Your hard drive is getting ready to fail, press F1 to continue

[GlenJohnson]

I'm working on a machine for a gent running xp home. He's concerned because he gets the above message when booting, plus he has the option of pressing F2 to enter set-up. I've backed up all the files he needs and in computer management, shows his hard drive as healthy. Just ran defrag, all looks good. Has anybody seen this before? Nothing on MS website.

Glen A. Johnson
"Fall seven times, stand up eight."
Proverb

Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884

 

[GlenJohnson]

Little more info. This is a Smart failure predicted on your hard drive. I've found differing opinions concerning this. Some say you're drive will fail, others say not really. Ideas?

Glen A. Johnson
"Fall seven times, stand up eight."
Proverb

Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884

 

[zephyran]

This sounds like a message he's getting from his BIOS, since it appears to be happening during the PC's POST operation.

When Windows says a partition looks "Healthy", that means it's been properly formatted and hasn't returned any data errors (the kind that would give a warning message to run Disk Checker).

The BIOS, on the other hand, is probably reading the S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic information from the hard drive, which is saying that something is wrong with the drive's mechanism that will likely cause it to fail soon. You did well in backing up his files (as long as it was to another physical device).

I'd recommend that, if his PC or hard drive are under warranty, that he or you contact the manufacturer and have them replace the drive. Otherwise, he should buy a new one and use any utilities that come with the new one to transfer everything from the old drive to the new one (so you don't have to rebuild it manually). I think most commercially-available drives come with system transfer utilities like that.

 

[GlenJohnson]

He only has the one hard drive with a partition. I burned everything onto a cd for him. Maybe I'll put a slave in, copy everything over to that one, remove the master, make the slave the master and he's off and running. Think I can pull this off or will I need Ghost?

Glen A. Johnson
"Fall seven times, stand up eight."
Proverb

Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884

 

[zephyran]

Sounds like a good plan (I've done that on a few occasions).

You shouldn't need Ghost, though it'll help to use it, if you already have it. Depending on the brand of drive you transfer his system onto, you might be able to download a utility that'll copy the data from his old drive, sector-by-sector, onto the new one. Maxtor and Western Digital both have such software available to download on their websites.

I've used the Maxtor software before, and it's extremely easy.

 

[GlenJohnson]

A friend told me to look into this. Might be worth checking out.

http://www.acronis.com/

Glen A. Johnson
"Fall seven times, stand up eight."
Proverb

Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884

 

[zephyran]

Well, I've never used that software, but if you know someone that's used it and likes, it, go for it. Looks like a handy tool.

 

[bcastner]

The hard disk manufacturer's website will have a diagnostic disk that will do the clone without additional expense.

A helpful tip from Sandra Underhill:

"Once you've made a clone on Drive D:, shut down your system.

Do not reboot with your drives in this configuration. If you do... you will need to reclone your secondary drive!

Swap your newly cloned drive to the Master bay, the C: position, and remove your original master drive and set it aside. Do NOT insert it into the secondary bay at this time. This is critical.

Now boot to your newly cloned drive. Windows XP should permit you to boot, but once you do so, it will prompt that it has finished installing new hardware and will require a reboot.

Windows XP should now successfully boot to the cloned hard drive without futher issues. You can then shut down and replace your original master hard drive in the secondary bay, or you can return it to the primary bay and place your cloned personal back up copy in the secondary bay.

Either hard drive will function normally and changes to the boot order from the BIOS setup utility can now be used to boot to the drive of your choosing and you can keep both of your hard drives installed within your system. "

I would also take the step to modify the Volume ID of what will become the replacement drive. I use a sysinternals.com tool:

"VolumeID
While WinNT/2K and Windows 9x's built-in Label utility lets you change the labels of disk volumes, it does not provide any means for changing volume ids. This utiltity, Volumeid, allows you to change the ids of FAT and NTFS disks (floppies or hard drives) on both Windows NT/2K and Windows 9x.
Usage: volumeid <driveletter:> xxxx-xxxx

This is a command-line program that you must run from a command-prompt window.

Note that changes on NTFS volumes won't be visible until the next reboot. In addition, you should shut down any applications you have running before changing a volume id. NT may become confused and think that the media (disk) has changed after a FAT volume id has changed and pop up messages indicating that you should reinsert the original disk (!). It may then fail the disk requests of applications using those drives.&quot;

VolumeID
While WinNT/2K and Windows 9x's built-in Label utility lets you change the labels of disk volumes, it does not provide any means for changing volume ids. This utiltity, Volumeid, allows you to change the ids of FAT and NTFS disks (floppies or hard drives) on both Windows NT/2K and Windows 9x.
Usage: volumeid <driveletter:> xxxx-xxxx

This is a command-line program that you must run from a command-prompt window.

Note that changes on NTFS volumes won't be visible until the next reboot. In addition, you should shut down any applications you have running before changing a volume id. NT may become confused and think that the media (disk) has changed after a FAT volume id has changed and pop up messages indicating that you should reinsert the original disk (!). It may then fail the disk requests of applications using those drives.

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/misc.shtml

The reason for this should be clear from this article:

http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm

Be sure to read the section &quot;What about formatting the Disk?&quot;