't touch Windows until 1993 with Windows 3.1.

> 17 years from now Windows will probably need 54 terabytes of disk space to

> install and today's 500 GB drives will be puny!

 

Good for me, since I like to record from my my TV card. The lowest speed

that I still like is one GB per hour in MPEG format.

 

--

Bill

Black Asus EEE PC 4GB 2GB SoDIMM Adata 16GB

Windows XP SP2 and Xandros Linux

[Guest John John (MVP)]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

BillW50 wrote:

> I am not saying that SMART warning are not wrong. I am just saying take them

> with a grain of salt. They could be right or they could be wrong. According

> to Google (who has 100,000 drives), they are right about 30% of the time.

 

I think you misread that article that you pointed us to. This is what I

read there:

 

"Mechanical failures, which are usually predictable failures, account

for 60 percent of drive failure. The purpose of S.M.A.R.T. is to warn a

user or system administrator of impending drive failure while time

remains to take preventative action such as copying the data to a

replacement device. Approximately 30% of failures can be predicted by

S.M.A.R.T."

 

It doesn't say that S.M.A.R.T. is only right 30% of the time, it says

that S.M.A.R.T. can detect about 30% of failures before they happen, or

that it can't detect the other 70% of failures, or that 70% of failures

occur without S.M.A.R.T. warning. There is a big difference in what is

said there and what you say. Others can read the reference material you

gave us and I think they will see it the same way I see it. As for your

comment that Google claims that S.M.A.R.T. is only right 30% of the

time, there again nowheres in the material that you present does it say

that. Here is what it says about the 100,000 drives at Google:

 

"Work at Google on over 100,000 drives has shown little overall

predictive value of S.M.A.R.T. status as a whole, but that certain

sub-categories of information S.M.A.R.T. implementations might track do

correlate with actual failure rates - specifically that following the

first scan error, drives are 39 times more likely to fail within 60 days

than drives with no such errors and first errors in reallocations,

offline reallocations, and probational counts are also strongly

correlated to higher failure probabilities."

 

There again, it doesn't say that S.M.A.R.T. is only right 30% of the

time, quite to the contrary it says that drives are 39 times more likely

to fail after receiving S.M.A.R.T. errors! All that the research or

work at Google says is that S.M.A.R.T. is of limited value in detecting

eminent failures, in other words drives often fail without any

S.M.A.R.T. errors, nowhere does it say that only 30% of drives with

S.M.A.R.T. errors fail, to the contrary it says that most fail within 60

days.

 

John

[Guest BillW50]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

In news:Oq0xRko$IHA.6132@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl,

John John (MVP) typed on Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:43:33 -0300:

> BillW50 wrote:

>

>> I am not saying that SMART warning are not wrong. I am just saying

>> take them with a grain of salt. They could be right or they could be

>> wrong. According to Google (who has 100,000 drives), they are right

>> about 30% of the time.

>

> I think you misread that article that you pointed us to. This is

> what I read there:

>

> "Mechanical failures, which are usually predictable failures, account

> for 60 percent of drive failure. The purpose of S.M.A.R.T. is to warn

> a user or system administrator of impending drive failure while time

> remains to take preventative action such as copying the data to a

> replacement device. Approximately 30% of failures can be predicted by

> S.M.A.R.T."

>

> It doesn't say that S.M.A.R.T. is only right 30% of the time, it says

> that S.M.A.R.T. can detect about 30% of failures before they happen,

> or that it can't detect the other 70% of failures, or that 70% of

> failures occur without S.M.A.R.T. warning. There is a big difference

> in what is said there and what you say. Others can read the

> reference material you gave us and I think they will see it the same

> way I see it. As for your comment that Google claims that S.M.A.R.T.

> is only right 30% of the time, there again nowheres in the material

> that you present does it say that. Here is what it says about the

> 100,000 drives at Google:

> "Work at Google on over 100,000 drives has shown little overall

> predictive value of S.M.A.R.T. status as a whole, but that certain

> sub-categories of information S.M.A.R.T. implementations might track

> do correlate with actual failure rates - specifically that following

> the first scan error, drives are 39 times more likely to fail within

> 60 days than drives with no such errors and first errors in

> reallocations, offline reallocations, and probational counts are also

> strongly correlated to higher failure probabilities."

>

> There again, it doesn't say that S.M.A.R.T. is only right 30% of the

> time, quite to the contrary it says that drives are 39 times more

> likely to fail after receiving S.M.A.R.T. errors! All that the

> research or work at Google says is that S.M.A.R.T. is of limited

> value in detecting eminent failures, in other words drives often fail

> without any S.M.A.R.T. errors, nowhere does it say that only 30% of

> drives with S.M.A.R.T. errors fail, to the contrary it says that most

> fail within 60 days.

 

Look John! The exact numbers doesn't really matter. What really matters is

if SMART says your drive is going fail. Does that mean it will? No! It means

30% or whatever it will. But it means nothing towards your drive personally.

As I don't care if it is 99% correct as I might be in the 1% that it isn't

so. And that is the point that I am trying to make.

 

Averages is nice to know, but they are *totally* useless when it comes to

the individual. The point being where every case SMART was right, I can

match another case where it was wrong. Being so, it is realy not that

useful.

 

--

Bill

Black Asus EEE PC 4GB 2GB SoDIMM Adata 16GB

Windows XP SP2 and Xandros Linux

[Guest John John (MVP)]

Re: laptop hard drives

 

BillW50 wrote:

> Look John! The exact numbers doesn't really matter. What really matters is

> if SMART says your drive is going fail. Does that mean it will? No! It means

> 30% or whatever it will.

 

Obviously you didn't read the article you pointed us to or if you read

it you completely misunderstood what the article says! That notion of

yours that S.M.A.R.T. is only right 30% of the time is just that, a

notion. That is just plain and simply something that you made up to

support your argument.

 

> But it means nothing towards your drive personally.

> As I don't care if it is 99% correct as I might be in the 1% that it isn't

> so. And that is the point that I am trying to make.

 

No one said that S.M.A.R.T was 100% accurate, you on the other hand are

suggesting that S.M.A.R.T. errors are wrong 70% of the time, that 70% of

drives reporting S.M.A.R.T. errors have nothing wrong with them, that is

not true, that is nothing more than a fabrication on your part.

 

> Averages is nice to know, but they are *totally* useless when it comes to

> the individual. The point being where every case SMART was right, I can

> match another case where it was wrong. Being so, it is realy not that

> useful.

 

That is simply not true! You are spreading bad advice, rather than

ignoring S.M.A.R.T. errors users should instead ignore your bad advice

and made up statistics!

 

John