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I have a Dell Inspiron 1501 running Windows XP and on start up I receive a message stating SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 4: WDC WD600BEVS-75LAT0-(S1)

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migrated from serverfault.com Apr 9 '10 at 6:20

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5 Answers

up vote 8 down vote

Instead of ignoring the message, replace the drive. It is about to die on you.

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Yes, I understand this however is not my system and the owner would like to know if the message can be disabled until the new parts arrive from Dell. Is it possible to run a script that will disable this message? I looked in the bios and am not aware of anything that would turn this off. – waterfallrain Apr 8 '10 at 15:27
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@waterfallrain, If he is getting that message then he probably should not be using that drive. If he doesn't have a backup he should make one immediately. Do not wait for the new drive to arrive. – Zoredache Apr 8 '10 at 19:12
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Agree with Zoredache, everytime the drive is used, it could be destroying more data and breaking down even further. – BloodPhilia Jun 8 '10 at 19:44
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up vote 0 down vote

I'll echo what Zypher said. In addition, this is a BIOS message so you can't run a script to disable it. You'd have to have an option in the BIOS to disable the warning, which I've never seen before. In my experience you have maybe a week from when the message starts before the disk is toast.

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Ok thank you, I just wanted to clarify that disabling this message was not an option. – waterfallrain Apr 8 '10 at 15:42
If it's not in the BIOS to suppress boot time messages like that, no, you can't script it. Primarily because Dell would probably catch @#$ if they allowed it then users would have failed drives and come back on them to complain that they lost their data because they weren't aware it was going to fail. Once the data is copied off the drive it's probably best to not use is. There's a slight slight chance that a "damaged drive" can damage other parts connected on the bus, etc. if you don't know what exactly is failing on the drive or how it's dying. – Bart Silverstrim Apr 8 '10 at 15:54
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up vote 0 down vote

To echo @Zypher and @squillman, When you see this message, you should replace the hard disk, not turn the alarm off. This is akin to turning the monitors attached to ICU patients simply because they are annoyingly beeping.

However, it is possible to turn it off in many cases (but do not do this unless you know what you are doing): turn off SMART support in the BIOS: This will stop it from complaining that there is imminent failure of harddrive. Note that this also stop SMART from telling you that other drive are failing in case they are. I repeat, don't do this unless you know what you are doing.

I am not sure, though, if the BIOS in inspiron contain such an option. This option is available in most desktop systems using e.g. Gigabyte/MSI/etc motherboards.

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up vote -1 down vote

The problem is more than likely that the harddrive was replaced or formatted, and no longer contains the Dell "Recovery" partition... this information started showing up for me after replacing my drive that failed (and oddly enough NEVER showed up before my drive failed) there doesn't seem to be anyway at all to disable it.. or do anything of any real consequence in the DEll bios... i'm hunting down a hacked bios to get rid of this message if i can find it and will hack it myself if not.

but this is NOT a true "SMART for hard disks" message... it occurs whenever you replace your harddrive yourself without going through dell.. or delete the recovery partition on a inspiron 1501 laptop. I have no doubt that there is a similar message if it detects your harddrive is failing.. but dell ghosted a message to be annoying as well if you do harddrive modifications on your own...

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up vote -2 down vote

The BIOS is not the HAL 9000, the message could be the result of many factors that could trigger this message that would lead one to believe a failure is imminent when it is not. SMART technology isn't perfect. It's also not the question that was asked. If you don't know then don't comment

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Your answer doesn't answer the question, either. I also don't understand your reference to HAL 9000. HAL 9000 made a false diagnosis of an imminent failure of the AE-35 unit. If you're trying to say that the BIOS is fallible, then it and HAL 9000 are more alike than different. – coneslayer Jun 8 '10 at 19:01
@coneslayer - I suspect r3dkat just quoted HAL 9000 as an example of an incredibly intelligent computer and isn't actually aware of specific plot references. – Shinrai Nov 5 '10 at 16:58
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