Posted on 06/12/2013 6:27:51 AM PDT by timestax
This morning, first thing I see is a warning from Windows 7, that says the hard drive is in imminent danger of failing, and to immediately back up all files. What's up with this. Anybody else getting this. Could it be gubmint boys causing this or just normal failure. DELL laptop is about one year old. Otherwise, up till now =NO PROBLEMS. And ,YES it is turned on. PLEASE, no joking around this time.
I had the exact same thing happen here at work to one of the Windows PC’s. It’s a nasty nasty virus. I had to boot up in safe mode and expunge it.
Funny stuff.
Hard drives have had S.M.A.R.T. capability (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) for some years now, and some of the meansurements the drive takes on itself are very good predictors of impending failure.
“I don’t believe that there is any reliable way to tell a hard drive “is in imminent danger of failing” unless it’s emitting smoke or screeching like a banshee.”
This is not true. Drives today (and even 10 years ago) have/had predictive firmware that measured all sorts of parameters including temperature, variations in speed and spindle current to predict failures. some even went so fare as to analyze patterns of correctable errors to predict failures.
If it came from the OS, it’s not likely malware. Win7/8 has disk management utilities built-in that monitor the BIOS SMART system for updates. If the SMART system alerted during the POST (Power On Self Test), Win7/8 is alerting to a fault.
Scanning for malware/spyware is likely to make the problem worse. It doesn’t make sense to scan a failing hard drive. If the fault is with bad sectors or a rotary motor failure, you’ll likely kill the HDD during the scan, ruining the ability to recover the data.
If it’s a pop-up in a web browser, that’s a different story, but the poster says that this is a Win7/8 alert, likely in the system tray. That’s a legitimate system fault.
Better yet, go buy a terabyte drive for $70 and use USB 3 or Thunderbolt to connect the computer and drive. You can’t beat the bandwidth of a local connection.
If you are really paranoid, buy two backup drives and rotate one of them off-site, preferably to your safe deposit box.
Same thing happened to my computer. I am in safe mode. How exactly do I expunge it?
If it is a real warning, it is probably because the drive management subsystem has noticed and mapped around ever increasing numbers of bad sectors on your hard drive. A few are expected on every drive. A lot is bad, or if the few starts growing steadily that's bad. That means flaws in the surface have come apart and have introduced debris inside the drive that is slowing grinding up the surface...
Backup early, backup often.
Running AV is about the last thing I do when looking for Malware. Establishing a baseline and understanding what is running (and what shouldn't be) is priority. Scanning a failing drive would be foolish, I agree.
I got the same message 3 years ago and ran Dell diagnostics which confirmed imminent failure. They sent me a replacement hard drive as computer was under warranty. Backed everything up and waited for failure. New hard drive is still in my desk as I write this on old hard drive Dell latitude
run MS security essentials. It may take running it more than once.
http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=25
I have had great success using this help forum. You resister than post your problem. They will walk you through needed steps to find and fix malware problems. Highly recommended.
fwiw, Dell used to replace hard drives with “refurbished” ones when fulfilling warranty claims. At least they did on mine — roughly twice a year until the warranty expired and I went out and bought a new Seagate which never gave me a moment’s trouble since.
Buy one of those little usb thingies every now and then. Copy everything to it, regularly. Feel better.
Online storage is what I do with other people’s data, on their instructions, and on their heads. My own stuff is squirreled away in usb’s...and of course there are hard copies.
Had one malware scare in all these years. The computer that had it, is still working at age 15. No thanks to Norton.
AdAware is free and does the job. Of course, my online tastes are simple and I don’t surf hotdog.
Wish I could help you, but I’m an old man who knows jack sh*t about computers.
One very hard lesson I HAVE learned over the years, though, is BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE ALL THE TIME!!!
If your computer marches on, fine; if it fails without backups for everything, you’ll be crying in your beer.
Been there, done that, and it stinks.
I have Win8 and today I received my monthly malicious software update. Windows updates that update every day. I really like Windows 8.
Sort of like the ole "CHECK ENGINE" light that came on my auto, and I drove 78,000 more miles on it before I got rid of it!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.