I get a boot error saying SMART failure predicted blah blah blah. Contact dell cuz your ish is broken. After booting and having it CHKDSK and deleting/fixing some stuff, it boots to the OS. Everything looks like it works alright unless you try doing semi-complicated things (i.e. burning cd's...) Anyways, I think the HD's queue (sp?) is malfunctioning. From what i read on SMART failure predicting, the HD can tell when something isnt happening the way it thinks it should and determines that the HD will die soon. Is this what is happening? Is there a way to fix this problem other than spending money on a new HD? I was cleaning spyware/adware off this laptop when i first had this error. When at the desktop, Windows tells me that something is wrong with the BITMAP something...(Its my gf's computer and she is out of town right now--wish I had the whole error message) I know bitmaps deal with images, but i dont see how that is relevant. if anyone has heard of or see this problem, please leave me some constructive suggestions.

Sincerely,
Cyclone

Real Friends Stab You in the Front

Few of us take too much notice in what S.M.A.R.T. tells us. It is notoriously unreliable. That said, sometimes it is right! Make sure that everything important is backed up. Don't rush out and buy another hard drive, wait for the current one to actually die first.

Might be a good idea to check on the warranty. If it is still covered, you might just as well get a new drive out of Dell. They'll install it and reload the base software.

I would run HDD test software which is available at the website of the HDD manufacturer.

I would have a very hard time trusting a HDD with SMART failure prediction warnings.

As I understand it, SMART is correct 50-60% of the time...means it's wrong 40-50% of the time.

I use it for the occasional "heads up" value and then follow the above advice.

Skip

I also do not completely trust SMART. A simple test would be to run scandisk 'Thorough' on the drive. It will do a read/write test on every sector. It will take a LONG time (hours possibly). A few bad sectors 'may' not be an indication of a problem. But more than a handful probably indicates that the drive is dying.

I don't think SMART is exceedingly accurate, but (like Badboy says) how can you trust your data on a drive that's told you it's going to fail?

Drives are cheap. I'd buy a new one, jumper it as slave, and copy my data over. I'd continue using the original drive for the OS and applications just to see whether SMART was right.

A64 3500+ on Abit AN8

I would bet its a Western Digital drive. My friend has a Dell with a WD drive. Also this Gateway has a WD drive. Ive had the drive replaced twice. One time i lost everyhting. Lastweek computer was acting strange. So i call Gateway and get new drive sent. So if i were you i would get Dell to send me new drive ASAP. Then use something like Ghost and "Clone" the data on the bad drive to the new drive. If dell tries to get you to send the drive back first tell them no that you want to get your data off. Also get the Software from WD or whatever manufactor it is and write zero's to it sevaral times so noone can recover it because all Dell will do is refurbish the drive.

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