S.M.A.R.T. uses both hardware and software to detect several problems with a
drive such as temperature, spin up time, calibration, bad sectors, etc.
Warnings during the startup process such as you are getting, usually mean
that the hard drive could fail soon. However, this is not always true.

I have seen computers that use certain disk management programs, utilities,
and the such that can also cause problems. I removed Norton System works
from a computer, and it would not continue the boot process w/o SMART
indicating a problem, at which point you had to press F1 to continue the
boot process. After running the Error Checking utility in XP, the problem
stopped. I have also seen the same problem with HD programs designed to let
older systems view larger HDs. Those units needed to be repartitioned to
correct the problem.

I am not sure exactly how the system works but I think that it is great at
diagnosing possible problems and there is a good chance that if you can't
correct the error code, your drive could fail. I however kind of look at it
as just that, a possible problem. In any case, I would also recommend fully
backing up your HD on a regular basis even if it appears OK. I have seen
more HDs fail w/o any warning than with.

Dennis Noble
It's not what you want that makes you fat,
It's what you get.





>I have a 2nd Hard Drive in all my PC's (a practice I enthusiastically
>recommend) that is used for backup and extra data storage.  Recently when I
>moved one (a Maxtor 30GB Model 53073H4)to another PC and installed it as
>usual > IDE Secondary Slave, it stopped my boot process with message:
>S.M.A.R.T. has found error on "Maxtor 53073H4" backup you data...etc; use
>f-1 to continue.
>This was a week ago.  When I continue the drive appears to work fine.
>Scandisk finds no errors on it and a HD diagnostic shows all OK.
>
>So what other type of errors does this program which is apparently built
>into the BIOS detect???


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