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Pri Master Hard Disk:S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD


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#1
hardvinyljunkie

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Hi Guys
I used you guys 2 years ago with a malware problem and you guys were fantastic.
Heres hoping you can help we with a new problem I have with my laptop.

This is my daughters laptop that I bought her of a friend last year and has worked great till all of a sudden it wont load up.
I have a feeling the Hardrive is broken however am no expert?
All that happens is I get the bios start screen showing the following message.
Message:

OEM BIOS Ver 1.08d AMIKBC Ver 1.10
Checking NVRAM 248mb OK
Auto detecting pri master..IDE Hard Disk
Auto detecting sec master.. ATAPI CDROM
Pri Master: TOSHIBA MK4025GAS KA100A
Ultra DMA-5, S.M.A.R.T. Capable And Status BAD
Sec Master: SAMSUNG CDRW/DVD SN324F U200
ULTRA DMA mode-2

Pri Master Hard Disk:S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD Back up and Replace
Press f1 to resume.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is it bad news?
I can enter bios settings however, it wont allow me to run any recovery from XP disc.
She has some files on the laptop she needs for her school coursework, can these be recovered?

All help will be greatly appreciated, If I can fix it with the small budget I have I will make a donation with the rest like last time.

Thanks
Martin.
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#2
The Skeptic

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The message indicates that your hard disk is failing and should be replaced. Have you tried to press F1 when you get the message? If this doesn't help try to enter the bios and disable S.M.A.R.T.

Edited by The Skeptic, 03 September 2007 - 01:37 PM.

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#3
hardvinyljunkie

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Hi
First I thankyou for responding so fast.
I have got a little further since I posted first log.
I noticed the laptop was overheating and shutting down due to the vent being clogged with dust, so I hoovered it and now it runs cool.
Next I entered bios and just using quit without saving allowed it to boot to windows, the first message i got was system has suffered a fatal error and needs rebooting.
I rebooted however It wont boot untill i re-enter bios and quit without saving, I have boot sequence set to H/D 1st CDROM 2nd?
It still gives same S.M.A.R.T BAD message on bios page, where in Bios do I shutdown s.m.a.r.t.?
All data is still intact to back up, so unsure if H/D is Damaged or just corrupt?

Many thanks so far

Martin
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#4
123Runner

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If you can get into windows again, GET THE DATA OFF IT, even if you do it thru safe mode.

To disable SMART, you are going to have to do some searching. I am not familiar with that bios. (could be under advanced tab.

Your HD is dying. There is no known (that I have found) diagnostic tool for toshiba.
You could try maxtor or western digital tools to run a check on the drive to verify.
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#5
peter99

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Found on the net use at your own risk

"Toshiba does not offer a diagnostic utility for their Harddrives. The Hitachi (IBM) Diagnostic can be used to test these drives

http://mywebpages.co...DiagnoseXP.html


Drive Fitness Test

http://www.hitachigs...d.htm?linkto=QL
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#6
The Skeptic

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The only place to disable SMART is in the BIOS. Leaf through the menus and see if the option is available.

Your first goal was to save the data so please do that before it's too late.

You can use diagnostic programs other then Toshiba's to test the drive. However these programs only test the surface of the disk for integrity etc. but they do not test mechanical failures like failing bearings. This is only done by SMART. You may be able to run the disk for a while but it must be replaced. That's the beauty of SMART, it gives you advanced warning for an iminnent failure.
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#7
hardvinyljunkie

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Thanks for the advice guys :whistling: .
Do you think the damage to the H/D would have been caused by the overheating issue? and if smart is saying the h/d is bad what would I gain from diagnosing it?
This laptop has no Burner to save data to disc, I have no other external storage device, are there any free programs I could use to package the files I need to recover or do I need to email them as seperate files to my hotmail account and then download them on my other pc?
Or maybe there is a site that I could upload them too if there is a program to collect them all?

One last question is, I was not supplied the windows xp home disc when I bought the laptop however I do have the Product Key serial sticker on the laptop, Can I recover xp to reinstall on the new H/D?

Appreciate all your help.

Thanks
Martin
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#8
The Skeptic

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A clogged system cause the entire system to overheat and it can shorten the life of a hard disk. The mechanical parts run on so tight tolerances that overheating could easilly damage them.

If I may suggest, buy yourself a USB, 2 gigabyte, disk-on-key flash memory (or whatever it's called) and download the data to there. It's a marvelous device that cost, where I live, about 25 US$. You will never regret having it.
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#9
hardvinyljunkie

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I have seen them in my local ASDA, I will buy one tommorrow.
How about the XP issue, not having the disc?

Thanks
Martin
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#10
The Skeptic

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You can use a clonning program like DIXML (use this link) to clone the entire content of the disk to another storage device such as a number of cds or a large enough usb storage device (the flash memory is not sufficient for this purpose). From there you can clone it back to the new drive.
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