My laptop keeps telling me that it is getting a report from my Hard Drive that it will fail. It hasn't failed, and everything says it is fine. But it sill comes up every now and then. Any way to see if it is actually failing? Or if my laptop is just giving me a false positive?

 

If your hard-drive supports S.M.A.R.T. I suggest to install smartmontools utility (it has windows and Linux builds). You will see what exactly is failing (Look here for more information on S.M.A.R.T. attributes. In Linux you can see you values with something like `smartctl -a /dev/sda` under root), then run some build-in tests. If something serious is failing you really should replace the disk. Most of the drives have temporary safety measures (like reserved area to reallocate bad sectors etc.) but with time they will run out of reserved resources and drive will start crashing. Some hard-drive companies (like Seagate) use some of the attributes wrong. After you see what attribute is failing just search for it with your company name, it can mean nothing for your drive.

 

If you haven't gotten any blue screens of death yet, you are - for now - still safe. I'd run a full diagnostic on your laptop (one you can activate just before your OS kicks in) and that'll be able to tell you what kind of errors are popping up in your hard drive. With the problem you've got, odds are you aren't getting a 00000024 error, which means you've got hard drive corruption and... well, you're fucked in that case (I had a hard drive die on me a month ago with one of those errors - lost a bunch of work too).

It's probably something less serious than one of those errors, though, if your OS is still functioning. I'd advise that next time you get the error, write down the error code and check your OS' help website. Windows has an entire diagnostic website for troubleshooting those various errors, and it tends to be fairly good. Worst case scenario is that you contact your manufacturer, assuming you still have it under warranty.

 

In any case, BACK YOUR SHIT UP.

Cant tell you how many times my comp fails and I realize "Well shit, my paper was on there."

Even if its a small flash drive save your work on there.

 

Lol, Just found out, It's D:\ that is failing. My back up drive. XD So unless it will domino onto C:\ I don't think it will be a problem, Just 4-5 gigs of stuff I already have on C:\ will be lost.

 

Not neccesarily. If he has a single drive but its been partitioned into 2. Wouldnt that be a sign of the entire drive starting to go?

 

Probably, but I haven't had a drive crap out on me yet, thankfully. All of the ones I've had so far have not gone to the point of failing.

 

0_O well, it crashed. On my ps3 right now. FUUUUUUUUUU- this sucks :s

 

Oz-fail, when you weigh 300 pounds. Oz-fail, being a big lard ass that everyone hates. :awesome