Ok I moved my computer (which has been working flawlessly before) into the other room and since then windows 7 reported an imminent hard disk failure. So I bought a new Samsung F3 HD103SJ to replace the Samsung HD501lj, that reported the error. The next day that hard drive reports the same error. I'm confused. Is something wrong with the motherboard? I replaced the sata cord hoping that would fix the problem and I am still waiting for it to occur again. If anyone can explain a possible solution for this problem it would be great as I cant spend money replacing random parts in hopes that the problem will be fixed. All though I would love to

Windows can't predict drive failures.

You may already have solved the problem but better be safe so download smartmontools and post the output of this command: smartctl -a hda
I'm assuming you have Windows installed on both drives and you're not using them at the same time. If both drives are connected, then replace hda with hdb and you'll have the data for the second drive. In any case post the data for both drives.

yea problem is still there. could you link me to the correct file for me to download please. My computer is core 2 duo with a Samsung F3 HD103SJ as the only harddrive. I had a Samsung HD501lj which was my only harddrive before it gave me the same error. So either both drives or bad, or possibly neither. Operating system is windows 7 x64.

This is the result of disk Checkup. I ran the program and it reported no errors. If there is another better program to run please link me to its download location. Thanks



*** DiskCheckup V3.1 Build: 1000 Report ***

SysInfo DLL Version: SysInfo v1.0 Build: 1014
Time of export: 03:01:02 20-Aug-2011

Device information:
Device ID: 0
Interface: ATA
Device Capacity: 953866 MB
Serial Number: S246J90B723605
Model Number: SAMSUNG HD103SJ
Firmware Revision: 1AJ100E5
Partitions:
C: 200000 MB
D: 753866 MB

ATA information:

Disk geometry:
Cylinders: 129201
Tracks/Cylinder: 240
Sectors/Track: 63
Bytes/Sector: 512
Total disk sectors: 1953523055
Logical sector size: 512
Physical sector size: 512
Media rotation rate: 7200 RPM
Buffer size: 32767 KB
ECC size: 4 Bytes

Standards compliance:
ATA8-ACS Supported: Yes
ATA/ATAPI-7 Supported: Yes
ATA/ATAPI-6 Supported: Yes
ATA/ATAPI-5 Supported: Yes
ATA/ATAPI-4 Supported: Yes
Serial/Parallel: Serial
SATA 3.0 Compilance: No
SATA 2.6 Compilance: Yes
SATA 2.5 Compilance: Yes
SATA II: Ext Compilance: Yes
SATA 1.0a Compilance: Yes
ATA8-AST Compilance: Yes
World Wide ID: 50024E9205BEC81E

Feature support:
SMART supported: Yes
SMART enabled: Yes
SMART self-test supported: Yes
SMART error log supported: Yes
LBA supported: Yes
IORDY supported: Yes
CFast supported: No
DMA supported: Yes
Maximum Multiword DMA mode supported: 2
Multiword DMA selected: None
Maximum UltraDMA mode supported: 6
UltraDMA selected: 5
Maximum PIO mode supported: 4
SATA Compliance: Yes
NCQ priority information supported: Yes
Unload while NCQ commands are outstanding supported: No
Phy Event Counters supported: Yes
Receipt of power management requests supported: Yes
NCQ feature set supported: Yes
SATA Gen2 Signaling Speed (3.0Gb/s) supported: Yes
SATA Gen1 Signaling Speed (1.5Gb/s) supported: Yes
Software Settings Preservation: Supported, Enabled
In-order data delivery: Not supported
Initiating power management: Supported, Disabled
DMA Setup auto-activation: Supported, Disabled
Non-zero buffer offsets: Not supported
Trusted Computing supported: No
Host Protected Area (HPA) supported: Yes
Read look-ahead supported: Yes
Read look-ahead enabled: Yes
Write cache supported: Yes
Write cache enabled: Yes
Power management supported: Yes
Security mode supported: Yes
Security mode enabled: No
Device Configuration Overlay (DCO) supported: Yes
48bit Addressing supported: Yes
Auto Acoustic Managment (AAM) supported: Yes
Auto Acoustic Managment (AAM) enabled: No
Power-up in Standby (PUIS) supported: Yes
Power-up in Standby (PUIS) enabled: No
Advanced Power Management (APM) supported: Yes
Advanced Power Management (APM) enabled: No
CompactFlash Association (CFA) supported: No
General Purpose Logging (GPL) supported: Yes
Streaming supported: No
Media card pass through supported: No
Extended power conditions supported: No
Extended status reporting supported: No
Write-read-verify supported: No
Free-fall control supported: No
TRIM command supported: No
SCT command transport supported: Yes
NV Cache enabled: No
NV Cache Power Management supported: No

SMART ATTRIBUTES:
ID Description Status Value Worst Threshold Raw Value TEC
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Raw Read Error Rate OK 100 100 51 0 N.A.
2 Throughput Performance OK 252 252 0 0 N.A.
3 Spin Up Time OK 72 72 25 8787 N.A.
4 Start/Stop Count OK 100 100 0 13 N.A.
5 Reallocated Sector Count OK 252 252 10 0 N.A.
7 Seek Error Rate OK 252 252 51 0 N.A.
8 Seek Time Performance OK 252 252 15 0 N.A.
9 Power On Time OK 100 100 0 7 N.A.
10 Spin Retry Count OK 252 252 51 0 N.A.
11 Calibration Retry Count OK 252 252 0 0 N.A.
12 Power Cycle Count OK 100 100 0 13 N.A.
191 G-sense Error Rate OK 252 252 0 0 N.A.
192 Power off Retract Count OK 252 252 0 0 N.A.
194 Temperature OK 64 64 0 34 C N.A.
195 Hardware ECC Recovered OK 100 100 0 0 N.A.
196 Reallocation Event Count OK 252 252 0 0 N.A.
197 Current Pending Sector Count OK 252 252 0 0 N.A.
198 Uncorrectable Sector Count OK 252 252 0 0 N.A.
199 UltraDMA CRC Error Count OK 200 200 0 0 N.A.
200 Write Error Count OK 100 100 0 0 N.A.
223 Load/Unload retry count OK 252 252 0 0 N.A.
225 Load Cycle Count OK 100 100 0 13 N.A.

I don't know about better but smartmontools is standard and people understand what it does and doesn't display. I don't know the program you used and it may hide relevant information.
Just google smartmontools. It's quite popular.
If you don't want to install it and figure out how to make it work in Windows, you could use a Live CD (in spite of the name, they can also be loaded onto other devices such as thumb drives) such as Clonezilla (google it). That would also avoid any mess that Windows might be making. But really, using smartmontools in Windows is quicker than booting a different operating system!

Based on the information you posted, your new drive seems alright. There's an odd value (throughput is 0 ?) but that wouldn't concern me. What would concern me tis that this may be partial information (what about the error log?) so I wouldn't consider that as a definite indication. And that doesn't tell us anything about the old drive.

Something else you could try is asking Microsoft (you're their customer!) what on earth they mean with this warning of theirs and what they're basing it on.

Download and run Seagate Seatools for windows and run the "Short Drive Self Test", if it passes its probably OK, if you want you can the run the "long DST" (wave goodbye to a couple of hours).

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?l ... 04090aRCRD

It works on all drives not just Seagate ones and is not Biased against other manufaturers.

I strongly suspect that the bit of software that gave you the message is not a Microsoft product at all, but is instead a bit of Malware that is giving you bullshit information and then tries to get money out of you - have a look at the link below for an example.

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/new-m ... -20110520/

Or.....

http://antivirus.downloadatoz.com/news/ ... ostic.html

Or.....

http://www.spyvoid.com/2011/03/page/2

And so on.

At which point you will want to download the items in the following links.

NOTE, when installing Spybot DO NOT install "TeaTimer" it will cause problems.

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/ownm ... index.html

When using MBAM, at some point it will offer you the beefier version on "Trial", decline its offer.

http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-A ... tag=button

Before doing any Malware/Virus scans disable system restore, it protects and hides viruses from the Virus/Malware scanners.

http://www.nirmaltv.com/2009/03/14/how- ... windows-7/

I assume that you have Antivirus software, if you dont, get some, AVG Free is pretty good and FREE. The only one I would spend money on is NOD32, the rest of the paid-for ones are shit (that includes Norton and McAffee), NOD32 do a free 1-month trial as well, and it also gets quite a lot of Malware which the rest barely touch.

http://download.avgfree.com/filedir/ins ... 2a3812.exe

https://shop.eset.co.uk/Store/Home-Security


Andy

Good thinking about the malware thing.
Yeah, when you get an error message, google the exact wording and you'll probably know if it's a legitimate message or not. And even if the messages seems legit, follow the official instructions from your vendor you can find with google and not whatever pops up on your screen.
That or simply use your vendor's official support channels!


Don't bother with non-standard software. smartmontools does the same thing but the tests can be run while you're using your computer normally. No need to waste time.

I personally use SmartMonTools all of the time, but most people dont know what to look for and often cant be bothered to read the details, so Seagates tool is great as in less than 2-minutes it simply says "OK" or "FAIL", and the "Long DST" actually gives the drive a bit of a workout, which I am sure is possible to do in SMT, but ultimately its easy and that where it wins.

Also its just as easy to hook up the other HDD and test both of them at the same time with SeaTools, and it wont take any longer.


Andy

Ok the error message said.
"Windows detected an imminent hard disk failure
Back up your files immediately to prevent information loss, and then contact the computer manufacturer to determine if you need to repair or replace the disk.

Start the backup process

Ask me later
If the disk fails before the next warning you could lose all of the programs and documents on the disk."

I ran HDtune and Seatools and it passed every test. Also malwarebytes detected nothing.

I also checked the voltages and temps with CpuID and got the following

avg/min/max
Vcore 1.3/1.3/1.31
DDR 1.92/1.89/1.92
3.3v 3.28/3.26/3.28
5v 4.84/4.81/4.87
12v 12.35/12.29/12.42

core 0 temp 51/48/57
core 1 temp 49/47/56

hdtemp 35/34/37

9600gso temp 71/69/71

The 5v looks low, could this cause the problem?

Its possible that the low voltage has caused an issue as HDD's run off of 12-volt and 5-volt lines, but it is still a mystery.


Andy

This is a screenshot of the popup.

Your problem remind me something: some time ago I had an intermittent problem with a hard drive(PATA); the problem was a (barely)lose molex connector. So, did you checked the power connector of your hard drive?

I may check it again. I tried wiggling all the wires and reconnecting them. Its strange. I played CIV 4 with my fiance all day today and it didnt do it once. I dont really notice a problem, and no program Ive run has found a problem other than my voltage being a little low.

How Romantic, you played Civ 4 all day, and didnt do it once


Andy

Yes thats a completely separate problem