Windows warning of HD failure...
 

I have had two Windows warnings pop up this morning about hard drive failure.
I do a scan of the drive and all reports back good.
How accurate are these warnings?

It's very likely malware...a scam.

here's a google search.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=Windows+warnings+pop+up+this+morning+abou t+hard+drive&oq=Windows+warnings+pop+up+this+morni ng+about+hard+drive&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chr ome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8

Agree, If you haven't already done so, download Malwarebytes and scan your hard drive.

If you have not already done so, copy ALL documents, pictures, movies and anything else not easily replaced to an external backup drive. It is a good idea to do this several times a week anyways and make sure to check to make sure that the files you copied over are good by opening several different ones each time.

You did not say which drive letter was mentioned or what version of Windows you are using but if it is the "C" or boot drive I would also make sure that you are making a boot disk (DVD) and a restore point daily just in case. New versions of Windows have different boot and restore abilities than older (XP) versions.

Thanks guys. It's nice to know I'm not alone here with this.

What I've done: Down loaded Malwarebytes and ran a scan - turned up zilch. Ran the check program in Win that scans for HD problems. It started out really fast, came to a point where it seemed to hang for a while, the time remaining went up to 30 min's, but then it got over that hump and finished in just a minute more or so. I did backup my picture files on two external drives as well.
I'll go set a restore point now.
I'm running Win 8.1 and the drive being reported was my C:\, d:\ which is my boot drive and the factory backup image drive.

W8, Hmmmpf.

So this is what came up when I booted up this morning.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1457279274.jpg

Seems a new hard drive may be in my not too distant future now.
I imagine it's easier to change it out prior to a failure rather than after. Correct?

I've never done a replacement. Is it as easy as putting the drive in and copying the backup files over to the new drive?

Yes, make it a priority to ensure you have a total back up.

There's a Micro Center in Tustin.

Go get a replacement drive today.

Physically swapping drives can be done in 5 minutes whether desktop or laptop.

well I have a very very dim view of any windoz error reporting

but SSD is a good up grade and is reported to speed up most computers

copying your own files is the eazy part
loading basic windoz is the hard part do to copy protection in windoz
you need a good program to do that
or an original or created recovery disk

If I'm using an old drive as a designated swap space, and that drive is now full, could that be causing the problem or contributing to it?
I can't remember if I set it up that way or not, but I did some backup onto the old drive and now it's full.
I've done HD swaps (the physical swapping) before, just never tried to replace the OS files onto a new drive without discs.

Can Win 8.1 create a recovery disc?

If so, how?

never mind, I just googled it.

This is a SMART status report at boot.

Has nothing to do with Windows or any OS for that matter.

SMART is built into the drive.

It's the drive self reporting it's condition.

You would be very wise to heed it.

I use a WD 1tb external HD for my back-up. I plug it in about once a week and back-up my files and it has enough room to also b/u my daughters laptop.

Looked around SMART isn't the greatest predictor of failure but you shouldn't ignore it.

But these SMART warnings you should take seriously.

SMART 5 - Reallocated_Sector_Count.
SMART 187 - Reported_Uncorrectable_Errors.
SMART 188 - Command_Timeout.
SMART 197 - Current_Pending_Sector_Count.
SMART 198 - Offline_Uncorrectable

You could do as I do and back up with a external drive , make recovery discs, etc., and then just see if it does fail.

Link below has a link to a checker program, but also go to the bottom and click on comments for some info from other readers (geeks).
How to See if Your Hard Drive is Dying with S.M.A.R.T.

All the info I'm seeing is 3-4 years old, I couldn't anything current.

See here's the thing about hard drives.

Like people they start life terminal.

It's never a question of "if" they will fail but rather, when.

Hard drives are dirt cheap, comparatively.

Absolutely no reason to ignore SMART status regardless of how reliable we may think the information is.

I just got back from Micro Center with a WD 1TB 7200 rpm drive and a 32GB mem stick all for $70 out the door. Sorry, no SSD in my limited budget.
Going to under take the swap as soon as I make the recovery USB drive.
Wish me luck, I'll report back if I can get it up and going again.

OK, I've got my recovery USB drive all set.
What I'm confused about is the process steps of replacing the drive.

I have the cabling needed to hook up the current C drive via USB after I take it out.

Do I just remove it (C drive) and put the new drive in in its place and then boot off the USB stick I just created?

Check your SMART on HDD using these programs. HD Tune has more detailed data output than its competitors. In this program, information on different hard drive systems is divided into separate tabs and the main ones are: "Health", "Info" and "Disk monitoring".