What if a hard drive could tell you it was going to fail before it actually did? Is that possible? When attempting to install OS X on your computer, sometimes the installer may claim that the hard drive has SMART errors and will not allow you to install to the selected drive. So, the SMART errors for Mac hard drives might mean the drive is about to fail!
A note on SMART Errors
Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (in short, SMART) is a feature within the hard disks that is meant to keep a tab on the health status of the drives, along with recommending a system with a method to detect an impending failure or other drive issues on which an immediate action should be taken.
Working of SMART on Mac
The attributes of SMART will be able to take care of so many metrics, like disk surface error rates, data throughput, hard drive spin times, write head stability, as well as rpm variations. The SMART monitors these metrics when the drive is operational and determine how often the metrics hit a warning threshold. When the drive receives a warning threshold repeatedly, then it is throw a warning to the system saying that SMART is detecting an error.
Generally, the SMART errors are the cause for an alarm and the usual suggestion under such instances is to replace the hard drive. But, it is not always necessary! Sometimes, SMART errors are not so harmful and the program will just detect the error and warns you. For example, a bundle of bad blocks is enough for causing SMART error, rise in drive’s temperature due to poor ventilation or other environmental conditions, etc. which are relatively less harmful.
Not only this, the SMART mechanism may also remind you about the false alarm or just a temporary situation.
When it comes to fixing the SMART errors, you can often do that by just formatting the hard drive, or changing the location of the system that will increase air flow, or just ignoring it. However, before deciding what fix you are going to try, it is important to consider how the drive is going to be utilized. If you rely on the drive as a main boot device or for one that will store important information, then you might wish to play it safe and replace the drive, but if not then you can investigate the SMART status a bit more to see if you can recognize the exact problem.
For doing so, first be sure to play it safe and back up the contents of the drive, and then get a robust and dedicated SMART tool such as SMART Utility that will tell you the exact error the drive is reporting and whether it is a critical error or one that is less important. You can also try basic drive-conditioning routines like repartitioning and formatting (writing to zeros to force the drive to substitute bad blocks) to see if this clears the SMART warning.
If you manage to clear the SMART error, then you might be able to get the OS X installer to recognize the drive as a valid installation destination and continue the install. However, do keep in mind that the error may still persist and only be temporarily averted, so even after testing the drive you might still consider replacing it with a new one and only using it as a spare storage space or as a diagnostics drive.
When you encounter SMART errors, it is indicating that the system is claiming the drive cannot be repaired and suggest you back it up as soon as possible and replace the disk. If you don’t have backup and you tend to lose important data, the you can use data recovery software called Hi5 Partition Recovery for Mac. This tool will help restoring lost data from Mac hard drives. You can recover data from Western digital hard drive, Iomega, Buffalo, Seagate, Transcend, Toshiba, and all other popular branded hard drives.
