SMART data not available/readable on a modern computer

I have administration of a computer - Compaq CQ1-2025 - that has not been hardware modified in any way. According to specifications it has a 320 GB SATA hard disk in it. When I ran SpinRite disk utility on it it said it could not read the SMART data from the hard drive. I cannot imagine a drive modern enough to be SATA not having SMART data publishing. Am I wrong? I know SpinRite can read SMART data because it has done so on other machines. Is this a bug in it or a hardware issue?

K.A.Monica

Posted 2013-01-16T00:02:21.740

Reputation: 5 887

Do you use on-board RAID? – haimg – 2013-01-16T00:06:42.130

No, this machine does not have hardware RAID capabilities. – K.A.Monica – 2013-01-16T00:07:10.817

SpinRite? Try CrystalDiskInfo.

– Karan – 2013-01-16T05:53:00.913

Answers

My guess would be to try different software that can read the SMART data on a disk. Try, for example, the free SpeedFan software. This monitors temperatures of your CPU, etc. as well, but it can look at SMART data.

James Dietz

Posted 2013-01-16T00:02:21.740

Reputation: 10

This worked. SpinRite must just not be able to handle the newer drive. – K.A.Monica – 2013-01-16T17:52:10.547

I don't believe that there are SATA drives without SMART. Most probably this is some kind of software issue with SpinRite. Try some other software, like Argus Monitor (works with many different chipsets).

haimg

Posted 2013-01-16T00:02:21.740

Reputation: 19 503

1This would sound right - I wouldn't trust SpinRite with anything essential, as it has a habit of messing up on newer drives... – Rory Alsop – 2013-01-16T00:13:49.060

-1

You can even try looking for smart data by booting through a bootable ubuntu pendrive and opening the preinstalled application "disks". Search for it in the dashboard.

roxeo

Posted 2013-01-16T00:02:21.740

Reputation: 1