Boot Error

[Keyboy]

Greetings,

This may not be the right place to post this question, however, I am running W2000 on a Del Optiplex desktop. About two weeks ago at boot, I got the message pop up that "SMART has detected a problem with a hard drive. 1. Back up your data immediately. 2 Contact your help desk or Dell tech support immediately." Naturally I backed up my data and then ran all the Norton disk utilites and system utilities. I typically run these every other week any way. Then I rebooted and no error. Until today. Is this a real problem or possibly a loose wire or connection? I have also run Adaware and Spybot without finding anything.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Ray

 

[Jsteve]

1. Check you event viewer and your dvice manager for errors.

2.if you find errors, check the microsoft website to find out how to repair the errors.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;EN-US;KBHOWTO

 

[bcastner]

S.M.A.R.T. equipped drives, along with a workstaton BIOS that is SMART capable, maintain a small database of key parameters of drive health. If one of these values should exceed the threshold value set by the drive manufacturer, the BIOS will warn you that the drive should be replaced.

It has been my experience that you should believe the warnings. If the drive is under Warranty, ask the drive manufacturer - or Dell in your case -- for a warranty replacement. You should be able to negotiate a cross-shipping replacement, so that you can connect the new drive as a slave, and use the drive manufacturer's disk utility to do a 1:1 copy from the original drive. See the disk manufacturer's web site for the utility. Then disconnect the original drive and return it.

But do it soon.

 

[thefourthwall]

I work with and am certified on Dell Optiplex machines. The SMART error you saw is hardware-driven, and is not spyware.

bcastner is 100% right -- this is a warning that your drive will, in all likelihood, die soon <sorry>.

Pull data and replace the drive as soon as you are able.

-thefourthwall

 

[Keyboy]

Hi,

Thanks to you all for the guidance! I have been out of pocket. The machine is under warranty and the tech has the new drive. I have a an opportunity I need your advice on. I have a new copy of WP from Microsoft which my wife bought through her school. It appears that the Optiplex GX110 with the Intel Pentium III chip will support XP. Should I upgrade to the Microsoft XP software or stay with 2000? I guess what I will lose is the Dell tech support and their diagnostics.

What do you think?

Has Dell ever shipped this machine with XP?

Thanks in advance for your guidance!!

Ray

 

[bcastner]

Get it back up with Win2k.

If you are willing to bump the RAM (and the workstation will support the bump) to 512, then consider XP.

Right now you have a very good Win2k machine, and a marginal XP machine.