hard drive S.M.A.R.T. Test fails?

[SufferWell1396]

when and if i get an old WD 10 gig hdd to boot up as slave it says (number)# Slave S.M.A.R.T. Test Failed, press F1 to continue, and it beeps before the message pops up, and after i hit F1, its running slave to my other WD 160 gig, how can i get it to pass the -*S.M.A.R.T.*- test?, or is the hdd just shot?

[PrntRhd]

It means the HDD is about to fail.

Back up the data and prepare to get a new HDD.
It is lucky that HDD storage prices have dropped so much.

[SufferWell1396]

how can i back it up, i cant acess it, i have it hooked up to the secondary IDE channel and the control panel reports that as not working properly, i skimmed around System & System 32 trying to find the driver, but it kept using the old one, so it wont work, what should i do?:confused:

[mjc]

About the only way to update a driver for a hard drive is to change Windows versions. All IDE/SATA drives use the same basic drivers...

If the drive is kicking out S.M.A.R.T. errors then it is toast. If Windows isn't seeing it any longer, then you are in real trouble. You may have a chance on a older non-S.M.A.R.T. machine (but then you may run into the the 8 GB drive limit...but that is the era machine you'll need.) Usually it is a good idea that on the first set of S.M.A.R.T. errors to use what is left of the drive's life to back it up.

There is also a chance that the drive is old enough that a circuit board swap would work...for WD that means a drive made before the middle of 2002.

[deddard]

You could try disabling the smart feature in the BIOS, accessing the disk and backing it up immediately (if switching the smart off allows access)

[rond36]

S.M.A.R.T. isn't always smart. (pun intended) Does the master drive on the secondary channel work properly? If it does not remove the drive from the system then try to get the secondary IDE channel working before you put it back in the system or you can hook it up as slave on the primary IDE channel.

BTW do you have the jumpers on the drive (http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=84&p_created=1005005461&p_sid=ABsJyrgi&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX 3Jvd19jbnQ9ODcxJnBfcHJvZHM9JnBfY2F0cz0mcF9wdj0mcF9 jdj0mcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1zZWFyY2hfZm5sJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&p_topview=1) set for slave and the jumpers on the secondary master drive set as master with slave?

Have you tried WD's Data Lifeguard Tools? (http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?swid=1)

[SufferWell1396]

yes i have tried lifeguard tools, it doesnt read it either, the secondary channel works fine when it is hooked up to the 2 CD-ROM drives like it normally is. and if it is set up at primary slave it disables both of the drives so i cant access either, it wont boot up at all when it is in that confuguration.

[madad2005]

If you have a spare hard disk, there is a linux utility called System Recovery Tools that could help you at least look for the HDD.