OT: Hard drive warning at boot time

[Rick Stevens]

On 06/21/2013 09:24 AM, Lawrence Graves issued this missive:
>
> On 06/21/2013 10:21 AM, Steven Stern wrote:
>> On 06/21/2013 11:17 AM, Paul Smith wrote:
>>> Dear All,
>>>
>>> Today, I am getting this message at boot time:
>>>
>>> "Notice - HD self monitoring system has reported that a parameter has
>>> exceeded its normal operating range.  Dell recommends that you back up
>>> your data regularly.  A parameter out of range may or may not indicate
>>> a potential Hard.    Press F1 to continue , F2 to enter setup"
>>>
>>> Is there any reason to be worried about?
>>>
>>> My computer is about 3 years old.
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance,
>>>
>>> Paul
>>>
>> For each drive on your system, try
>>
>>     sudo smartctl -H /dev/sdx
>>
>> where x=a,b,c,.... etc
>>
>> If any indicate poor health, then use "--all" in place of -H
>>
>> However, yeah, it's probably time to get a really good backup and price
>> a replacement drive.
>>
> I recommend that you get a SSD drive. I use a Dell 9400 Inspiron and
> replaced my drive with a SSD 120g and haven't had anymore trouble.

If you use SSDs, make danged sure you back up really regularly to a
standard drive. When an SSD dies, they tend to die quickly (like
"Poof!") and you have virtually no grace time to get off what you can.
I've had a number of Macbooks here at the office do that.
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- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital    ricks at alldigital.com -
- AIM/Skype: therps2        ICQ: 22643734            Yahoo: origrps2 -
-                                                                    -
- ...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror -
-                      and you'd be on your own, pal!                -
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