- Thank you. Your HDD is (in the 1st stages of) failing. Hence the "Warning". Is your system slower than usual ? Do errors regularly show up in Windows ?
- A very good guide to provide guidance for the SMART values is here:
- SMART attributes &C6, &C5, &BB and as a result of those three "Command Time Out" (&BC) is also no longer at zero. That means that GSmartcontrol should also show a few pink/red(-ish) lines. (The numbers from GSmartcontrol are a bit confusing).
- Please run Piriform's Defraggler and make a screenshot of the entire "Health" tab as well. My HDD is OK, so I am not sure how these disk-faults would show up in Defraggler.
- The usual recipe: Backup your HD, replace it & re-install Windows. (You should be backing up every now & then anyway)
- Keep us posted.
@willy,
you are looking at the Seagate Expansion USB drive stats, not the Toshiba which is where the SMART status of warning is.
for the Toshiba, C5, C6 are 0 so how are you determining that the drive is in it's 1st stages of failing? (I'm not doubting you, I just can't see how you leapt to that conclusion based on the facts given).
- I thought Defraggler would show which of those SMART attributes have a too high a value (and like GSmartControl) show those lines in a different color (developers ???).
- The word "Reallocated" means that there was one or more weak spots and that those spots won't be used anymore in the future. But then the read/write head needs to move to a different spot on the HD to read/write those newly allocated disk-blocks.
- Run "HD Tune". That program can scan the surface of your HD and tell where the damaged spots are. If those bad spots are at the beginning of the HD then I wouldn't wait too long. I haven't got the fainstest clue how much time it will take before the HD finally "dies". But I personally wouldn't take any chances.
the drive could be fine - OR - it could be heading towards a failure (as all drives are really), which is why backups were invented.
SMART values by themselves are not a sign of pending failure, they are a guide and should be used as a warning.
the values give no perspective on rate of growth or date of last error.
for example, reallocation errors, although never nice, are very common. all storage devices have inconsistencies.
the number is not the important factor (granted - don't ignore it) but you need to keep an eye on whether it increases and how fast.
see how it changes over the next few weeks. the fact it hasn't changed in the last few days also indicates the drive is in no more immediate danger of failing than any other drive ever is.
I had a PC years ago that on boot up said "Drive failure imminent, replaced drive immediately" that performed just fine for over two years.
I'd be running HDTUNE on your Seagate Expansion drive as well.
the drive could be fine - OR - it could be heading towards a failure (as all drives are really), which is why backups were invented.
SMART values by themselves are not a sign of pending failure, they are a guide and should be used as a warning.
the values give no perspective on rate of growth or date of last error.
for example, reallocation errors, although never nice, are very common. all storage devices have inconsistencies.
the number is not the important factor (granted - don't ignore it) but you need to keep an eye on whether it increases and how fast.
see how it changes over the next few weeks. the fact it hasn't changed in the last few days also indicates the drive is in no more immediate danger of failing than any other drive ever is.
I had a PC years ago that on boot up said "Drive failure imminent, replaced drive immediately" that performed just fine for over two years.
I'd be running HDTUNE on your Seagate Expansion drive as well.
Well the main reason for concern about the Toshiba is that my OS is on that. If the others are heading towards failure I can transfer files around. I think I'll get a Samsung Evo 850 and put the OS on there and key files, should be an upgrade to the system as well and use my existing drives for lower usage bulk storage. That'll hopefully help extend their useful life.
as well as backing up your data drives, if you aren't already, consider doing system images on your OS drive, something like Norton Ghost, or the highly praised (on this forum ) Macrium Reflect.