SMART Failure Predicted?

[sayeed]

I am running Windows XP with SP2. I have been running this for past many years without any issues, I am getting now all of a sudden the below message during the booting my computer:
"SMART Failure Predicted on Primary Master: Maxtor 4D060H3 WARNING (blinks!): Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard drive. A failure may be imminent"

When I select the option to press F1 to continue, then Windows XP starts and everything is as usual. I can also do a defragmentation. After doing this I did backup images of my hard drive C: and F:. My querie is how to test whether this is a hard drive issue and not a false error message? How does the system know that a failure is imminent when the hard drive apparently is working normally? Thanks

[Maxforu]

SMART is able to measure some 50 parameters of hard drive operation and decides if ther are inside or outside of a given threshold in an effort to predict failure. Have you tried to run the manufacturers diagnostic utility that may or may not detect a failure depending on whether the SMART found is included in the manufacturers test or not.

[techman]

Incase you are getting this issue of power failure where the pc shut off unexpectedly and maybe back on/off many times, then the hard drive might have sustained some damage. You can try to run the diag available from the drive manufacturer website, but might now show up anything. Since you are using a SMART program to read the data you can see what it says the possible errors could be. You can find the Speed Fan program to check the temp and fan speeds which is useful in showing the error counters for SMART.

[sayeed]

Thanks for letting me know about the tool, I will try to run a diagnostic tool.

[Tomthegreat]

You can try to go to the hard drive manufacturer's website and download their free diagnostic test utility. You can run that to check out the drive for defects. It will be able to confirm the SMART activity. After you get a SMART advisory of this type then go to the nearest computer store and buy a replacement hard drive.

[sayeed]

I have downloaded Seagate's SeaTools and the result for both short and long diagnostics were a failure. I will try to purchase a new drive within the next few days.