Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
After backing up your data, what should you do? S.M.A.R.T. warnings can be caused by
an external source and might not actually indicate that the drive is going to fail. For ex-
ample, environmental changes such as high or low ambient temperatures can trigger a
S.M.A.R.T.alert,ascanexcessivevibrationinthedrivecausedbyanexternalsource.Ad-
ditionally, electrical interference from motors or other devices on the same circuit as your
PC can induce these alerts.
If the alert was not caused by an external source, a drive replacement might be indicated.
If the drive is under warranty, contact the vendor and ask whether the company will re-
place it. The drive vendor may ask you to test the drive with diagnostic software supplied
with the drive or downloadable from the vendor's website. If no further alerts occur or
if the test does not locate any problems, the problem might have been an anomaly, and
you might not need to replace the drive. If you receive further alerts, replacing the drive
is recommended. If you can connect both the new and existing (failing) drive to the same
system, you might be able to copy the entire contents of the existing drive to the new one,
savingyoufromhavingtoinstallorreloadalltheapplicationsanddatafromyourbackup.
Because standard copy commands and drag-and-drop methods don't copy system files,
hidden files, and files that are open, to copy an entire drive successfully and have the des-
tination copy remain bootable, you need a special application such as Symantec Norton
Ghost or Acronis True Image.
Note
Special editions of Acronis True Image are available at no charge from Western Digital
(Acronis True Image WD Edition for WD drives) and Seagate (DiscWizard for Seagate and
Maxtor drives; MaxBlast 5 for Maxtor drives).
