SMART warning on Dell Studio 15

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Chainsaw

358 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 15

#92680 3-Nov-2011 21:48

My daughter just called me from Dunners (I'm in Wgtn) saying that her Dell Studio 15 laptop has just started coming up with SMART warning that her hard disc is in trouble. It's nearly 2 years old. She is VERY worried. I've told her to back everything up, even go and buy a flash drive to put stuff on if she needs more room.

Other than backing up, is there anything we can do to help this situation? Is the warning usually reliable?

Cheers.

tigercorp

668 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 81

#540930 3-Nov-2011 22:06

Yep, back up stuff asap and then its probably best to run the self-diagnostic tests to get further information.

Have her reboot the machine and press F12 on startup to get to the one time boot menu. There should be an option for Diagnostics.
If there isn't then have her hold down the Fn key on startup.

There are basic and extended tests that can be run which will give her specific error codes that can be looked up on the Dell website.

Chainsaw

358 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 15

#541133 4-Nov-2011 13:28

Thanks. Even that sounds a little too techie for her. She's home in 3 weeks, safe enough to wait til then you reckon?

Ramboss

202 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 17

#541153 4-Nov-2011 14:08

Ive got the SMART warning on my dell XPS 16 its about a year or so old, ive done all the diagnostics and it says its fine.

It seems a lot like a software issue to me, as only happened when i did a re-install of everything. and i think my re-install went wrong somewhere as my laptop was slower and glitchier after reinstall.