Getting ‘Disk failure is Imminent’ error message on Debian

**Zelman** · 02-07-2011

Recently I have startup with an issue on the Debain based system of mine. Well I have noticed a hard disk icon on the Gnome system tray. It was having an error message which can be stated as ‘Disk Failure is Imminent’ Let me know whether this particular error message is fatal? How can I get rid from the above mentioned error message? Let me know if you are having any specific solution to get rod from this particular issue. Thanks a lot in advance.

**Yitzchak909** · 02-07-2011

In order to figure out the root cause of the problem I wanted to know answers of the below mentioned questions. Can you tell me about the hardware configuration of the computer? Let me know which hard disk do you have installed on the computer? What is the memory size of the hard disk? You told me that you are getting an error message on the computer can you provide the entire content of the error message as well as the log file of the error which you are getting.

**pddaugusto** · 02-07-2011

Looking at the situation I am suggesting that you should try to run health check on the hard disk by using smartctl. I let you know that the smartctl would also let you know if the hard drive failure is going to be happen in nearby future. As far as I know there is no proper solution for the hard drive failure except taking the back up of the data. So you should perform the thing which I have mentioned over here and let me know about the results.

**Howitzer** · 02-07-2011

I let you know that each and every Linux distribution would have the smartnotools packages which are having the smartctl program which is used to show the SMART information from the drives which you have installed on the computer. This particular packages is also having smartd daemon which polls the drives at the regular interval of time. If you wanted to begin the process you have to edit the following entries on the hard drive.

Code:

/dev/sda -d ata -H -m root

**samar69** · 02-07-2011

Well when smartd is configured then you have to see that monitoring daemon is enabled if it is not started on the computer of yours. to do the same you have to use the following command on the system of yours.

Code:

# chkconfig smartd on

# service smartd start

It would also let you to view and test the attribute of the drive and you can use the following command on the terminal.

Code:

# smartctl -H /dev/sda

**Mindstorm** · 03-07-2011

There are various options are available which you can use to fix the matter of yours. You have to run the –I which would help you to figure out the kind of the drive and serial number of the hard disk which you are using. Also you can use –a option to get the specific smart attributes as well as test history. It would provide the information which has been associated with the drive temperature and how many hours the device was powered on and further information to figure out the issue.